How to shade pink

[gohkm]

Hi all,

I'm trying to learn to paint pastels at the moment, my current bugbear being pink. Switching to a foundation type paint seems to have solved my pink's rather poor coverage, but I keep buggering up the shading. I've tried mixing pink and Warlock Purple for a first shade, then go over that with a second shade of Warlock Purple + Hexed Lichen, but I'm not getting anywhere - the transitions are simply too stark to blend smoothly, even with wet blending.

Could someone suggest alternate ways to shade pink? It would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Sister_Lucy]

Well i've only painted a couple of pink minis but I would suggest with a base coat of white, and lots of thin layers. I've always painted a bit thicker than most masters but i still find that lots and lots of thin layers really help smooth out the transition. and by thin i mean paint that is as thin as 1% milk (mostly water and a tiny bit of pigment) It will take a lot longer than you are use to but it's worth it and it's easier to blend your colors this way.
Start with your base coat as your mid tone then shade then work on your high lights.

 

[gohkm]

I've got the smooth basecoat down at the moment. What I'm interested in are the actual colours used for shading pink. What would you suggest? Pink mixed in with a bit of red? Or something else?

 

[Sister_Lucy]

I use a basic pink with a dark fuchsia or magenta for shading and a lighter pink for high lights. I like lay out my paint bottles next to each other and compare the colors to each other to see how they look together before putting down the paint. It takes a bit of imagination but it will save you the headache when you discover the colors you chose didn't mix well with each other.
You can also try mixing them on your paint pallet first to see how they blend together. I find this very helpful. Start with your mid tone blend in your shading tone on one side then on the other side blend in your highlight so you can see exactly what it will look like on your mini.
I'll see if i can get some time later tonight and take a picture of an example for you.

 

[Chrome]

Have you tried mixing pink with a light flesh tone like elf flesh for high lights and for shadows mix it with a slightly darker skin tone like bronzed flesh?

 

[gohkm]

Have you tried mixing pink with a light flesh tone like elf flesh for high lights and for shadows mix it with a slightly darker skin tone like bronzed flesh?

I've tried the Elf Flesh/Pink mix for highlighting - it works out pretty well. But no, I didn't think of using the Dark Flesh/Pink mix for shading. Thanks for that. I'll have to try that out tonight.

As an addendum question, it seems that the Dark Flesh/Pink mix would give a 'warm' shade. Is there such a thing as a pink 'cool' shade? For example, mixing Pink/Blue? I'm not conversant enough with colour theory to produce an answer without practical experimentation.

 

[Chrome]

well, honestly I think giving a warm colour a cool shade might give it a bit too much contrast, now it's all about taste but it feels odd thinking about it. mixing the pink with a blue colour would produce a light/dark purple and purple might clash with the pink where a brown colour would accentuate it. But then again, I'm no expert on colour theory either!

 

[Sister_Lucy]

Here are a couple different pink combos You could also do some washes over them to give them a different hue.

 

[gohkm]

That's interesting - use of Rose colours to shade pink. I never though of that. Thanks.

But doesn't Parasite Brown have a rather high percentage of yellow pigment in it? That would steer the pink colouration towards slightly yellow. I'm going to have to test that out. Cheers!

 

[Sister_Lucy]

You are totally right about that brown, Great catch! You probably would want to grab something with more red in it than yellow, another reason to test it on the pallet first.

 

[gohkm]

On a tangent, Parasite Brown is quite good for an intermediate highlight when painting red.

 

[vincegamer]

As to blue... it depends on the pink.
Red tones can actually be divided into blue reds or yellow reds. A good example would be cherries (blue reds) or tomatoes (yellow reds).
It's fine to shade with a color with yellows, as long as your pink is a yellow pink to begin with (more the salmon colors) or with blues if it's a blue pink.
Sister Lucy has provided a good example. The top 3 are blue pinks and the bottom 3 are yellow pinks. They won't work well to mix together.

 

[MAXXxxx]

On the Mayla-n-Tomn (see gallery of mine) I used tentacle pink as a base shaded with warlord purple (maybe the deepest shadow was pure Warlord) highlighted with white (highest highlight is maybe 50% white, 50% pink), so nothing special really, but overall I like how the pink turned out.