In my opinion, red can be a very difficult color to highlight. A normal highlight would be done by taking the base color and add some white to it to get at lighter tone, but what happens when you mix white into red? You get pink.. and i don't think that pink is a option for highlighting red.
So this is some of the methods i use when higlighting red.
New shiny armor:
A good example of this is on space marine armor, were i normally do higlights by adding a very fine line of white to all edges of the red areas. If i finish the miniature with the Army Painter light shadows (which i almost do on every miniature), i tend to exagerrate the highlights quite a bit, as the Army Painter shadowing method tone all colors down (highlights included).
Worn old dirty armor:
On fantasy armor, i use different types of higlight. Most of the red areas i paint at the moment is for miniatures in my vampire Counts army. In this army, the red is mostly armor on various skeleton miniatures. This type of armor does not need a powerfull highlight at such miniatures must reflect the decay, the rust and the dirty look on the armor. I do apply a white line of highlight on the edges, but normally it is more effective to do "scratched metal look" on edges of such armor types. This can be seen on the Wight Champion with the red armor i did for my skeleton spear regiment. I will add closeup photos as soon as possible.
This is an example of what i mean. Please note that the model shown has not been applied with any highlights or shadows. It is just to give an idea
New clean clothes:
I sometimes get a good result when highlighting red with yellow (also as seen on this undead Wight Champion helmet). Another great method is to paint the clothes in a much darker red and then highlight up to the tone of red you actually want. When applying Armypainter Quickshade (even the light edition) it can be a good idea to thin it down, to soften then darkened effect on the shade.
Worn old clothes:
Same as the above although i start out with a much darker basecoat, to darken the red tone.
I picked up a few methods on the internet that i want to try out. These are the methods:
- Vomit Brown + Blood Red mix
- Blazing Orange + Blood Red
- Use Mephiston Red as a base and highlight it with a mix of Meph Red & Tallarn Flesh (Cadian Fleshtone) or Meph Red & Macharius Orange (Jokaero Orange) shaded with a 1.5 to 1 mix of Baal Red & Badab Black.
