Mellow Yellow

Not really a fan of Donovan, but it seemed  suitable title for my lyrical waxings about painting yellow. I always thought it would be the Stones and the Kinks for me if I had been born 10 years earlier....

Anyway, yellow.

One of those incredibly weak colours that struggles to cover any sort of undercoat, I have tried a few different techniques which I will briefly outline here for anyone interested. I do not like painting yellow or red, which shares the same problem for coverage, and used to go to great lengths to re-undercoat over my usual black to enable me to paint these colours, but that was all a bit laborious. Then, along came the GW Foundation range, which altered my painting significantly and these paints (and their recently released equivalents) form the basis for my present work.

1) Pale Yellow - black undercoat, Iyanden Sun basecoat, Gryphonne Sepia wash, then highlight with Iyanden Sun and finally with Bleached Bone. Gives a more washed out look, which I have used on my Swedish Yellow Regiment for the Thirty Years War. I will post some more close in pics to better illustrate, but there are some pics on the blog already from the  30 Years War/"Wargamer" show/ "Steinkirche" threads.

2) Bright Yellow - Bleached Bone basecoat washed with yellow ink. Gives a very vibrant yellow, but be careful when varnishing as the ink will run again when wetted. Used in the past when I have wanted a "special effect".

3) "Normal" Yellow (as in de Monthermer, Pennington, etc) - Iyanden Sun basecoat, washed with Gryphonne Sepia, then Iyanden Sun again and keep adding white and a bright yellow (I use GW Sunset Yellow) for extra highlights. I usually go for three successive highlights (Pennington, e.g.) but can lay off earlier for a deeper shade (e.g. de Monthermer).

This is probably all horrendously complex and I am keen to hear other views.

G