Jolly Redd is one of Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ latest editions. However, the Foxy villager can be a bit sly. Here’s a guide to making sure you’re always getting your bells worth when you buy his art.
Redd is one of a couple new visitors added in Animal Crossing’s Earth Day update. However, unlike his counterpart Lief, he’s a lot more conniving.
Redd tries to trip up players into picking up his fake art, which is basically worthless, instead of his museum-worthy replicas of real life paintings and statues. To make sure you aren’t scammed, we’ve got a guide so you can pick the good from the bad.
How to get access to Redd
There’s a few conditions you’ll need to meet to get Redd showing up on your island’s shores. He rocks up on the Treasure Trawler, docking on the North beach. You’ll need access to a few ladders to get down to him, unless you’ve done some massive terraforming.
Before that, you’ll need to pique his interest in the first place, and that means entertaining Blathers. The museum muse will take some warming up to the art world, but after around 60 additions to the repertoire of the gallery, he will start getting interested in Redd’s goods.
Once Isabelle starts mentioning Redd in her morning announcements, you’ll know the Fox is on your shores that day, and you’ll be able to buy art off him.
Fake art vs real art in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Redd’s first piece of art will always be genuine. However, he will charge you an exorbitant amount of bells for it. Decline the first offer, and take it up for 5,000 on the second time around to get the best bang for your buck.
From there, it becomes a guessing game — at least if you aren’t an art major. Redd will slip in some fake art with his genuine art, and as we know, Blathers only accepts the best.
While you’ll get the chance to look at all of Redd’s art before buying, you might not know what to look for.
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While we don’t have a full list of defects on the fake art, we can help you with some pointers as he keeps rocking up on our shores.
Anything that looks remotely damaged, like the coffee stain on the top-right of “Academic Painting” (modeled on Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man) will be an instant reject.
Some of the fake art is more subtle though — from the raised eyebrows on “Famous Painting” (aka Mona Lisa) to the long bangs on “Basic Painting” (based on Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy). These small changes can slip up even the most studious art history major.
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If you want to check out some more examples, ‘WayneMei’ on Twitter has compiled more than 20 of Redd’s artworks in their in-real-life form, and the defects you need to look out for.
https://twitter.com/WayneMei/status/1253345616018771968
You can sell the real paintings, or donate them to the museum — the choice is yours. However, with the fakes, your options are much more limited. You can choose to ditch them, or hang them on your wall.
Some of the fake art is pretty amusing though, so you might want to keep it. Be careful of hanging in public though, as it can tank your island and house rating. Storing them in your basement can remove the risk of this entirely.
