Recording How You Painted Figures

Though I've only just started keeping a painting blog, I previously did make some scribbled notes as I went along as to what colours I was using and in what order.  AS I spent longer online it turned out quite a few people do this, to help them keep their armies/teams/warbands/etc looking uniform if they go a long time between painting sessions.


I used to just write it down on paper but now I keep it all on my computer, in seperate documents per game.

For example, here's my original Emperor's Children painting guide:

Emperor’s Children – Standard Units

Paint Scheme

Item	Base Coat	Wash	Highlight
Main Body	Hormagaunt Purple (F)	Charadon Granite (F)
Body 2 / Weapons	Tentacle Pink	Warlock Purple	Changeling Pink
Eyes / Plumes	Sunburst Yellow	Taucept Ochre (F) + Calthan Brown (F)
Spikes / Metal	Mithril Silver	Charadon Granite (F)
Heavy Weapon Details	Blazing Orange
Leather / Horns	Snakebite Leather	Scorched Brown	Bronzed Flesh
Skin	Bronzed Flesh	Scorched Brown	Elf Flesh
Base	Calthan Brown (F)

 


I use bracketed codes to remind me if it's not a Citadel basic colour: so the (F) was to remind me it's a Foundation Paint.  As previously mentioned I initially washed in waterd down paint, which is why normal paint colours occur there. 

Since working on this GW's paint system has changed and I've changed exactly what colours I'm using where.  Now it'd be Alien Purple (AP) for the base of the body, washed in Druchii Violet, and the rest could probably get away with a Quickshade wash.  I also tend to use Gold rather than Silver for metal detailing, since when I tried it on a unit of Chosen it looked much better.

Here's a more modern one, for my Chaos Cultists:

Slaanesh Cultist

Paint Scheme

Item	Base Coat	Wash	Highlight
Skin	Tallarn Flesh (F)	Dark Flesh	Bronzed Flesh
Guns & Eyepieces	Incarnum Indigo (GQ)	Chaos Black (Minimal application)	Royal Purple (VM)
Metal	Mithril Silver	Chaos Black
Robes	Emperors Children + Bleached Bone	Emperor’s Children + Warlock Purple	Changeling Pink
Hair	Yriel Yellow	Blazing Orange
Leather #1	Snakebite Leather	Scorched Brown
Leather #2	Scorched Brown	Chaos Black

(VM) is Vallejo Model.  (GQ), being my initials, marks out a paint I've custom mixed myself - in this case, Incarnum Indigo is a very dark bluey-purple made from mixing some old Blood Red and Enchanted Blue 1:1 

So it's "question for the audience" time.  Do you keep records of your own painting steps?