Does anyone have any tips and tricks for painting blue, or red, cloth? I can never seem to choose the right color combos for layering or highlighting these colors.

I prefer to use extreme highlights.
For red cloth:
* Scab red
* Black wash x2
* Highlight with Scab red
* Higlight with scab red and blood red
* Highlight blood red
* Highlight with orange

Thanks for the tip. I've done that with armor before and it came out well. But for cloth, I'm looking for something more subdued.

A dark colour of your choice + a lighter one, using a good amount of thinner/water and many layers. I think that the colours dont matter all that much, as long as you mix them without going overboard.

I painted a haldir the other month with a red cloak, I dont think I even mixed the colours, just used red gore (Vall. Game Col) and highlighted with Red (Vall Mod Col). This turned out very well - which surprised even me, but I think it was all because I intentionally thinned down the paints where in the past I would have just whacked it on.

So:
Do the base colour
Wash if you want to to give a further colour gradient.
Mix and thin down paints
Apply paint to tip of the brush only (do 1/2 strokes on a clean bit of palette before starting to mix the water and paint in the brush)
Apply paint to the highest point first then move in towards the folds, stopping before you get all the way/once you are unable to control the brush completely.
Move onto a new fold of cloth to give time to dry.
If you thin the paints they dry much faster so it doesn't take much longer to do 3-4 layers as you would think.

Hope this helps, hope others give advice as I am not a pro

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The first thing is how bright you want the finish.
If I'm going for a bright red I will undercoat in white then paint the area with a mid tone, as has been said, several thin coats to get a smooth finish.
From here I use a dark colour to build up the shaded area, the more layers, the darker the colour.
Likewise for the lighter areas, multiple thin layers to build up the contrast.
You can go suprisingly light for the highest points. For example, look how many top painters will highlight blue to pure white.

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