Washes and faces / eyes

[Kurhanik]

Most of the models I have painted up so far have had full helmets on, so I have had to paint practically no fleshy bits.  However I got my hand on some steel legion for fairly cheap a bit ago though, and most of them have visible eyes/forehead areas, which has given me practice on how to do eyes at least.

 

The question is mainly: for a quick wash to add depth, what is the best to do with skin?  Should I go with a fleshy colored wash like Reikland Fleshshade?  Or would I be able to get away with a tiny bit of a darker shade like Nuln Oil if I think it down enough? 

 

The second question is, would it be safe to add a bit of shade to the eyes, or would that just ruin them?  I'd rather not have to redo them if just leaving them well enough alone turns out to be the best option.

[Evil Eye]

Really it depends on the tone you want. I'd avoid Nuln Oil as it might make them look a bit necrotic. For darker skin I'd suggest Agrax Earthshade, for medium skin Reikland Fleshshade and for lighter shades Seraphim Sepia. Eyes can be shaded but I'd recommend thinning it down with a bit of medium and possibly retouching the eyes afterwards,

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

For human skin tones you'll probably just want to stick with Seraphim Sepia, Reikland Fleshshade, or Agrax Earthshade. Very thin Nuln Oil is also useful for painting military buzzcut hair on the sides and back of the head, and facial stubble but not as an overall flesh wash, IMO, unless extremely thin and combined with one of the brown washes.

 

For eyes, I personally think not painting the eyes and just letting the wash define the features looks best. After cleaning up the head, the wash makes it look like they are squinting, because it's incredibly difficult to paint the whites of eyes to look well. It pretty much never looks right unless you do it perfectly.

 

Here's an image demonstrating how the color of your wash will affect the face, and you can modulate around the wash color via your flesh paints. It also shows the "wash only for eyes" technique. It looks a lot better than most failed eye painting attempts, IMO, but obviously only works on very gruff or masculine faces. You will probably need to practice painting eyes for female heads.

 

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_-HZLorI1B0w/SxREiTDxeqI/AAAAAAAAJ0c/IEjGwaqwLyw/40k%20painting%20pale%20skin%20step%20by%20step.jpg

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-HZLorI1B0w/TTISpOy9U4I/AAAAAAAAMwE/Ytm8YLXn9Sk/s800/Painting%20Dark%20Eldar%20pale%20skin%20tutorial%20adding%20white.jpg

 

Taken from here:

 

Bright Skin

Pale Human Skin

Pale Xenos Skin

 

You can easily replace the greys and flesh colors with your own paint colors.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Tyberos the Red Wake

[Kurhanik]

Thanks for the advice guys, and those links look to be very helpful.  I didn't even think of Agrax Earthshade, and a dab of that should be perfect!

 

The links look interesting as well, and I'll probably be digging through their pointers for awhile now and see what works for me, so thanks for new resource.

[appiah4]

I would certainly not recommend Agrax, that thing is a blackish brown not even a reddish brown like a proper flesh wash. Regardless any wash you paint on skin will need a lot of layer highlights.

Wash in eyesockets is how I do eyes.

Edited September 13, 2017 by appiah5

[Lorenzen]

faces are generally the focal point of the miniature in my opinion. for "basic" infantry sometimes less is more and leaving things like the eyes as just a bit of shadow can sometimes be more beneficial than painting on googly eyes with a thousand yard stare. However if you are a maniac/obsessive over such things they can bring your painting up to another level.

 

on steel legion I'd consider how much flesh is on show, what the colours around it are and try to add some contrast into the skin.. so if the gas mask is a darker brown I would go for a lighter skin tone to make it stand out a little more etc etc.

 

in terms of washes, reikland flesh shade can be very useful for basic skin colours, but in the long run you will want to add more depth to the skin itself as the shadows wont all be one colour.. For example a lot of painters will add glazes of blue around the eye sockets before painting the eyes in (Forge Worlds Fulgrim is a good example of this)

 

here are some examples of how i paint faces (most of which i have shaded around the eyes with a dark brown and used glazes of reikland flesh shade and druchii violet over mixes of several skin tone paints to get the effect i wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

As the others have said, you want something roughly skin-coloured ... I'd just say don't be too heavy-handed, and be prepared to add 2 thin washes/glazes instead of 1 heavier one, in case it does too far.

 

GW's painters often use blue, purple, or red glazes around the eye areas (from the WD articles) ...

[Hawklynn]

What would be comparable washes from the Vallejo Model Color range?

[Brother_Gneecapper]

Any tips for painting black skin colors? Using GW painting colors ideally. I have only pale white dudes in my army and want some variety. There are no Duncan painting guides on it that I have seen,

[Stoic Raptor]

Actually, I recall seeing something on Warhammer community for painting some Stormcast guy with dark skin.  I'd post the link but that site is blocked here at work.

[Arkhanist]

• Duncan dark skin tutorial 

• Duncan salamander's (literally black) skin

A few tips and a scheme for black/african skintones.

[Major_Gilbear]

Regarding the Steel Legion figures specifically, I feel that painting the eyes is actually worthwhile. This is because the model has very little face showing, and because the most likely colours will be browns/tans/camo colours, which make it hard for the miniature's face to be the focal point it normally is.

For the skin tone, as there is very little, I would not bother with a wash. I would start from a base flesh colour and they layer on a couple of simple highlights. Once the eyes are painted in, the "face" will be complete.

 

Another suggestion would be to do the faces first. Do the flesh, paint the eyes, then tidy up the flesh around them if required. Then, tidy up around the edge of the face, and move on to painting the rest of the model. This method gives you a few important advantages:

 

• If you're messy with the eyes, you can tidy up around them for not much effort.
• If you somehow screw the face up completely, you won't lose much in stripping the model and starting again.
• It's easier to judge if the eyes are the same size and correctly shaped whilst the rest of the model is still only primed.

 

I paint the faces early on in nearly all my paintjobs for these reasons. When batch-painting, I only do the initial stages on all the models before finishing each model's face one at a time. Fully batch painted faces never look as "natural" as those painted one at a time IMO, and I also find it easier to avoid needing to go back with any corrections too.

[Stoic Raptor]

The paint scheme that was listed with the Stormcast Errant-Questor mini lists:

Rhinox Hide Base,

Nuln Oil shade, 

Gorthor Brown highlight and

Cadian Fleshtone fine highlight.