Rychard Starheart, on 05 July 2012 - 03:04 PM, said:
Like IH, I also don't do art for a living. Stylistically, when I go in and start working on a repaint I actually don't bother worrying about "realism"... Part of the beauty of this process is that a lot of things (shading, perspective) are taken care of by the underlying art. What I focus on then is an accurate depiction of the coloration of the units, and this is where technique comes in. The big thing to keep in mind when applying color is that though this is a 2D-image, it represents a 3D shape. What should be a straight line isn't: it's going to depend on different angles that the 'mech is meant to have. Looking at your catapult, parts of the 'mech have this (specifically the front part of the legs), but many lines and images are just applied directly without taking the intended geometry into account.
I'd say another big thing is to add in bits of flash: small pieces of nose art, the occasional random text block meant to represent warnings, guesses at different warning symbols, etc. It's also not a bad idea to avoid colors that are too vibrant. Desaturation can help a bit here, but can be over-done. I'd encourage you to just keep cracking at it until you figure out what works for you.
My goal with these is to make them appear as close to the original concept as possible, while simply bearing a different paint scheme.
Edited by Hayden, 05 July 2012 - 11:10 PM.