"red highlight, what's your trick?" Topic

I am less and less happy with the red highlight method I am using. Basically, I mix an ivory white with red and use it as an highlight. Still to cold a color.

Anyone has a good trick for a red highlight? Cape in particular.

thanks!

Depends what size figure, for 6mm I find that works fine.

25mm I add some yellow, gives it a certain warmth.

Adding white to red will result in a pinky highlight. Fine if that's what you're looking for. If you want a warmer highlight try adding yellow instead. This will result in an orangy-red.

But I'm a notoriously lazy painter always looking for shortcuts so I use Vallejo Orange Red (VMC910).

Use the red as a (generous) highlight, starting from brown

Orange.

You could start with a dark red and then use a light red-scarlet or something to that effect. Never add white cause it makes it pink, add yellow as someone else suggests.

Keep it simple.

Vallejo has a color called Scarlet that many use to highlight red. Otherwise as others say, go with a red-orange.

ok, thanks all. Will go with orange.

I use middle red for a base coat, red to high light that and vermillion to hightlight the red. These are all cell vinyl colours.

I've used tan/beige or bone/ivory sparingly.

Hit the areas you want to highlight with yellow, then apply your brightest red over it. The undercoat will brighten it slightly without it going pink or orange.

I'll second Schogun's recommendation. Vallejo's 817 Scarlet works pretty good.

I use Delta's "Cinnamon" as my shade, apply opaque red as the main color, and apply some pink very sparingly as a highlight.

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Battle Works Studios has it right.
Prime the area that's to be painted red with a white paint.
Then paint a base coat of bright yellow.
Next paint with your red paint.
These next two steps are optional.
Give the area a wash of maroon, reddish brown, or burgundy depending what tone you want.
Lastly, either dry brush or lightly paint reddish orange highlights.
Here is an example of this technique.
Hope this helps.

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Nice fig Grunt. I am working with 15mm for which I need a very high contrast otherwise all is lost well before gaming distance. While your approach is superb for 28mm, I wonder whether I will get a strong contrast in 15mm

I've had some success with 28mm cloaks (40k figs admittedly) by highlighting from black through grey to White, then using GW blood red in 2 thinnish coats to allow the grayscale shading to show through. (no pics sadly to show the result though!)

Red is the ideal color for underlighting techniques.

For a cool look, undercoat dark grey, overbrush gray, drier overbrush light gray, final highlight white, then paint with red paint thinned enough to flow into all the areas. (Make sure none of your grays are tinted with blue or green, those colors will combine with the red and color-shift it as well as light-shift it.)

For a warm look, undercoat dark brown, overbrush brown, drier overbrush light brown, final highlight cream or ivory. Apply thinned red paint as above.

Obviously you can use two shades instead of four -- that might make more sense with 15mm. So gray/white or brown/cream.

Plaka Signal Red add yellow.

interesting approach donrice. Will try it as well. At the moment I am doing the orange strips with another layer of red on top.

Highlight red with a little FLESH colour added- looks just right- neither too pink nor too orange.
For those keen on black undercoat- add a bit of flesh colour to that too- its still very dark but much warmer and doesn't deaden uniform colours like pure black.

Plaka – wow, is that still available. Where in UK can I get that – or is it mail order only these days?

I'm also currently using Vallejo 817.
Once upon a time I also used Plaka orange, not seen it for years.
Similar to Donrice I've always found that the one colour NOT to use in the process is actually red, but combinations of greys and browns

I use Vallejo Vermillion.

I start with Napa Red or Brick Red, highlight with true red then 3rd highlight with scarlet (Orange) red.