Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello chaps!

I've recently impulse bought that nice big Terminator Chaplain and seeing as i'm doing him as a blood angels chaplain i wanted advice for highlighting the black of his armour with reds, usually you use grey to highlight black, however it gives a bluish effect and i'm looking instead to try for red.
does anyone have any suggestions on how i'd go about this?
thanks
pete

Black isn't a true colour & is typically a very dark blue.
Try adding some white to see the hue that your paint comes from (just for fun).
Re highlighting black with red -
Dark red is basically brown so I would start off with
scorched brown,
then mix in the floowing (in separate stages)
dark flesh
blood red
then blood red on its own

Bubber makes a fair point.
I personally, if following through on this idea, would start with Black, and use an extreme-highlighting technique to go straight from the black to the red (aka, paint it black, tehn paint jsut hte very edges of each armour plate red), then use a bit of blazing orange to make it glow. Should get a similar effect to what i've seen on Archaon and the occasional Inquisator...

Like Bubber said, black paint generally isn't a true neutral base, but instead a very deep shade or blend of base pigments.

Unfortunately, green is often used for black colors and may counteract red applied over it to a degree, possibly making a red color muddy or brownish. You may want to preempt this effect by adding a drop or two of red to the black to add contrasting pigment to break up the black's base tones and help compliment the red .

That is still my favorite model. I am going to attempt something similar.

I was planning on starting with scab red or red gore mixed with a couple drops of black to make it a dark dark red. It doesn't take much of a dark color to change the hue of the red.

Then use the WD technique for highlighting. I think it was blood red then vomit brown.

It isn't quite such an extreme highlight

If you don't want to mix paints, another good method would be to start with scab red, and move the highlights up to blood red.

Then give the whole model a few coats of black wash to dull the colour and give you an almost black finish. Finally, make a blood red glaze (mix a drop of blood red with some floor polish/diluted washing up liquid to get a wash like consistency) and use it sparingly over the whole model once the wash has dried. This should bring out the red highlights and leave the darker areas unaffected.

I did a similar thing but on a power weapon, blending from a darker red to an orange/yellow at the end.

All i did was simply mixed some mechrite red with chaos black, it gives you a dark red/brown colour, then just reduce your black component, then work through mechrite red to blood red.

Its a fair bit of blending for some component but on line highlighting you could probably get away with just three
layers.

First being Mechrite red and black mix, followed by plain mechrite red and finally a fine blood red highlight.