Seeing Red

Dark Eldar Diorama – The second Scourge part 5

It's been another busy week with less opportunity to paint than I'd hoped but the weekend saw some quality painting time. I've concentrated on working up the mid tones and highlights for the hair this time and although things need some refinement I'm happy with what I've achieved.

Red is often a tricky colour to get right and can easily go too pink or orange during the highlighting process. Personally I prefer to work the highlights up and then go back in with some red washes and glazes to enrich the red tones. The main challenges with the scourge's hair are keeping it a relatively dark shade of red and making sure the colour stays near the cooler magenta/purple end of the red spectrum.

Using a wash of Asurmen Blue mixed with Baal Red to shade really helped with this. The highlights are built up from Mechrite Red through a Mechrite Red/Dwarf Flesh mix finishing off with a Dwarf Flesh/Skull White mix. Some additional highlights/reflections of a Mechrite Red/Ice Blue mix help to liven up the colour with some contrast. The highlights are then toned back down with some glazes of a Baal Red/Red Gore mix.

Colour Palette

All the colours used are from Games Workshop.

Base colour:

Mechrite Red

Shade:

Asurmen Blue + Baal Red

Mid tones:

Mechrite Red

Mechrite Red + Dwarf Flesh

Highlights:

Dwarf Flesh + Skull White mix

Mechrite Red + Ice Blue

Glaze:

Baal Red + Red Gore