Desaturated Red

[mjs101]

I want to paint a bit of clothing a desaturated medium red. Not too dark and definitely not too red.

I started with base coat of Vallejo Black-red, my go-to color to build up a rich saturated red. It may be too red, not a desaturated enough base.

Anyway, I mixed Red (Vallejo) with a dark green (a desaturated military color), and got what amounted to the same black red I'd started with. I mixed red and gray and got pale purple. I mixed Red is a fairly bright green (leafy, not quite kelly green), and got a lighter, desaturated red. It looked nearly brownish and seems correctly desaturated, but the base color black red from underneath was too strong.

My first choice is not to go race out a buy another color. I'd rather learn to get more our of fewer colors, especially for fantasy figures where I don't

Below is sort of of I want, but perhaps even less. (And I am not this talented a painter - I tend to be pretty formulaic in my approach.)
https://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/dark-sword-female-assassin.html

And advise would be appreciated.

MJS

 

[Canny]

Hi there, looking at the red on the cape that you have supplied, the red black base you talk about seems pretty good, build upon the layer with your brigter red. go back over the darker folds in the cape with a black glaze.
Glaze video;

Getting the red your after, the smallest drop of your green/brown will work for you. too much and you will have the same problem as before.

If you could post a picture of how you are doing we could help you further

This may help you in your quest for a better looking cape;

Merry Christmas
Canny

 

[MAXXxxx]

also using color like flesh colors (dwarf flesh / elf flesh) or yellow browns (filthy brown / plague brown) help too. (colors are from vgc line)

 

[Zab]

Flesh or mix of light grey and tan should work.

 

[mjs101]

I used cavalry brown thinned with glaze medium covering most of the surface of the hoodie, and then cavalry brown + VGC dwarf flesh for highlights.

I think the cavalry brown was more or less right, and the dwarf flesh probably right addition to highlight the cavlary brown, but I don't think the black red base was right.

And I need to improve my photography, since this picture is has too much sheen.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Photo: You just need a filter of sorts over your lights to get rid of the sheen. If you used a flash, don't. But use some baking paper, wax paper, tracing paper, gift paper, etc to either hang over your lights or for use in a light box.

Desat red: Your base coat of black red hardly matters for your purposes. A dark base coat like that can be used in two ways. One, as a deep shadow tone that you don't fully cover, or only color with a very transluscent layer, so that it remains dark in the shadows after you have placed the mids and highlights. Secondarily, it can act as a base color that, when a very very transluscent layer or two is applied, will make a new color from this blend. However, your subsequent layers that you place down after the black red are not the super thin transluscent type that are meant to change the original color. Therefore, your black red is being used merely as a shadow, or the first type mentioned above, and so has little effect on the overall perception of a desat red.

As as other have mentioned, mix in a flesh tone. As you claim to be a formulaic painter, I'd say to follow this very generalized recipe. From darkest to lightest:

black red
2 black red:1 standard red
1 black red:2 standard
1 black red: 2 standard MIXED WITH 1 part flesh
2 parts flesh mixed with the 1:2 --->black red:standard red

This way you never go flat red, even when highlighting by adding in the flesh parts. That keeps the saturation down as well as making the red a dark one. If it ends up looking too dark or purple in nature, just add more standard red to the mix. Cheers! You're own version looked more like a brownish maroon and I don't think it's what you were after