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Painting Bright Red (Orange) Hair
a painting guide and a colour scheme formula...
By Neldoreth
Jun 29th, 2014

Red hair was the first thing that I really took the time to figure out how to paint. I saw red-haired Libby painted extremely well on the Hasslefree Miniature's website and took special note of the brush strokes an the colour. Then I went out and looked very closely at reference pictures, and so my red/orange hair scheme was born!

Natural Orange Hair? I'm not so sure, but it looks good anyway!

The first thing that I noted when I looked closely at 'natural' red/orange hair was the fact that it goes from deep, dark red up to a very light yellow. The yellow parts are those that the light is shining directly on, while the darkest red parts are in the shadows, as expected.

Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields - How to paint orange or red hair by Neldoreth

It is not an easy formula to copy, but should be helpful in any case!

As with all miniature painting, it's important to highlight carefully. In the above I feel I almost put on too much yellow in that last phase there... Some quick tips: