IONIC Flame Orange

An orange for fire and red-hot metal

Flame Orange belongs to the orange group of the chart and is the most luminous of them. It has no earth or brown mixed into it, so on a model it reads as light rather than as paint. It suits exactly what its name says: flames, the blast from a nozzle, glowing embers, molten rock on a base.

Techniques where it shines

It turns up most often when painting object source lighting, where the light source is painted straight onto the model and its glow is carried out into the surrounding surfaces. The sequence runs from a dark red through this orange to yellow and white. It also serves well as a base under the identification stripes of aircraft and as a warning finish on emergency service vehicles.

Application

Rich oranges cover worst of all the color families, because they lack the black or white pigment that would hide the surface beneath. It pays to put a white or pale yellow base under them; applied straight onto a dark area you would be building them up in four coats. The binder is thinned with water or with the maker's own product, and a sister version with a retarder extends the drying time, which you will appreciate when blending transitions wet.

Combinations in the palette

The best result comes from the sequence dark red, this orange, yellow and finally white in the very core of the fire. Anyone painting exhausts can reverse the order and start from the core outward. For sparks and flying embers it is stippled on with the tip of the brush and left to stand out against a dark surface, so that a tiny dot reads as red-hot.