Flesh and Skin Tones

Well, I've finally finished my first painting guide. This one will be a little short, since it deals with a relatively narrow subject.

I've experimented throughout the last few years with various mentods for painting flesh tones. This has always been the most difficult part of a miniature for me, as errors show up very easily.

To start off, I have a cleaned and primed miniature ready to paint. For priming I either like to use an airbrushed coat of ModelFlex Sountern Pacific Letter Grey, occasionally a spray can of Floquil grey primer (now sadly out of production) or more recently a brushed on thinned coat of Ral Partha's white primer. I originally didn't like the brush-on primer at all, but after thinning it 60/40 with water it gives a very thin and even coat, while still acting as a good surface for the paint to stick to. Other than large batches where I still use the airbrush I'll be sticking with Ral Partha's primer ffrom now on.

Step 1: Basecoat

Now that I have a primed figure to start with, it's time for the basecoat. I use primarily Ral Partha paints, with a few Polly Scale and various other mixed in. For this excercise I will be using only Ral Partha paints and Liquitex paint extender. Specifically I will be using the following:

The basecoat starts with a layer of Caucasian. Most of Ral Partha's flesh colors are a bit chalky, so I paint the basecoat in a series of layers more like thick washes than anything else. Depending on the detail level and my paitence, I usually paint between 2 and 5 layers before I'm happy with the results. In this stage I am not terribly concerned with keeping "within the lines" as it were. Since the paint is a light color and relatively thin I don't worry about it too much.

Step 2: Wash

After the basecoat has dried, I will apply the wash. This is where I had the most trouble in the past. Using water (even with a tiny amount of detergent to break up the surface tension) I would always get a wash that died splotchy. This generally looked fine for things like weapons and clothing, but made all skin tones look grainy. While sometimes acceptable for the "grizzled warrior" I didn't like the look it gave on the "fair maiden."

Luckily I discovered Liquitex Slo-Dri. It was originally suggested to me by Laszlo Jakusovszky for use in blending. For those of you not familiar with extenders, it is basically a water-thin liquid that you can add to acrylic paint to extend the drying time. This is used often (I am led to believe) by artists who want to mix acrylics on their pallet.

At any rate, one of the additional properties of this extender is that it makes an excellent wash. I mix it to about the same consistency as a normal water wash (approximately the consistence of skim milk) and brush it on as usual. It takes forever to dry (several hours if left to sit alone, several minutes under the 60W bulb I use as an impromptu "oven") but the results are fantastic. The color always leaves a smooth gradation from the highlights to the shadows with none of the graininess I've encountered using water washes.

For this miniature I wanted to give her relatively fair skin, so I started the wash with Sun Tan. I usually try to keep my washes on the thin side, since you add a second wash much easier than repainting the whole thing if the wash is too heavy. After the wash had dried, I was not happy with the results, the highlights were too subdued. So, I gave her another wash with Dunkel Braun. This one worked to my liking, giving me deep enough shadows.

Step 3: Drybrush

This step is one that I often omit, but in some cases it is necessary. Usually I only use this technique when something goes wrong with the wash. Rather than a traditional drybrush where you want to start with a completely dry brush and clean off most of the paint, I actually use a slightly damp brush. Again I will use Liquitex Slo-Dri rather than water, dipping a little paint onto the brush, followed by a little extender then wiping most of it off before applying it to the miniature. This gives a more smooth coat than traditional drybrushing but if you're not careful it can get into the cracks. I generally use it to clean up large flat areas like her legs and forearms.

Step 4: Outline

This is a stage that I only sill skip if I'm in a hurry or the wash worked better than expected. Usually it's worth taking the time for this, but as you can probably see by the photos, the difference can be minor.

I outlined this miniature using Dunkel Braun, the same color as the last wash. Again I am going to use a little bit of Slo-Dri on my pallet and a very thin brush. I dip the brush in the paint, then dip it again in the extender. This thins the paint to somewhere thicker than a wash but thinner than I would normally use. All of the boundary areas (edges between skin and clothing) are outlined in this way, as well as between the fingers, around the eyes and in this case along the cheekbones.