Imperial Purple

The whole purple spectrum together

Purple is the color modelers mix most reluctantly: a few drops too many and a noble purple turns into a dirty gray. The set takes that work over and offers eight ready-made tones: Imperial Purple, Purple Hex, Amethyst, Witch Purple, Lipstick, Violet Vamp, Blueberry and Orchid Light. They cover the range from a rich, deeply laid base to light peaks broken toward pink.

What the palette suits

It most often comes into its own on textiles: cloaks, hoods, robes, banners and upholstery. The darker half serves as a base and as the color in the folds of the cloth, the middle tones hold the main area and the light ends pick out the edges of the folds and the places where the cloth stretches over a shoulder or a knee. The cooler blue-purple Blueberry also suits glass and magical effects, while Lipstick suits small details that need a warm pink accent.

All the bottles share the same acrylic base, so they can be mixed and glazed with one another freely. Coats thinned with water flash off quickly and are applied with a brush; once thinned they will also go through an airbrush. Building the color up from several thin coats is recommended, because purple pigments are more translucent than others and a single heavy coat would cover the relief.

How the palette behaves in a photograph

Purple areas tend to be treacherous and a camera shifts them toward blue. Anyone showing finished work online will appreciate that the package also holds the warmer members of the range, with which the impression can be pulled back. In daylight, moreover, the result always looks closer to reality than under a white LED.

These are the paints alone, without a figure, a brush or a base.