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I've been painting for a couple of years now and I've steadily gotten a bit better to the point where I can surprise myself once in a while. So I started my Blood Angels army about six months ago. The chapter I've chosen is the Angels Sanguine, half red, half black. I love the scheme and to be honest, I thought the hard part would be the line between red and black and keeping it straight. With a good micron pen, turns out it's not that hard. I'd previously painted some Khorne Berzerkers and had experimented with red, so I figured with some practice, I'd get the hang of it pretty quickly. I was wrong. I've asked my FLGS, my local GW, painters at both of these places and I've picked up a few pointers, but it's still not to the standard of quality I want and believe I could accomplish.
My problem is, first of all, that I can never seem to get up to the brightness of red that I'm looking for. I'm looking to get a sort of crimson, maybe a bit brighter than the GW Red Gore colour, but certainly not as bright as Blood Red and with far less orange.
Currently, I start out by doing a mix of about 1:2:1 of Dark Angels Green, Mechrite Red, and Red Gore. It ends up being like a Dark Flesh colour, good for basing red. I slowly mix less green in to the mix and more red gore, eventually going to almost pure red gore. This takes about six or seven coats, all told, and gives a depth that I really like for the model. From there, though, I'm lost. I can't figure out how to get the colour brighter. I've tried mixing in Blood Red, but as I mentioned, it's way too orange. On top of that, there's something about specifically blood red that makes the paint seem to get really thin and splotchy. I've resigned to use Blood Red only for extreme edge highlights. Adding white makes pink obviously, bleached bone doesn't work either.
My other problem is maintaining the same colour throughout my army. I'll get a model painted to a certain level of red and say it's done. I turn around to put it with the rest of its squad and... lo and behold, they're all different shades of red. Similar, but some are a bit brighter and some are a bit darker. I try to follow the same steps every time but I can't maintain the same colour. A perfect example of this is on a Furioso dreadnought I had built when I first started the army. I recently dug through my bitz box and found that I had the Frag Cannon still on the sprue. I assembled it, primed it, painted it, and stuck it on. Now one arm is a different colour than the rest of the dread. What can I do to prevent this?
I've never really been taught anything about painting, it's mostly trial and error, so I could be doing something fundamentally wrong from the beginning. Help, please!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2011/08/22 17:38:19
I am a relatively new painter, and have also had troubles painting red. Until recently I could not find the right mix of colors to yield a warm but darker red. I currently have been using a mix of 1:1 blood red and mechrite red on top of a white base coat. This followed by a good Badab wash and another highlight of the same color yields fairly solid results. The white basecoat has been key for me as I previously used black, but had trouble getting the red to brighten up. The one thing I noticed was the colors seem to seperate if they are left to sit too long (I use a wet palette). It seems that you may be encountering a similar problem. I would suggest making sure that you thoroughly mix the paint before starting each individual mini. Just my thoughts, but like I said I am pretty new...
Edit***
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/08/22 17:51:45
Ma55ter_fett wrote:Didn't awesome paintjob" do one of these guys?
And I answer myself... yes
I know how he does it, I've watched the tutorial a few times. It's great and it's what made me think I could do it in the first place, but I would prefer my red to be deeper, hence my question about painting red. Thanks though.
The quality of a paint job is awefully subjective, and without a basis for your work its going to be hard to offer advice.
Sorry, I've been trying to use my camera phone to pick up examples of the problems I'm having, but it's not a great quality camera and I don't have a proper digital camera on hand. Thanks for the tips, though! I'll pick up the primer sometime soon and give that a shot.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crusher050 wrote: I currently have been using a mix of 1:1 blood red and mechrite red on top of a white base coat.
Hmmm, now there's something I hadn't thought of. I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the heads up.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2011/08/22 18:29:40
Just to be outlandish and different, if you really want a red that pops like no acrylic can, take a look at Windsor and Newtons Artisan Water Mixable Oil Paints in their Cadmium red colors. They have light, medium and heavy cadmium red. A little more expensive, but get the Series 2 tube for this one. That is a very punchy and appealing red!
Ma55ter_fett wrote:Didn't awesome paintjob" do one of these guys?
And I answer myself... yes
I know how he does it, I've watched the tutorial a few times. It's great and it's what made me think I could do it in the first place, but I would prefer my red to be deeper, hence my question about painting red. Thanks though.
The quality of a paint job is awefully subjective, and without a basis for your work its going to be hard to offer advice.
Sorry, I've been trying to use my camera phone to pick up examples of the problems I'm having, but it's not a great quality camera and I don't have a proper digital camera on hand. Thanks for the tips, though! I'll pick up the primer sometime soon and give that a shot.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crusher050 wrote: I currently have been using a mix of 1:1 blood red and mechrite red on top of a white base coat.
Hmmm, now there's something I hadn't thought of. I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the heads up.
