This post is also available in:
Español (Spanish)
In this article I will show you how to paint a red cloak (or a cloth, tunic, cape, robe or as you prefer to call it), in a simple way and using airbrush. In this quick process you will see how to paint any red cloak or cape on your miniatures, and to show it I will use as an example a Wolf Guard Terminator leader from the Space Wolves of the Warhammer 40,000 game.
Let’s start!
Primer
The primer will be black. I recommend using surface primer black if we print using an airbrush. If we are not going to use airbrush, the fastest way to do it will be using Vallejo Hobby Paint black spray.
Step 1
In all this process I will use the airbrush, as it is the fastest and easiest way to achieve a quick gradient.
I will dilute all these paints with Vallejo Airbrush Thinner, plus a bit of Vallejo Flow improver. Model Air or Game Air paints will need less thinner/flow improver as they have an excellent dilution.
On the other hand, the Model Color and Game Color paints are quite thick so they will require more thinner than those mentioned above. For this reason, we will have to adjust the amount of thinner we use on each color and paint.
We will start mixing Black Model Air with Red Model Air, to have a base layer of a very dark red.
Step 2
In the second step, we will apply only Red Model Air, this time taking special care not to apply it in the nooks and crannies.
Step 3
In step 3, we will continue to increase the contrast and intensity of the red color.
To do this, we will add a little Bloody Red Game Color to the Red Model Air so we can increase the intensity of red.
In each step, we will apply the paint in a smaller space, achieving a greater gradient.
Step 4
We are approaching to the end,and using the Vermilion Model Color,we will give the final touch of intensity, focusing on the lower parts of the cloak, as well as the most prominent areas.
At this point, we could end the cape. But I’ll show you one last optional step,in case you want to give some final touches of orange to the cloak.
Step 5 (Optional)
If we prefer a slightly more orange cloak at the edges and lower areas, we can choose to perform this final step, but as I say, it will depend on the final result you want.
If we want to perform this step, we will apply Red Orange Model Color on those lower parts of the miniature. Following this step, we will achieve the following result:
Final result
Here you can see the final result. In this case, the orange cloak has only been slightly edge highlighted.
A little more brush work could have been done, but the goal here was to be able to have something beautiful and quickly, and I think we’ve achieved it. What do you think?
