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so i thought of mixing the red and white like you would do with anything else, but.... that's pink, is that really the correct highlight for red? What do you guys use to highlight your blood angels? (i'm highlighting red robes by the way)

You can't get a 'brighter' red than 100% desaturated red, which is what blood red is trying to be (though it is a bit orange). Red is funny that way. If you want a 'true' looking red then blood red needs to be you highlight, make everything else a slightly less bright red.

However, If you want blood red as your base you can highlight with orange. If you are painting up from a darker color, say black or red gore, another option is to do your highlights in pink then paint over that with blood red, which will allow the blood red to really shine through at at's most vibrant.

I did the basecoat in white? so, would be doing some heavy duty shading with a darker red be a better idea?

There are a couple of distinct ways of highlighting blood red - the obvious one is blazing orange, but you have to use that sparingly or your red will start to look too much like orange.

The other popular method is to mix in vomit brown and a flesh tone (elf flesh usually) and there are a couple of good examples of this put out by the 'eavy metal team over the years.

The GW website has a few articles with decent reds, come to think of it; the Harad details and black reach character articles might be useful for you.

riplikash wrote:You can't get a 'brighter' red than 100% desaturated red

I think you mean saturated. 100% desaturated is grey.

And as for the highlighting question, for every colour (but especially for red) I find using different hues for base, shade and highlight to yield the most succes. Try doing an orange highlight and a dark purple/blue shading. It'll look that much more lively.

To keep it looking red you need to shade with blue and highlight with an off-yellow. Try going through oranges up to vomit brown. Shade recesses with a little asurmen blue. When done, thin down some baal red about 50% and glaze that over the top to reddify it some.

Shading with Red Gore or Scab Red or something could work.

Alternately you can wash your Blood Red with something to darken it and get into the crevices (Devlan Mud is great for this, though you might also like the effect of Gryphonne Sepia, Ogryn Flesh, or even Badab Black for a dirty effect), the highlight with straight Blood Red after the wash has darkened the model overall.

thanks guys I'll pick up some more blood red and blaze orange. (i can't believe i'm out of blood red, you wouldn't believe how much you use when making a mechanicus army.

My advice would be Vallejo's Brown Rose. I shared in some other post a thread by Ancient God (warseer) where he uses it to highlight his Blood Angels (painted with Vallejo's Flat Red), and the results are spectacular. Depends on what you're looking for, but I hope this helps.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256215

here's how it turned out, mostly the baal red did a nice job of shading and making the edges pop out.

After basing your area in blood red, use a dark wash to deepen the tone. Go back with liberal highlight of blood red on the raised surfaces, and the a sparring (very) final highlight of blazing orange. ALternately you can use the red foundation paint as your base coat, highlight in blood red and then blazing orange highlight. That prevents te need for the wash.

gendoikari87 wrote:here's how it turned out, mostly the baal red did a nice job of shading and making the edges pop out.

It is a good start, but as others have noted, you need more contrast with red and the best way to do that is to deepen the shadows, here is an example;



Deepen those shadows, and re apply the blood red on the highlights.

Ashton