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…
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…
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…
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!