Shading Red

[beh]

Hello there all you wise and wonderful painters! I have heard that working with red paint can be difficult, and I am now about to embark on such a journey as I do up some sisters of battle for 40K. Now, I was wondering, what is a good colour to use to shade or shadow a red surface? And, is there a colour that can be mixed with a red to make it darker?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[darthfoley]

One of the best red shaders I\'ve come across is a Vallejo color - Cadmium Maroon in the Model Color line, #035. I believe it is also sometimes referred to as Black Red.

 

[Nelson]

I usually use scab red shaded with scorched brown, and highlighted with blood red. On the one I\'m working on now, however, I\'m trying Midnight blue highlighted up with blood red. Makes it a bit richer and darker. Just don\'t start from pure Midnight, or it\'ll end up waay to dark.

 

[beh]

I tried adding a bit of burnt umber to true red, and the result worked well. My intuition had originally told me brown might work, but without your support I was hesitant to try it out. Thanks!

Mmm...blackred sounds nice.

 

[U4-Welcome]

I think Cadmium Maroon is what I started using (called Marron Rouge) recently ; very nice color. I use it for rich reds (Cd maroon to some kind of straight red to orange to yellow on edges) or very dark reds (pure black to cd maroon). When the mini\'s done I\'ll post it and it\'ll be clearer .

 

[Gypsy]

I\'ve never had problems with reds which I think are fairly easy to do because you don\'t have to highlight with a whitish colour. Just go all the way from black to red.

 

[supervike]

adding dark brown...

I like adding a dark brown to the base color. It keeps its reddish tone, but also stays rich and vibrant.

 

[Cerridwyn1st]

My red method: 50/50 mix of VMC Hull Red 985 and VMC Red 926. Then straight Red. Highlight with Game Color Blood Red. This is what I\'m using on my current batch of SOB\'s, and I\'m really happy with them.

Don\'t forget to use your highlight as a narrow stripe around the vents on the legs. Really makes them stand out.

Another nice touch is to paint the inside of the robes in a contrasting color. On mine, the robes are black with a white lining. (every black robe has a silver lining? )

What color scheme are you using? The one used in almost all the GW battle scenes is Order of Our Martyred Lady, which is black armor, red robes and gunmetal weapons.

I\'m doing mine as Order of the Bloody Rose. That\'s red armor, black robes, and metal/black weapons.

 

[frenchkid]

Well, if you read chrispy\'s color theory article you\'ll see that you can shade red with some form of dark green, wich is better then black because it\'ll keep a nice vibrante tone. Black not beeing a color it tones down the vibrancy of the red ( hope I\'m making sense ). Brown works nice too.

 

[Klute]

Scorched brown here,or brown then black ink shading.

 

[Chrispy]

Well, there are several methods I\'ve come across:
The first I\'ve used until now is to use Cavalary Brown by Vallejo and that can be mixed with a darker brown or black.

I saw someone using a dark purple to their red, the result was really spectacular.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/index/id/46494

Then, a good \"artsy\" way of doing it would be to add it\'s complementary color (green). Just be sure not to add too much, or it\'ll look like a camoflague color and not a dull red/brown.

Hope this helps!

 

[supervike]

purple and red...

That is fantastic! I love the richness that brings.

 

[beh]

Originally posted by Cerridwyn1st
What color scheme are you using? The one used in almost all the GW battle scenes is Order of Our Martyred Lady, which is black armor, red robes and gunmetal weapons.

I\'m doing mine as Order of the Bloody Rose. That\'s red armor, black robes, and metal/black weapons.

I was almost going to go with the Order of the Bloody Rose, but then I decided I like the symbol of Our Martyred Lady the best of all, so I am going with that colour scheme.

I might give a dark green a try, especially if it can get a red fairly dark. I would imagine that this would work well for shadows created by parts of the mini (like the shoulder pads over the top edge of red robes) whereas the brown into red seems to work well for dark hilights within, say, folds on the robes.

Off to check out the link that crispy has posted...

 

[Cerridwyn1st]

Originally posted by beh

Originally posted by Cerridwyn1st
What color scheme are you using? The one used in almost all the GW battle scenes is Order of Our Martyred Lady, which is black armor, red robes and gunmetal weapons.

I\'m doing mine as Order of the Bloody Rose. That\'s red armor, black robes, and metal/black weapons.

I was almost going to go with the Order of the Bloody Rose, but then I decided I like the symbol of Our Martyred Lady the best of all, so I am going with that colour scheme.

I might give a dark green a try, especially if it can get a red fairly dark. I would imagine that this would work well for shadows created by parts of the mini (like the shoulder pads over the top edge of red robes) whereas the brown into red seems to work well for dark hilights within, say, folds on the robes.

Off to check out the link that crispy has posted...

Well, I\'m lazy. I don\'t REALLY shade my stuff. I paint a dark undercoat and then work my way up from that to my highlight. Saves a lot of time and effort in painting, at least for me.

I might try starting red with a dark purple base. I bet that would be cool. Green probably works best when you are actually shading, that is putting a dark green wash on top of red, so the result is kind of a rusty brown.

 

[AlexDaKid]

Scorched brown... Without a doubt!

 

[Taer]

Purple!:flip::bouncy:

 

[bjcLikes2Bike]

I typically shade red (we\'re talking GW colors) by mixing Chaos Black with Scab Red in a 25:75 mixture. It usually works pretty well for me. Then I just work my way up through my highlights to Sunburst Yellow.

 

[Dedwrekka]

you could try something a bit different than the \'normal\' shading techniques. I\'ve done some minis with an ultra marine blue base done up to a scab red, highlighted with blood red. Looks pretty eye catching.

But then again I am partially color blind, not much but enough to stop me from ever flying a plane, and vast differences look apealing to me.

 

[Trevor]

I have used the following

White undercoat - blood red - add yellow to highlight, white and yellow for the highest.

White undercoat - blood red - swamp in purple ink - blood red - optional, add yellow to highlight, white and yellow for the highest.

Black undercoat - black ink + blood red gradually increase amount of red until its just red. optional, add yellow to highlight, white and yellow for the highest.

Black undercoat - purple ink + blood red gradually increase amount of red until its just red. optional, add yellow to highlight, white and yellow for the highest.

Black undercoat - scorched brown + blood red gradually increase amount of red until its just red. optional, add yellow to highlight, white and yellow for the highest.

All these give subtly different reds, and how far you take the highlights affects the end overall look.

 

[beh]

Wow, there seems to be many different techniques that y\'all use...thanks for all the tips!

I tried a bit of green wash for shading on red today and it seems to work very nicely. Where a straight black would be too strong, the dark green settles nicely into place and gives a very nice shadowy appearance without an overwhellming darkness to it. It looks really good around the icon that the Sister wears on the chain, which sits over her red robes. Cool!