British red for Marlburians.

[THE CID]

I've just started painting some Front Rank Marlburian British. I know there were various shades of dyed cloth etc, but I was wondering what manufacturers red paint gives the best coverage. I'm using Army painter reds at the moment and they are taking one hell of a lot of coats to get a result. Any ideas.

[Aaron]

Reds in general seem to give poor coverage. I like to undercoat with a red brown color like Vallejo's Cavalry Brown. After that one coat with a flat red seems to do the trick.

[SteveBurt]

I use Liquitex Artist's Acrylics (the soft texture ones in little bottles - sadly no longer available)
I find Red Oxide and Naphthol Crimson cover well but Vermilion needs an undercoat.
The Foundry reds also cover quite well. The Vallejo ones less so.

[Dags]

Scalecolor Reds are the best I've found

[THE CID]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions, I will check them out.

[Rogerc]

I use colour party, their reds give a very good coverage I find. Probably not the red you would use for British but pictures of my Saxons on the blog.

 http://gapagnw.blogspot.co.uk/

[fastolfrus]

I try to undercoat lobster units with an automotive red-oxide spray - generally gives a very rich red finish to the coats, and not too hard to cover with other colours (even white)

[THE CID]

Scalecolor Reds are the best I've found

just ordered their red box set.

[Morgan]

just ordered their red box set.

Will be interested to hear how you get on with it. I've seen a fair bit of Dags' work so he can't be far wrong :-)

[Timmo]

Vallejo red over a white undercoat – I've never had any problems with this combination.

[Orctrader]

I use Vallejo.  Personally, I mix red with black for the first coat, the shade, and don't seem to have an issue with coverage.

[delbruck]

I think Vallejo has 144 different shades of red

[Rob Herrick]

I have two sets of formulations for red:

Formulation #1:
Shadow #1: Vallejo 70814 Burnt Cadmium Red
Shadow #2: Either Vallejo 70908 Carmine Red, or Game Color 72010 Bloody Red. If you want Crimson (officer's sashes), this is your mid color. Both are glossy, however.
Mid color: Vallejo 70947 Red
Highlight #1: Vallejo 70909 Vermillion
Highlight #2: Vallejo 70817 Scarlet

This produces a good British red. The burnt cadmium red gives great coverage over both black, gray and white primers, and that sets the rest of the reds up.

My other fomulation is for poorer quality red cloth or dyes, and is more of a terra-cotta or orange red. It's my preference for red uniforms for other ranks up to 1850 or so.
Formulation #2:
Shadow: Delta Ceramicoat Red Iron Oxide. This one has poor coverage of elevated areas, but settles well in the cracks, folds, and flatter areas. I like that in a shadow, especially over a gray primer.
Mid color: DecoArt Americana Georgia Clay. This has solid coverage over the shadow layer, and covers any bits of primer that show through.
Highlight: Delta Ceramicoat Poppy Orange

The other advantage of these is that you can find these colors, or similar ones, in just about any US craft store or Wal-Mart. They're cheap, too, usually $0.50 for 2 US fluid ounces, so you'll get a lot more painted with them.

[SteveBurt]

5 layers of colour? It must take forever to paint stuff!

I tend to go with:
Block colour a bit lighter than final tone. Ink wash.

Doesn't look as good, but it is much, much quicker, and when you need hundreds of figures for an army, that's important.