Pre-shading with colour primers

A lot of people ask me how I achieve the deep red on my Blood Angels so I thought I’d do a little step-by-step. In the example below I use a Drop Pod door but the principle and method are the same for infantry. I use an airbrush to apply the primers and base colour.

The key to the deep colour is layering, so I use colour primers rather than monochrome pre-shading with black, white and grey.

Step 1

I coat the model with Vallejo German Red Brown primer and pre-shade with black…

Preshading01

Step 2

I mask off edges and pre-highlight with Vallejo German Dark Yellow primer. The primer is opaque so easily covers the red and black where you need it to…

Preshading03

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Step 3

I spray the model all over with Vallejo Model Air Red RLM23. This is a bright and quite thin pure red colour, so the black makes it deep and dark in the shadows and the yellow makes it bright on the highlighted areas…

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Step 4 [not pictured]

On infantry I would then do some edge highlights with Vallejo Model Color 130 Amarantha Red.

Hope you find this useful!