Skin Recipes

[Dr.Evil]

I use thinned down paints and tenshon breaker in it as well, more layers need to be done but it improved my painting.

Dwarf flesh Base coat.
Add small drop Elf flesh to the Dwarf flesh for each layer and repeat this lots.
Add small drop of white to Elf\Dwarf mix and do final highlights.
A few brown Ink\Paint glazes and redo final highlights with the flesh paint mix, but thin it down more.

The main thing is where the highlights are lightest and where to leave darker as it's in shadow.
Thats the hardest part when painting skin.

[cheddarmonger]

I got my skin recipe from the Reaper Learn-to-paint kit #1, and I'm really really pleased with it.  It works great for barbarian types.

Ingredients:



• Reaper Pro-Paint Oiled Leather
  
• Reaper Pro-Paint Ruddy Flesh
  
• Valejo Game Color or Citidel Miniatures Bone White
  
Instructions:



• Mix up a batch of 1:1 oiled leather and ruddy flesh.  In fact, I pre-mixed a whole bottle of this.  The color comes pretty close to vermin brown, I think...  This is your basecoat.
  
• When dry, wash it down with watered-down oiled leather.  In my opinion, too-dark shadows ruin a skin paintjob; this color is good.  If you want it a tiny bit darker, add just a little black.
  
• When dry, paint the high surfaces with the oiled leather/ruddy flesh mix.
  
• First highlight is straight ruddy flesh.
  
• For the subsequent highlights, add bone white a couple of drops at a time to the ruddy flesh; it will eventually turn into something approaching Elf Flesh, but better.
  
That's all!

Here's a recently-painted example of this technique:

[/list]

[Keeper]

All of my skin recipes are slightly different, as I tend to do them different every time, depending on the complexion I want the model to have.  However, I almost always start with this article:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/go.php/go/articlephp/aid/310?

Its a bugger to print, so if you want a nice Word verion of it, PM me and I'll email you the one I made for myself.

Hope this helps; I find it really useful even for weird sci-fi and fantasy skintones not covered in the tutorial, as you can get an idea for the range and depth of colour needed, even if there is no specific example for blue, red, orange or whatever skin colour.

[Fabian]

I hardly ever use the same skin tone twice (always experimenting!) - Zordana's recipes are v good (esp to practice blending!) her Tiny Souls site.

[Custom_Hobby]

Yep, her site is great http://www.tinysouls.com/

[Agentmolar]

Jenova has some great tips.. pity she isnt active in the mini world for the last few years.
http://www.jenova.dk/

Ive been moving towards GW tanned flesh with a drop of dark angels green to take the pinkness out, then highlighting with dwarf/ elf and white. By playing with the green content, either get a nice tanned brown, or a fresher caucasion skin.

Ive tried the bronzed flesh, bleached bone and flesh wash, but didnt like the look.

Ive tried most of jenovas combinations with some success, especially egyptian.

http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/nubiantutorial.php
ive used a variation on Klutes tute,  (he he couldnt help it) because i didnt have terracotta. After using bestial brown i used bleached bone very lightly mixed with bestial.

Ive also done some asianlike skin, using bestial brown base/ snake bite leather/ very light green ink wash and bleached bone. Came up quite nice.

[Dr.Evil]

I try to do the skin in one go using the same paint mix, so it match's in better.
If you have to remix it then you never get quite the same shade\colour as you were using, the same goe's with any of the other parts i paint.

I forgot i did the Hill Giant differently to what i do now...  :icon_ermm:

Found a few photo's i took at the start, but i stopped as it was slowing me down like mad and making it harder to paint.

Base coat.


First layer.


Second layer.


Third layer.


Last picture i took before finishing him.



I will do another figure like him (smaller one) with lots of skin and take picture's as i do it.

Maybe the Heresy Dwarf houlding two Axe's, and post him with the first one i did.

[Agentmolar]

Cheeky bugger, i think you just like showing him off!!  :icon_suspicious: :icon_w00t:

[cheddarmonger]

My award winning organic orc skin recipe, seen here:



Basecoat, 1:1 Reaper Pro-Paint olive green and reaper pro-paint aged red brick.  Wash with aged red brick, then go over the high areas with a very very thin coat of olive green, layer with thin coats of olive green mixed with increasing amounts of rotten flesh.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Here's my current favourite:

Bestial Brown
Bestial Brown and Reaper Tanned Shadow
Reaper Tanned Shadow
Reaper Tanned Skin
Reaper Tanned Highlight

I sometimes mix mid tones between those last two but I don't need to. I certainly did the mid tones thing for the Rackham dwarf wimmin 'though to soften up the harsh nature of the sculpts and now really wish I'd done it with the Reaper "red" girl too (to soften up that ghoulish haggard cheek that really doesn't fit with her bone structure at all and makes her seem anorexic.

That's my current skin recipe at the moment (a secondary one starting with dark flesh and then working up the Reaper ruddy red skin triad in a similar manner with a half tone going in after the dark flesh so the first transition isn't too harsh. It's how I do my Grymn skins at the moment).

My Khadorans get the Aragorn skin mix from white dwarf 284 (or something around there). It starts with a dark tone (dark flesh and bleached bone) then adds progressive dwarf flesh and eventualy finishes with elf flesh for the final highlights (after mixing up through that). The end result's okay.

Is it alright to post a few pictures here?

[cheddarmonger]

Is it alright to post a few pictures here?

Absolutely, alright, and encouraged.

as long as your picture is hosted on Cheddarmongers

[Dr.Evil]

I don't say this is how to to paint skin just this it is the way i did this skin.


The figure shown to actual size, base coated flesh and finished flesh.



Best thing to prime with is a spray primer, different people like or hate different makes so i will leave what brand to you.
There's black, white and gray primer's but i tend to use gray but that's just the one i like as black can be a bit too dark for me to see the detail's and the shop didn't have any white in.

Paint's used: GW Dwarf flesh, Vallejo model colour basic skintone and GW skull white.
Ink's used : GW brown ink

I allway's water down the paint's and use a tenshon breaker so it might take a few coat's for each layer, i have been told your can use washing up liquid but i haven't tyred it.
I use the same mix of paint from start to finish, so i tend to do the whole skin in one sitting.

1. I started by painting the flesh area's with GW Dwarf flesh as shown in the first picture shown below.


2. I then apply ink glazes to the painted skin area's to darken and shade the recess's and after adding more brown ink i apply it to the place's where i want darker shade's ( Between finger, eye socket's anywhere it needs darker
shade's ) and also where the skin joins other part's like hair\fur, cloth, belt's or anything else as shown in the second picture below.
You can use a dark brown paint instead of the brown ink, just make sure it's thin enough as you don't want it to go too dark.
It's more easy to darken slowly than have to redo it all again.
How much you darken the skin with the brown ink\brown paint is depended on what type of skin you want, Eleve's would have lighter skin and more supple shading than would a barbarian.


3. I redo the GW Dwarf flesh but leave the place's where i want the shade's to be, see the third picture shown below.


4. I then add a tiny bit of Vallejo model colour basic skintone ( you can use Elf flesh for this too ) so it slightly lighter then the layer before.
I apply this the same way as the last layer but leaving the shading and a tiny bit of the last layer, see forth picture.
I redid this for the next five layer's leaving more of the last layer each time, see the fifth picture to the ninth shown below.


5. I now add a tiny amount of GW skull white ( same as i did with the Vallejo model colour basic skintone ) and redid this till i had the highlight's that i wanted as in the tenth and eleventh  picture's shown below.


Picture's of each layer



Close up showing where i applied the highlight's and you can see the difference from the shaded area's to the final highlight's better.
It also shows the imperfection's up great too.  :icon_ermm:

[Keeper]

Thanks for the tutorial wristaction :)  This is great!

[Dr.Evil]

Did more work on wolf boys skin and have to get the last bit's finished and post the pic's.

[Caerban]

I quite like the one I've just used for Waiting for Shadamehr:

Miniature Paints Rust and Tanned Flesh 1:1
MP Tanned Flesh
MP Tanned Flesh and Coffee in small increments until you get to...
MP Coffee then incremental addition of MP Cream up to a final highlight of pure cream.

Then a heavily watered mix of GW Chestnut ink and GW Brown  to deepen a few shadows here and there.