"How to make light red" Topic

Or washed out red?

I'm painting poor men at arms for medieval period, as the lighter less strong pigments were cheaper, I paint them sutch, I have greens, blues ect. that work fine. But not reds, all my reds are strong deep reds.

I've tried to make "thinner" washed out reds, but it only turns pink…

Maybe try washing the red over a lighter yellow/orange undercoat?

For washed out red cowboy shirts, I usually mix straight red with a color called "Autumn Leaves", and add just a bit of white. Then wash it with a deep red-brown and drybrush with a dusty tan.

Which make is autumn leaves?

Vallejo Saddle Brown is a good match for a cheap Madder dye if you add a touch of Flat Red to it.

When painting swashbuckling adventurers some years ago, I struck upon a nice "faded red" by mixing dark terracotta-coloured paint with white. It looked sort of pink, purple, grey and brown all at once.

So I'd suggest starting with a brown paint instead of a red one, but making sure it's a dark and reddish shade of brown, and then mixing in some white or light grey, and maybe a small amount of straight red. Not unlike what nnascati was saying.

I've achieved this look on some of my medievals by mixing red with a dark pink and dark orange (usually craft paints as they are cheap and good for experimentation).
The result is a sun faded red with hints of light brown. You can then highlight and/or shade as needed to achieve your desired effect.

Autumn Leaves is made by either Folkart or Delta Cremacoat. I buy all my paints at craft stores.

I am not sure if they still make it, but I use Ceramcoat "Fruit Punch" for exactly that (my medieval with faded red cloth).

I mix sand colored paint (lt yellow) with red to get a faded or highlight shade. Lt brown could work to I suppose.

start with pink?

I either mix Unbleached Titanium with Napithol Red Light or take the full strength red as the base coat and dry brush with white.

A really light grey dry brush will work also, especially since you are looking for washed out muted colors.

In Shep Paine's book on painting miniatures, he uses red-orange for highlighting red. He contends that making into a pink makes the base red look more like the color is washed out rather than a highlight.

Mix in a light flesh tone color.

Īt will not look pink(ish), which it will do when you mix white with red.

Desaturating any colour is tricky and there are two ways of doing it.

The first involves finding a grey that is both chromatically neutral and have a tint that is lighter than your red. This is then added to the red and the result will desaturate the 'redness' and lighten the colour.

The second approach is to find the red's complimentary colour, this also desaturates the colour.

This site can help you understand and find your colours. There are others out there. encycolorpedia.com/e31f2d

I mix a sort of browny red ( brick colour I suppose) and wash that over a brown base coat. Tends to be slightly different each time, but then I don't imagine medieval dye batchs were that consistent to start with and wear and tear would soon alter the " new" colour.