Color Realism for Miniatures and Scenery

What color is grass green?  Disregard for the moment the fact that there are many natural varieties and colors of grass to begin with, and that the same grass changes color with seasons and rainfall.  Let’s consider a well-manicured freshly watered golf course as an ideal example of grass green.  Even this color would look different on a sunny day compared to a cloudy day.  If you cut a chunk out of your lawn and brought it inside as a painting reference, you could exactly match your paint color to the grass in front of you and it would not match what you see outside through the window.  We normally game indoors, but we’re often simulating an outdoor environment.  This can be difficult to grasp, but it’s an important consideration.  The colors you choose for your miniatures and terrain in most cases should be replicating under artificial lighting the way their real-world equivalents look in sunlight.  Have you ever mixed colors feeling very certain they looked exactly right, but the overall effect seemed far too dark on the miniature?  If your simulated battles are primarily outdoors, all of those colors (and especially painted highlights) can be brightened a couple of shades lighter than you expect in order to replicate the way they would look in direct sunlight.  If your figures and terrain are used primarily in a dungeon setting, you can keep them as toned-down as you like, but for battlefield conditions an army not painted for sunlight can look dingy or dirty.  Obviously, not every battle occurs in bright daylight and no one would repaint their entire army to re-enact a cloudy-day battle or different conditions.  But as a general rule, miniatures for a primarily outdoor setting should be brightened up in order to look correct.  I find that figures painted too brightly will still typically look better than painted too dark, unless they are meant to be dirty undead creatures in crypts and caverns.  In the end, a generally attractive piece is the main goal, but considering the difference sunlight makes can be quite important in achieving realism when desired.