Blood Angel painting woes.

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**Shovan**

I have just recently started to really get into painting my army and all I can say is that red is not a color willing to work well with me.

I've looked at numerous guides for blood Angels (All from GW) and all were different.

One said to base coat in black, then apply a layer of dark flesh, then a layer of blood red. This did not work for me very well.
Another said to base coat in black, apply a layer of 1:1 Skull White and Blood Red, then a layer of blood red. This kinda-sorta worked.
The last said to base coat in white and then apply a layer of blood red. I've done this and it seemed a bit too bright, though I know could easily go 2:1 or 3:1 Malachite Red:Blood Red.

I would like to hear what other players did to get their blood angels painted.

**Capt. Rex**

I play Angel Encarmine, I do a black undercoat, a layer of Scab Red and a layer of Red Gore.
To highlight I do a mix of Blood Red and Chaos Black.

**After_8**

For my Blood Angels I do:

Undercoat Skull White.
One or two coats Blood Red (depending on how smooth it looks after one).
Devlan Mud in the recesses for shading.
Blazing orange highlights.
Glaze the whole thing in Baal Red.

I'm quite happy with the results - it's fairly bright but I don't think it's too bright. I would post a picture but my camera's currently away being repaired.

**Garuss Acine**

how I paint a red similar to the BA red, is I base coat the model(or if you want to be more selective, just the parts that will be red), after it drys paint over that with Blood Red, and then a Leviathan Purple Wash over that when its dried. then go back over and detail the model as you see fit, its quick and gives a nice effect.

**Deathly Angel**

I collect a fallen chaos BA successor chapter but i still have a similar scheme to first founding BA: undercoat chaos black and layer from 1:2 mix of chaos and scab red in the centre of a greave or torso, gradually applying more scab red as you layer closer to the edge of the armour. Then fine highlight the edges with pure scab red. It does look a bit dark and brooding and good for chaos, but I think if you do it right and change it a bit it can be brilliant for a loyalist chapter with a rather sinister tang to it (something that the imperium is in essence and perhaps the astartes too).

**Lord_Osma**

I use Malachite Red as the armor color because of how easy it is to work with and by the time you wash the figure and do details it looks quite good.

**Lord Scythican**

Just paint them as Knights of Blood.

**Lord_Osma**

on black primer

Automatically Appended Next Post:
btw

**Mannahnin**

1. I went Army Painter pure red primer, except for the heads, which I primed separately white
2. then simple coat of:
-silver for the limb joints, grills on the helmet and backpack
-bleached bone for purity seals
-shining gold for gold bits/blood drop casings
-mechrite for purity seals
3. Heads got iyanden darksun over the white
4. Then head to toe devlan mud wash
5. Let it dry
6. Go over the high areas with blood red for the red, sunburst yellow for the helmet.
7. Go back in with fine brush for general detail work, like eyes, gems, white wings on shoulder pads, etc.

**BloodQuest**

I was never happy with the results I got trying to hand-paint my BA, then studied some of the models the 'eavy metal guys did for me and came up with this:

1. Black Primer
2. Mechrite Red (airbrushed)
3. Blood Red (airbrushed)
4. Highlight with a mix of Blood Red and Orange to approximate the old Blood Angels Red.

I'm really happy with the results and it's not too time consuming.

**Redfinger**

Lets use some color theory here!

Base Coat: Dark Green, usually I mix a little bit of black w/ Vallejo Luftwafe Green

First Coat: Vallejo Black Red

Second Coat: Vallejo Flat Red, on edges and highlights

Third Coat: Vallejo Flat Red and Vallejo Sky Grey, this is my extreme highlight, sometimes I might add a second one.

Ashton

**winterdyne**

You get a nice rich red by downshading with blue, and highlighting up through a pure red (eg Blood red) to a peach colour (yellow shifted pink).

The theory is that the human eye is used to a yellow light source, and blue shifted ambient light. Thus shadows work well with a bluish hint and highlight with a touch of yellow (hence it's good to use bleached bone to highlight rather than white a lot of the time).

I used the following progression here:
Zenithal pass (airbrush):
Black undercoat, VMC Burnt Cadmium Red, GW Blood Red, VMC Amarantha Red, VMC Amarantha Red/VMC Sunny Skintone
Shade:
GW Asurmen Blue, glaze toward recesses
Highlight (thin glazes, just smoothing out airbrush work really):
VMC Burn Cadmium Red, GW Blood Red, VMC Amarantha Red, VMC Amarantha Red/VMC Sunny Skintone
Glaze:
GW Baal Red

Chipping: VMC Amarantha Red/VMC Sunny Skintone highlight, then do the dark bit with VMC Burnt Cadmium Red and a touch of GW Chaos Black.

**shingouki**

my recipe is not as technical some of the previous ones but its fast and looks good imo.
1 black undercoat(spray)
2 thinned mechrite red basecoat
3either blood red or gore red depending on how you want the red
4 thinned baal red wash
5 blazing orange highlights.
hope that helps.

**More Dakka**

I use 2 techniques which have been working well for me and are both relatively easy to pull off:

Easy Mode:

Prime black, dry brush with Mechrite Red, followed by Scab Red, followed by Red Gore (optional) followed by P3 Khador Red (It's stronger than Blood Red, which really doesn't work when drybrushing), wash with Gryphen Sepia.

Here's how it comes out:

Normal Mode:

Here is how I've been doing them lately using standard highlighting:

Prime white, base coat with Red Gore, wash with Ogryn Flesh, highlight with Red Gore + Blood Red or Khador Red (50/50) then highlight with straight Blood/Khador Red

Bonus Round: Mix Blood Red with Khador Red Highlight (orange) and do extreme edges

Here's how that comes out:

Both techniques are easy to achieve and I don't have to do multiple layers of any one colour.

My second technique is particularly easy because Red Gore tends to show a bit of the white primer through it, which gives you a guide to applying highlights later

**taopaipai18**

currently im trying to pretty much speed paint my BA's,
for squads im undercoating in army painter dragon red spray, devlan mud shade straight onto undercoat, tidying up with blood red (a touch of red gore before blood red if needed to cover up any overuse of devlan) orange or orange and white mix highlight, generic quick n easy bolter (black- boltgun metal- mithril highlight) on most weapons (bolters/pistols/chainswords)

i only have 1 pic up atm from my BA's but after the dragon red was dry it took little over an hour (excluding base) for a single mini.

p.s. some very tasty work in the above posts guys, great stuff

**Shovan**

Thanks everyone. I really have a lot to work with now.

**Pyronick**

Just to add because I havn't seen it on here yet. I also had trouble with both black and white undercoats for primer. I can never get an even red. My method now has alleviated this and cut down my painting time 10 fold.

Spray with Army Painter Dragon Red primer.

Wash with devlon mud in the recesses, often watered down a bit to not overshadow the model.

Highlight with blood red in the center of plates vs. the traditional edge highlighting giving a zenithal apperance.

Airbrush is used for highlight if time is an issue or I want nice even transitions of color. I have also dabbled in the spray with primer, basecoat colors, then dip method and found my results pretty promising actually. Space marines arn't the BEST models in the world to dip but they look pretty fantastic for literally no work.

If I had the time/memory to take pics of all my models I would and post them for reference. We'll see.