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I'm curious about color combinations and what you did to paint
for a nice strong red color. Or a subtle red. I'm particular interested in
red/daemonic skin, or red fleshy blood. Or even fire.

Thanks!

I don't have enough light to get a good photo now, but some tips for good red are:

- Use bright red paint over a white or pink basecoast. Never use red over black.
- Reaper makes the best red inks I've ever used. GW's red inks are just as bad as all GW's other modeling product.
- If you want really nice fleshy red, start with a white base, and then do three or four coats of Reaper ruby red ink, followed by a darker red ink in the recesses.
- If you put the model on a base with a lot of green, the red will stand out more.
- Bright gold metallic paints look a lot better over red than darker, brass-like metallics.

ok
all depending how bright you want to go
I always prime my models black
but red doesn't cover super well
so....I cover the black in bubonic brown first
then scab red - 4scab + 1warlock - 4scab + 1warlock + 1blood red
then I keep adding small ammounts of fiery orange into the mix to successively highlight
to finish it off I do a wash of 3red + 1purple ink with some magic wash
(#s = how many parts of that colour compared to other colours)

hope that is a help

Try this for an easy option:

Black Basecoat,
Red Gore, till you have good coverage
Blood Red Drybrush,
Red Ink

After applying the Red Gore your model will look purple. After applying the Blood Red your model will look orange.          I love ink washes.

The black in the recesses, the red gore that shows under the drybrush, and the blood red will all blend under the ink to give a deep red that looks great on power armour and even better on more textured surfaces like daemonic skin.
This is how I painted my Bloodletters and my Wordbearers.

I can't take pics but try a test model, it's fast and easy and looks good.

Hello Malfred

This is the method i use for red and that we always used to use in my local GW for our cabinet figs and painted army sets.

Spray with a black undercoat.

Paint all of the red areas Scorched Brown. Scorched brown is a nice thick paint and has good guts to it, it will cover black very nicely and give you a more natural base colour to build the red up from. Whites and pinks tend to make the red too strong and a bit comic bookish.

Coat the brown with Scab red watered down a bit so you can build an even coat over the next two layers. (the darker of the two dark red colours).

Paint the Scab red with watered down Red gore, leaving any areas that you want to be shaded or any lined details (as in between armour plates on a khornate warrior for example) the darker base brown. This will give you a dark shadow that will look more natural and on the correct colour scale for the crimson and red, black shadow or lining I find is too strong and looks unrealistic. It is of course fine if you like that but I always prefer more naturalistic earthy colours to add realism.

Next paint with a mix 50/50 of Blood red and red gore ( When i used to work in my local store we called this Bloody rose red - as it was the mix for our sisters of battle army).

Now you have some options. If you want the red to stay a bit darker and have it crimson then stop at this stage and highlight with blood red. The blood red will give you a nice strong red for the highlights and it will look much more natural. Try to avoid using oranges or yellows for red highlights as they are way too strong and don't look realistic at all and never mix red with skull white unless you want salmon pink of doom.

Option 2, if you want to continue the red to make it stronger then finish with a final coat of Blood red, leaving shading as appropriate. Now what about highlights i hear you say? Well dont forget that you can use the progessive coats and shading by themselves with no lined highlight as we do with white. Not everything need fine lined highlighting. As it can look odd and unnatural on brighter strong colours such as whites, yellows and reds. However if you really want to you can mix a tiny amount of orange into the blood red and use this very sparingly on the edges of armour plates etc. I emphasise a tiny amount as really you dont need a lot. Subtle is good, dayglow rave lining isn't unless you are painting a slaaneshi model maybe, or a very confused khornate warrior!  

I hope this helps, thats the method I always use with good results. It takes a little time but as with all things in painting what you get out of a model is only as good as what you put into it.

 

Purple ink is the key. Build up your red color in what ever fashion works for you, then ink purple. The dark color will "black" line your fig, with out the dirtyness of black ink. Gives a nice dark base for reds- good for bloodletters and Khorne Bezerkers. I've tried using brown & red inks, but they don't provide any sort of shading.

I white prime, then red ink a few times for coverage, then black wash, then red gore wash, then thinned red gore/blood red mixes until blood red, then up to bloodangels red, and golden yellow. (No black wash on the Bloodletter though)

The part that worries me is the "paint till you have good coverage" stuff. One
reason I've stuck to colors that I use is that they cover well already. Red and
yellow give me trouble so my instinct is usually to avoid them.

The brown undercoat is interesting, as I've done that for yellow.

Do flame effects work on skin? (yellow recesses to red highlights)

The other thing is I need a good contrasting color for clothes. I know, I know,
must demons are simply naked, but still.

That's a valid concern. "Good coverage" scares alot of people but don't knock it till you try it.
The key is to realise you aren't going to get the colour you want in one coat.

It's a very good feeling.
Use a big brush and don't worry about getting paint on every square milimeter or leaving brushstrokes.
The next coat will fix it. Even if you put on twice as many coats, you can do them at twice the speed (or faster).

Fast and thin.

Posted By malfred 08/09/2006 10:32 AM
The part that worries me is the "paint till you have good coverage" stuff. One
reason I've stuck to colors that I use is that they cover well already. Red and
yellow give me trouble so my instinct is usually to avoid them.

The brown undercoat is interesting, as I've done that for yellow.

Do flame effects work on skin? (yellow recesses to red highlights)

The other thing is I need a good contrasting color for clothes. I know, I know,
must demons are simply naked, but still.

 

 

Well thats interesting, if you follow the brown undercoat/basecoat method then your find that coverage wont be an issue. You dont need to batter your model with a tank brush, dont worry. By using a thick solid gutsy colour like scorched brown as a base you can apply as many watered down coats of reds as you want and they will build nicely to give you a good even colour. Don't worry about coverage at first. The first layer of Scab red will look a little patchy, but once you've added the next layer of red gore the red will start to look much more pronounced. By the time you get to Red gore/Blood red you will have a lovely deep rich red colour. Watered down coats aren't washes remember. So whilst it isn't neat from the pot it, it isnt a water wash or glaze. It will still retian consistency and solidity, so just paint it on neatly and in a tidy manner. The same principles for yellow apply for red when using a brown basecoat, light layers built up.

 

Yes it will take a few coats but you can paint these production line style a squad at a time in a reasonably fast fashion.

 

Flame effects. As in a specific shape or pattern like a tatoo? Then yes, as general shading highlights as you described then I'd say no. It won't be obvious that it is supposed to be fire and will look odd as its the reverse of the colour scale on the rest of the red model.

The contrasting clour all depends on what shade of red you use. For a bright blood red use black, this is the traditional contrasting colour. Especially for bloodletters and other khornate demons.

If you use a dark more crimson red try a lighter colour to contrast against the dark red, for example light browns or beige, such as graveyeard earth, commando khaki, bestial brown.

I hope this helps and I'll try to post a picture of my Khornate lord for you to see the effect of red from Brown.

Sorry about the quote problem, my computers mashing up my replies with the orginal message in the quote. grrr, cursed arcane technology! Couldn't fix it i'm afraid must have hit the rune of activation twice instead of thrice... So I've just made all my reply in Bold. Its a bit brash but its the easiest solution. :S

No, it's not your computer, it's the Dakka Dakka Post Mangler (aka post text editor) coupled with the board interface software that uses HTML moon language. (we miss the old uBB code!) When quoting, be sure to move the cursor as far down as possible using the down arrows before typing. You can also check the "html" tab in the editor, start to type under all the gobbledy [see forum posting rules] there, and after the first few words either go back to the display tab or be sure to add in all the HTML formatting tags or your post will come out in block text. And forget editing it if that happens. More helpful info on dealing with the software is listed in the stickies at the top of the Discussions subforum. Enjoy!


Back on topic: I've had great success at getting gore-riffic reds starting with a coat of black primer, applying a base of black & scab red, then block coating in scab red (ie: "heavy drybrush/wetbrush", leaving only the very deepest recesses the base coat color, the rest being scab red), then I start highlighting wth a mix of scab red/red gore and move on in succesive layers to pure red gore and finishing off with blood red. After all that, several thin future washes (3-4 drops purple ink + enough 50/50 mix of water/future), enough to build up a nice deep glaze and protective glossy coat to boot. You'll need to hit it with some dullcote or other matte fixative if the gloss won't work on whatever it is your doing.

I like glossy varnish just fine. In fact, everything after my first Eldar
has a nice protective shine too it.

Thanks for the tips on contrasting colors. I haven't decided on the
shade of red yet, and I still have time as the weather is not permitting
me to go out and prime anything. I have maybe a week before I get
bored/done painting what's on my desk so there's time to decide.

I want to see more pics, but hesitate with cmon...

here's another example of some red figs.

Over black base coat
Scab red
Red gore
Mix Red gore / Blood red
Blood Red

WOW!!! Those Dark Eldar look sick! good job on the blending!

Is that girly a conversion? I don't really know the Dark Eldar line.

I use all Vallejo reds  For my Khorne Daemons.  I started with a base coat of  Cadium maroon, then Burnt Cadium Red, Dark Red, Scar Red, Gory Red,  and vermillion.

Here are my Word Bearer's

Black-Scorched Brown - Red Gore - Blood Red - Fiery Orange? And then Vallejo Smoke Wash

http://ca.games-workshop.com/Community/Events_Coverage/Vancouver-0506/tournament/JamesPerry/40k_JamesPerry.htm

Jason's Saunders World Eaters:

http://ca.games-workshop.com/news/cn/events/coverage/cal_peg04/calgary/tournament/khorne/home.htm

 

I like that smoke wash stuff, it's nice.

Dicemonkey: I have no courage for model colour. I can barely tell the shades apart
from bottle to bottle!

You could also cheat and use the new reaper triad system for thie master paint line.  Their quality is excelllent the one you would want is Bloodthirsty Reds Triad which iis a simple one two three (shade, base, highlight) application.

Malf, there is also Vallejo Game Color, which matches GW's Citadel range, but has much better coverage, stronger pigmentation and cheaper to boot (you get more paint per bottle). Plus, their paint pot's don't suck and dry the paint out a week after opening it.

Great idea! I've been using them for skintones and I love em.

Posted" by="" malfred="" 08/10/2006="" 10:21="" pm=""><br">Is" that="" girly="" a="" conversion="" i="" don="" t="" really="" know="" the="" dark="" eldar="" line.[/quote="">
Nope, it's a special character model (Lilith Hesperex) that I use as the leader of my wych cult.

More picts here if you're interested
http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/MisterHeavy/Dark%20Eldar/


edit: bah... can't get links to work.

As it happens, I'm painting my trollbloods red.  Here's what I did:

Black base coat, Blood Red single coat total coverage, second coat on higher areas, then 2 additional coats each lightened by adding white to the Blood red.  I stopped when adding any more white would have turned it pink.

 

Note: to add a pic to a post:

browse to the site with the picture. Right click on the pic and click copy picture.

Go to Dakka Forums, open the editor, right click in edior, choose paste.

Dang, that's some nice troll.

I need another color than green. I have two Hordemachine armies that are green....

Good timing. I just finished a new tutorial on my site for painting red:

Step-by-Step : Painting red

I, too, use the "start from black" approach. Hope the tutorial can be of use.

Kep

Question: Am I supposed to get through the steps without hovering my mouse
over the step navigation on the right? I'm finding it a little distracting.

I use firefox btw.

Also: When I increase the text size in firefox everything after the first paragraph
gets cut off.

That's an awesome tutorial, btw. I can probably sub in VGC paints with your
suggestions for GW colors.

My question is: What contrasts well (other than green?).

Thanks!

Progressing through the tutorial is done just by hovering over the links on the right. This is what gives it that animation-like quality.

The site is still using rather old css (style sheet) from a time where I didn't really care much about accessibility and resizing. I should update the whole site, but I'll take a look at what I can do to fix the text resize issue when I return after the weekend.

Okay. Contrasts.

White contrasts well, but almost immediately gives the mini a Christmas or "Red Cross" effect, so I don't recommend it. I tend towards a dirty linen, cream colour, or very light brown instead.

You can't go wrong with blue, whether dark or light.

As you said, green contrasts. That also has the danger of the Christmas time look, unless you use an olive (a green with a lot of black or brown in it) or a yellow-green.

Purple isn't bad, but depending on the shade may not contrast enough. A bold Lich Purple does work really well IMO.

Yellow also works well, but can result in a "sunburst" or "fiery" look. Can be a good thing, of course, especially given that you mention you're seeking a good fire look.

Chainmail or steel metallics (and by extension, non-metallic metal colours such as Codex Grey, Shadow Grey, etc) work quite well with red, too.

Red is such a strong colour on its own that you should really try to stick to only a trio of colours when using it. For example, a daemon with red skin, yellow loincloth/clothing, and metallic weapons can be quite striking. Or a daemon with pale purple skin, red armour and black hair. Or whatever, but I think you get the idea.

Kep