Coloration Inspiration?

[Ramose]

Hi all,
I just placed a rather large Shapeways order and am now faced with the task of deciding on my color scheme for several specimen.  I've perused the works of my favorite paleo-artists but still have a couple of figures (primarily a stegosaurus) that I'm having trouble deciding on the colors.  I've discovered that most artists have chosen green with red plates for the stegosaurus, which I frankly find boring.  So I wanted to ask, where do those of you who do custom paints go to for inspiration?  I've spent some time looking at bird plumage and while I feel happy with that for some feathered dinosaurs I'm not liking any of the color combinations for Ornithischia.  Any advice on where to seek inspiration?     

[Halichoeres]

Large ungulates. Gaurs, elands, bongos, giraffes, zebras, sable antelopes. An odd thing about dinosaurs, though, is that they could probably see three colors, whereas most mammals see only two. Plus, as diapsids, they were probably capable of producing a greater variety of pigments, and they might have been able to build structural colors in their integument as well. So you can go a little wild relative to the black-brown-yellow range that mammals deal in.

[tyrantqueen]

I use google image search to find artwork I like and I also use dinosaur books. Be sure to give credit when borrowing a colour scheme.

I don't like to copy exact colours from extant animals. It's lazy.

[Takama]

I love Browsing Deviant Art for Inspiration for my models.    But sometimes its a PITA to get a hold of some people just to ask them if there ok with me using a sceme.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Usually I copy/modify existing color schemes for pieces from other artists and I use general inspiration from modern animals to formulate my own color schemes fro my original models.

[Kovu]

Depends on the species, but generally, I pick an extant animal as a base and then draw on other animals for details. For example, when I repainted my Papo Triceratops, I used a hippopotamus for the colors on the body, but used a male sage grouse for its frill pattern and cattle horns for its horns. I generally don't like to use one sole source of inspiration, but rather a mixture of several.

Right now I'm working remaking the Papo Spinosaurus into a Suchomimus and I plan on using a Great Blue Heron as the base pattern, but still figuring out what other elements I want to incorporate.

That's a tomorrow problem.

[Megalosaurus]

I love to see living reptiles and amphibians. Also I see paleoart, never get the species intoaccount, just the colorscheme.
Living beauties:

[Ramose]

Thanks everyone!  Some really great advice.  I'm going to review some of my favorite paleoart again but also look at ungulates, birds and lizards. 

[Killekor]

The replies of the other users are really good, and I have a hint of another tipe.

Before paint a dinosaur model, draw it and color it with the color you have chosen, so you will know if you like the model with this colors or if you want to do it with another colors.

[Tyto_Theropod]

The replies of the other users are really good, and I have a hint of another tipe.

Before paint a dinosaur model, draw it and color it with the color you have chosen, so you will know if you like the model with this colors or if you want to do it with another colors.

Very good tip, I have done it myself when repainting models. Also, I would myself be inspired by the colours of a living species rather than out-and-out copy-paste them. When I illustrate Dromaeosarids I like to incorporate colours of birds of prey, but I don't make a feather-by-father match of an osprey, for example.

Equally, I sometimes just think about what colours would look nice and as long as you stay within reason and don't do a hot pink dinosaur with geometric patterns in electric blue and lime green, you'll probably end up with something nice and natural looking. When thinking up an original scheme, it's good to get a balance between muted and vibrant.

A good formula in my opinion is a relatively muted main colour, such as brown, green, grey or terracotta, and then highlights in brighter colours where the species may have had them, such as on the frill of a Ceratopsian. For example, I once repainted an off-brand Protoceratops in sandy golden-brown all over and then highlighted the frill in dark red. Pretty much the only other thing I did was a dark was to bring out the details. Sometimes simplicity works really well.

Another tip is to think about what is known of your animal's habitat and lifestyle. Shuvuuia, for example, was a small dinosaur that lived in a desert environment, so it's plausible to make it a dull, sandy colour so it can camouflage from potential predators like Velociraptor.

Anyway, this is just my opinion and suggestions and I don't mean to boss you around. The great thing about many prehistoric animals is that because no one knows their true colours, as it were, artists are free to ad lib. So go with what you want and feel is right, and I'm sure we'll all enjoy seeing what you come up with!

[Ramose]

I've recently painted a few more shapeways figures, mostly for my diorama or I'd share the pictures here, and I've had good luck with drawing them first.  I've actually found outlines of dinosaurs online and then printed them and colored them, kind of like an adult coloring book.  I've been showing them to my wife who is an art historian and has a real eye for color, and she's been picking the final color schemes.   
I've been thinking a lot about the behavior of these animals as well and have been focusing on things like camouflage, mating displays, and sexual dimorphism.  I've been looking at a lot of birds for inspiration.  For instance on a recent trip to Florida I came upon a flock of Egyptian geese and was really impressed with their colors.  I used that inspiration for my new gorgosaurus.