"Help! Painting red and blonde beards in 28mm with Vallejo" Topic

I'm working on Vikings for Saga. The last time I had to paint a beard in 28mm was GW dwarfs 6 years ago. I'm not thrilled with the results of my base, wash and highlight because I can't remember the color combos for red and blonde beards.

I'm working with Vallejo paints but I can translate GW colors so any combo/suggestions would be great. In advance, THANKS!

My stuff isn't brilliant, but I'm beginning to like it more. For blondes and for reds, I try to vary the colors quite a bit across a warband. Dark Sand, Pale Sand, Ivory, and variants all through there (but NEVER yellow, dagnab it) can be used for different base colors, and lighter shades for drybrushing. Likewise with Burnt Sienna, Red Brown, whatever camo colors look even close, and again with the lighter highlights.

What really makes these colors stand out is either Magic Dip or Ink + Future Floor Wax, depending on your choice of poisons. The shading these offer compliment lighter earth tones like Blond and Red really nicely, and nothing cries for inking more than sculpted hair.

I'm a fan of Vallejo Red Leather as a base for red hair. I used it on my ECW Scots and I'm happy with the results. Very nice reddish brown that can be mixed with a variety of other colors for a highlight.

This is good. I think the problem was that I was painting in a bright style that'd look good on a Dwarf but not so good on a historical figure. These are better, more subtle combos. I'll give them a try!

For blonde hair I usually use yellow ochre, gradually blending with white for highlights until I'm satisfied with the result. As noted above, red browns and leather browns make for good reds.

Try ochre as a base for blond and lighten from there For red, start with rust and lighten to orange. This is always subjective. There are no absolute right answers. have fun with it and go with your feel. It is as good as any opinion.

What I've used for blond(e) is a base of Bleached Bone, ink with a thinned down dark brown (or other shade) of ink for the 'depth', drybrush with a 50/50 of B.Bone/white, then finish off with Liquitex metallic/pearlescent for highlights. Not sure how to do reds…. ;-)

I use cavalry brown (or cavalry red – can't remember which it was) as one version of red hair. I know I use something a little lighter as another red hair color, but I can't think of the shade now.

Blonde-Orange brown base,with yellow ochre highlights.
Red-Cavalry Brown base,clear orange highlights.

Bob

I like Hull Red as a base for my reds

I like to use the Red Leather and Light Brown plus the three rust colors from the Panzer Aces line.

Basically 100 ways to do it.

Somebody once told me to use Vallejo Red #926 as a base and dry brush with Vallejo Scarlet #817 for red hair. It was OK, but I switched to using the Reaper red hair triad (and their blonde triad) a couple years ago.
Grelber

I use ochre as a bast for blondes and lighten from there. I use Burnt Leather as a red base and go from there staying in the "warmer" reds. Reds that carry a lot of purple look really funny to my eye.