Color specific shading

[olcottr]

When i paint space marine shoulder pads with blue inset and red trim, what color should I use to shade the inner edge?

[Bryan Blaire]

I would use a blue or possibly even purple. Reds look good shaded with either, and it will make the blue area shade appear deeper.

[Kinstryfe]

I most often shade my reds with very thinned brown ink, sometimes with a touch of black if I need it darker.

 

Alternately, what Bryan said above :-D

[Major_Gilbear]

A navy blue would work well: nice and dark, but not as harsh as black.

[Dantay VI]

I almost always wash my reds with drakenhof. Like the Major said, not as harsh as black and gives it a nice hue.

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

You can use a lot of colors, but the inner edge is "blue territory" IMO, if that helps. This is because I am assuming, and probably correct in doing so, that the red trim is raised and higher than the blue inset.

[Major_Gilbear]

Using navy blue in shading, and avoiding pure black wherever possible, is a classic Impressionist technique. Even colour schemes where plain black is the primary colour benefit enormously from not using a pure black. If you would like a quick explanation of why this is, there's a nice article here which explains it clearly with examples.

 

I try and use navy blue to darken most of the base colours rather than just using black or a brown on their own, and it has had the effect of making details on my figures stand out better and look richer in colour, despite it not being very obvious unless you compare it to a model that's painted with pure black.

 

Of course, navy blue is a cool colour, so it's more suitable for deeper or receding shadows. If you want softer shading on areas that are not necessarily deeply recessed or in deep shadow, you can still use a colour that contains blue (I tend to favour either a purple or a red-brown) and this will again add to the richness of the finished effect. :)