You could just paint the shields the same colour as the skin with a finishing agrax earthshade wash to tone it down
This and then a night Stormhost Silver highlight to make it really pop, would help add to the brightness! Alternatively, you could go for a more "stone/marble" weaponry for the weapons.
Not as complicated as you think, the shield was painted black first then drybrushed Incubi darkness, then drybrushed randomly with stegadon green then with a fine detail brush take pallid wych white and quickly and softly stroke the shield in random directions, then glaze randomly with biel tan green
Thanks for such an awesome and detailed response! I have some time off coming up and will let you know how it all goes
I did a simple hue shift on the left shield, in order to compare the saturation and brightness. to the unaltered blue shield on the right.
New shield colour looks awesome. Really pops against the scales. What process are you thinking for the skin now?
Looks great. Secretly I was hoping you'd try purple just to see if it really does work with yellow in practice, and I think it does. I like the "new" hue too.
What do you think the best way to achieve this result would be? I've finished a brutal few weeks of work and now I'll be free to start painting! I think I'll leave the skin how i have it and touch Up and wash the red. What do you think?
Yeah, a wash is all it'd need and then another layer of the red you've already done on the raised surfaces, eg: biceps.