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Painting Skin Tones & Faces

Discussion in 'Miniatures' started by Golem2God, Oct 13, 2019.

  1. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    As the title states, I'm looking for any recipes or tips on how the people/painters on this forum get their preferred skin tones for their models. I'm currently having trouble getting a tone that works for European but any tips on how to accomplish African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Indian, Latino, Native American, Islander is also appreciated.

    If someone has made a thread like this before I haven't seen it or I'm overlooking where it is.
    Any comments or critiques are welcomed.
     
  2. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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  3. Sangarn

    Sangarn TRIUMcorp CEO
    Warcor

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    Fumiko got some flesh if you want asian skin tone (I think my recipe is from master Lefrank :p)

    in Vallejo number, the names are in french on my stuff so don't expect to get exactly the same name on your paints I'm doing the translation ^^

    Base is 860(average flesh)+819(irak sand)

    Next is a wash with 803(brown pink)+874(dark earth)
    go light on those two, there will be used also as shades

    highlight from 819(irak sand) to 928 (light flesh)

    Final highlight is pure 928 (light flesh)
     
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  4. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    I've seen this many times before but it still is a good source to look up. Thanks for linking this.
    Thank you for the picture and the color recipe. I think I have all those colors except for the Brown Pink and Light Flesh. I think I
    'll try the base colors first and see how the skin turns out.
     
  5. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    The most important thing to remember is that "skin tone" isn't a single color. I'm not even talking about different ethnicities; on a single person, skin is a very rich and complex mix of tones.

    When I'm painting human skintones for something like Infinity (where most models have relatively little exposed skin) I'll usually go with a fairly straightforward base color / wash / highlight approach. The important part to remember is to ensure you're getting lots of interesting tonality in there.

    Use rich colors that contain a bunch of components in the red/brown/yellow spectrum, rather than just some sort of generic barbie plastic color. I'm not going to drop a lot of names, but one of my favorites is P3 Bloodstone. It's not even one of their official fleshtones, but it can be a great base for a wide variety of skin colors.

    When using a wash, don't just stick to the one labeled "flesh". Brown, sepia, red, etc. can all produce valid skintones if used thoughtfully. It's about creating an interesting mix, and you can use different washes with the same base to make a bunch of variations.

    The most important thing is to remember that people come in a lot of different colors and to not feel constrained when playing around with finding combinations that you think look good.
     
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  6. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    I'm at least going for a base+wash. Therefore doing a bit of highlighting might be possible even though I'm currently not good at it.
    I remember this from watching videos on the subject. Nice to know about Bloodstone but how/why exactly is it a great skin base in your opinion? Is it easy to achieve a good amount of skin tones from using it as a base?
    I already used Vallejo Chocolate Brown for an African base of practicing and I think it does the job well. I just have to practice more and get comfortable using it.
     
  7. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    It's a very rich brown with a lot of red in it and is quite versatile. By combining it with different washes or mixing in other colors to lighten or darken it you can make a huge range of skintones. It's by no means unique in this way, but I find it to be a great tool despite not looking like a basic skin color right out of the pot. It's not necessarily unique in this, but it's one of my personal favorites. I'm not familiar with Vallejo's chocolate, but one of my complaints of a lot of browns is that they lack the warm red/yellow tones that actual skin tends to have.
     
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  8. maru

    maru Well-Known Member

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    No



    You would probably preffere if i type more then just no ;)
    so you may buy a lot of "flash skin " paints and none look like a skin :P
    skin colour is a mix of a lot of things
    what is a good base for skin : well i woud say Green or blue (can be purple )
    for caucasian (white - type of white skin but not all whites would actualy be acaucasian )
    it is yellow ochra + red + white (you will end with pinkish beyge ) if you mix it your selve on pallet you already get most gradiant required
    but if you get a ready one - you have no idea what they mix in it so no clue what will hapend if you glaze lets say red
    look at this tutorial about water colours

    - thous are your glazes colours (not washes - glazes )

    in tersm of black skin - again there is nothing like universal black skin - there is this browny colours - so just make it brown - and make it interesting adding cold blue in shadows and warm tones in highlights (or in reverse if global light on mini is cold )
    but there is this jest black skin - en is hard to do - as long as you do not figure out you paint it actualy with blue and red and start of purple as a base and mix in a green for highlights
    o and there is plenty in between a redish one and a yellowish one ect

    for Asians - they are not Yellow (whites are not white and blacks is not black - even albino are not white ) do not paint them yellow
    i know Asians that are whiter compared to me and some that are darker then ppl consider "black"
    easest way for "generic light Asian" start with nice yelowish green as a base colour - and then paint a white person - for female add rosy for chicks and a bit more white for highlights - to get this effect that Korean and Chinise girls are after .
    unless you are about Japanise burned by sun - yes they get yellowish tan (all i meat do not like this hue so they do not tan - or make a fake tan that is not in this hue )
     
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  9. KedzioR_vo

    KedzioR_vo Well-Known Member
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    I usually prefer to mix many different colors. As Maru wrote earlier, skin is far from being universally colored ;)
    Still there are some nice sets of paints and I have to recommend Reaper Master Series if you want something more precise. They offer few triads of color, like Fair Skin (with Fair Shadow and Fair Highlight), Dark Skin (with Dark Shadow and Dark Highlight) and more. Propably my favourite is Rosy Skin for European people and Tanned for my Haqqislam guys ;)


    PozdRawiam / Greetings
     
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  10. maru

    maru Well-Known Member

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    that is what you get if you mix Yellow ochra + red + white ;)
    other one would be ochra + chocolate brown and a bit of white :)

    but ye Reaper triads are nice easy solution - you may also go for skin set paints by Andrea or Vallejo or scale 75
     
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  11. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Beat me to it!

    Though I went lazy and bought all the Reaper Master Series fleshtone triads. And the various P3 skin tones, and a bunch of others and ... (I'm a terrible paint-buyer, nearly an addiction).

    Though you will also want a good Flesh Wash or the Citadel Contrast fleshtones.

    I don't bother painting eyes, I just leave the washed shadows alone. I mean, a 28mm mini at 3 feet away is the same 'size' as a 6-foot person about 65yards away, and you cannot see eyes that far away.
     
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  12. Mob of Blondes

    Mob of Blondes Well-Known Member

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    Section9 and Golem2God like this.
  13. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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    "Hey nice! Haven't commented in Data Sphere in a while, let's say somethi.... I already did..." :joy:
    As usual i'm faster than me :joy:
    Still, that's a good version of only the recipes, helpful complementary reference!
     
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  14. Wizzy

    Wizzy Well-Known Member

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    On the french forum, here, we have listed all A. Giraldez's free tutorials and created an index.
    Peau = Skin
     
  15. jherazob

    jherazob Well-Known Member

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    This is very very thorough! Has anyone considered the idea of having offline mirrors of all this in case something goes wrong and things go down? Doubly so for the Facebook posts, The Zuck is a fickle android
     
  16. Wizzy

    Wizzy Well-Known Member

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    Yes, it is compiled in pdf, the day the links will fail, I will have to send an email in English to the master, for the moment the pdf stays secret.
    (He already deleted tutorials for his books, took them back to be more detailed into books, so the pdf is not be shared for this reason).
    Hard to write in english at 23h ^^
     
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  17. FireFangs

    FireFangs Space Oni

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    I personally go with just Vallejo skin tones and I find them satisfying. I suppose it dépends on just how realistic you want to go but I find that for 28mm scale, a hyper realistic skin tone isn't necessary. As you increase in scale though I can see the necessity for it.

    So Vallejo + wash (I honestly always forget to wash but it still works).
     
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  18. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Dude, that is AWESOME!!!

    Says something about how long it's been since I was on datasphere that this is the first time I've seen it... :cold_sweat:


    Yeah, that's why I usually just do Reaper Triad shade, wash, Reaper Triad shade 1st highlight, Reaper Triad mid 2nd highlight, mix of Reaper Triad mid and highlight 3rd highlight (because the Reaper Triad highlights are a big jump up from the mid). The only time I go all the way up to the pure Reaper Triad highlight is for female faces, and that's because I start with the Triad mid as the base color. Usually all thinned out to be a bit translucent, which makes each highlight less obvious.
     
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  19. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Sounds like that might be a good purchase for the future. I'll see how mixing goes and take it from there.
     
  20. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Despite all my other flesh-tone paints, my go-to are the Reaper Master Series triads. I bought all ~30 of them in one go, back when I could throw a $100 at paint and not care. I maybe could have skipped the Dark Elf flesh triad (it's D&D Drow purple tones), but I've seen some of the African refugees around town with a kinda purplish highlight to their skin color. Otherwise, there is a triad for pretty much every ethnicity out there. Scandahooligan (or redhead) pale, Mediterranean 'olive', oriental 'yellow', First Nations 'red', you name it.
     
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