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The model will have a base olive skintone (like most of my models). What
color or effect should I try to achieve in painting the skin brand on his back?
It's sculpted in, so it's not like I can ignore it.

Thanks for any advice.

Scars are universally lighter than the skintone.
Before you do your washes to finish your skin tone, I would mix a little bleached bone to your base coat of skin color and do two or three very light watery coats of paint over the top.
Then, blend it all back in with a wash over the top. This will darken it back down and blur the edges of the scar into the skin.

Basically, just paint it a little lighter, bordering on whitish.


Now, larger more puckered scars will often be darker in the center of the scar. This comes from the melanin in the skin being effectively doubled in the center as the two halves of the destroyed skin come together (think mountains). If you'd like, you could darken the skin pigment and lay a very small bead in the center of the scar. The above advice should also work, but the scar would look more convincing if you took this extra step.

Doomthumbs wrote:Scars are universally lighter than the skintone.
Before you do your washes to finish your skin tone, I would mix a little bleached bone to your base coat of skin color and do two or three very light watery coats of paint over the top.
Then, blend it all back in with a wash over the top. This will darken it back down and blur the edges of the scar into the skin.

Basically, just paint it a little lighter, bordering on whitish.


Now, larger more puckered scars will often be darker in the center of the scar. This comes from the melanin in the skin being effectively doubled in the center as the two halves of the destroyed skin come together (think mountains). If you'd like, you could darken the skin pigment and lay a very small bead in the center of the scar. The above advice should also work, but the scar would look more convincing if you took this extra step.

Basically this.

Only thing I have to add is that if you want a livid scar/burn a mix of flesh tone with a dash (literally a tiny amount) of scab red and/or liche purple or equivalent looks nice and angry

Doomthumbs wrote:Scars are universally lighter than the skintone.
Before you do your washes to finish your skin tone, I would mix a little bleached bone to your base coat of skin color and do two or three very light watery coats of paint over the top.
Then, blend it all back in with a wash over the top. This will darken it back down and blur the edges of the scar into the skin.

Basically, just paint it a little lighter, bordering on whitish.


Now, larger more puckered scars will often be darker in the center of the scar. This comes from the melanin in the skin being effectively doubled in the center as the two halves of the destroyed skin come together (think mountains). If you'd like, you could darken the skin pigment and lay a very small bead in the center of the scar. The above advice should also work, but the scar would look more convincing if you took this extra step.

Do you think feathering the highlights on either end of the puckered skin will
achieve the same effect as beading the center?

Also, will any of the purplish/red from the brand extend much beyond where
the brand touched the skin?

malfred wrote:
Do you think feathering the highlights on either end of the puckered skin will
achieve the same effect as beading the center?

Also, will any of the purplish/red from the brand extend much beyond where
the brand touched the skin?

Yes, that would work as well, and may be what I meant. The darker color would go down first, and then the scar color, then skin tone. If you want to feather it out, that would definitely work as well. It would even look better, IMO.
Paint the scar first, as any mistakes can be covered up by painting the skin. Especially so with your olive tone.

Really, that depends. The way skin reacts to damage is as varied as the skintones/ other genetic markers. A hemophiliacs skin would have a huge bruise, a cows skin not so much. Timelapse since the scar/band is also a factor. After a year, most of my scars fade to pretty white scar tissue. I have one (from when a oleander I was tying back had the jute pop and the tree opened a nasty gash) that still is a little red 3 months later. A huge scar will take longer to fade to the whitish scar tissue color, smaller ones heal faster.

I don't know the mini you're painting, but most of the figs I've seen represent a dude who is not to be messed with. That is to say they're tough and most likely will have a constitution that reflects that, rather than taking a long time to heal.

On which planet exactly ate scars "universally" lighter?
Scars large enough to be of note on a 25mm mini are much more likely to be darker emphasizing the underlying skin tone in concentrated pigmentation.
http://www.hidescars.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/41309913a982531.jpg
It may not be ideal but nipples will tell you basically what color scars should be. You decide how to find various skintypes nipple color on your own.

This would be earth, where over time the red/purple of any scar slowly fades to pink, then white.

This is because scar tissue is lacking on melanin, the chemical that makes skin pigmented. Scars are essentially albino flesh.

The picture you posted is recent skin damage. His scars will take longer to fade because of their size and his skinny white boy constitution. A Masai tribesman's scar will fade from it's purple/black hue to white over time, as is true of most any scar.

Mental scars, such as those that cause negative posting on Internet fora, have no pigmentation either. But that is because they are only memories. Deep-seated, woefull memories of other times when you felt inadequate.

Middle close-up. This is the Privateer Press studio model.

Mine won't look nearly as good.

Doomthumbs wrote:This would be earth, where over time the red/purple of any scar slowly fades to pink, then white.

This is because scar tissue is lacking on melanin, the chemical that makes skin pigmented. Scars are essentially albino flesh.

The picture you posted is recent skin damage. His scars will take longer to fade because of their size and his skinny white boy constitution. A Masai tribesman's scar will fade from it's purple/black hue to white over time, as is true of most any scar.

Mental scars, such as those that cause negative posting on Internet fora, have no pigmentation either. But that is because they are only memories. Deep-seated, woefull memories of other times when you felt inadequate.

ORLY?
her scars aren't exactly fresh
http://www.corbisimages.com/images/CJ003671.jpg?size=67&uid=67dc6bdd-8e4c-4765-8eb0-c2a315e43ad8
Neither are hers
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1105873
Hers are essentially the same color
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhqmotBE2d1qaeccq.jpg
His are not
http://www.google.com/m/search?site=images&source=mog&hl=en&gl=us&client=safari&q=Asian%20scarification&sa=N#i=132

There are no hard and fast rules for scarring, but to say they are universally lighter is demonstrably untrue. While I appreciate your free psychiatric advise; I believe that if I were looking for mental help the last place I would go was a cabal of men and women who play with small toy soldiers. I would suggest refraining from forays into behavioral health and stick to the toy soldiers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you are basing your colors off that picture the base flesh is Rynn flesh and the scar is Midlund flesh. Both from privateer press. With a red gore like wash around the scar.

I'm not. I'm just showing them the model.

A red wash, huh? That's an easy solution, though.

Also, aren't some of the scars you're showing might be pressed
in with stuff to make them darker? I was reading some of
that in preparation for this model.

well Midlund is the redder of the two skintones it would be best to go undercoat, dark skin, light skin, wash, wash for the scar, scar skin. The edges should be about the same color as the main skin tone maybe lighter by being stretched, the main scar for olive skin probably a little darker. in GW it would be more like elf flesh, washed with a brownish wash, and dwarf flesh for the scar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh there's dozens of ways that ritual scarrification is done. it depends on weather the are raised or undercut, accidental, burns, cuts, whips. Some are tucked with pearls or seashells. It all depends on the nature of the scarring.

See how the highest ridges are mostly white, with some of them being darker than the angry large swathes in between?
That's what I'm talking about. Parts where the brand was unevenly applied or where it curves/angles will have scar tissue folded with damaged skin, making it darker due to the multiple folds of melanin packed skin. The skin around and between these main ridges is the skin that still has a shot at healing, so it will be that angry red tissue.

Looking at that model, I'd say that painting it the skintone plus white, mottled with the darker skintone at the cross tips , then paint the regular flesh. Highlight back over with the lighter tone, feathering it away from the ridges, followed by successive washes with a watered down purply red.

Good luck, and don't sell yourself short.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

malfred wrote:I'm not. I'm just showing them the model.

A red wash, huh? That's an easy solution, though.

Also, aren't some of the scars you're showing might be pressed
in with stuff to make them darker? I was reading some of
that in preparation for this model.

This. I was referring to scars caused by burning/ branding, as OP asked for. Scars that are cuts with ash rubbed in it will be black, yes. You know, from the ash inclusions, similar to a tattoo?
Some of the scars Dudeguy posted, most notably the third one down (and all of the ones you'll find that are from burns that have healed), are lighter than the skin around it, with ribbons of white scar tissue in the middle.

AustonT wrote:

Doomthumbs wrote:This would be earth, where over time the red/purple of any scar slowly fades to pink, then white.

This is because scar tissue is lacking on melanin, the chemical that makes skin pigmented. Scars are essentially albino flesh.

The picture you posted is recent skin damage. His scars will take longer to fade because of their size and his skinny white boy constitution. A Masai tribesman's scar will fade from it's purple/black hue to white over time, as is true of most any scar.

Mental scars, such as those that cause negative posting on Internet fora, have no pigmentation either. But that is because they are only memories. Deep-seated, woefull memories of other times when you felt inadequate.

ORLY?
her scars aren't exactly fresh
http://www.corbisimages.com/images/CJ003671.jpg?size=67&uid=67dc6bdd-8e4c-4765-8eb0-c2a315e43ad8
Neither are hers
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1105873
Hers are essentially the same color
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhqmotBE2d1qaeccq.jpg
His are not
http://www.google.com/m/search?site=images&source=mog&hl=en&gl=us&client=safari&q=Asian%20scarification&sa=N#i=132

There are no hard and fast rules for scarring, but to say they are universally lighter is demonstrably untrue. While I appreciate your free psychiatric advise; I believe that if I were looking for mental help the last place I would go was a cabal of men and women who play with small toy soldiers. I would suggest refraining from forays into behavioral health and stick to the toy soldiers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you are basing your colors off that picture the base flesh is Rynn flesh and the scar is Midlund flesh. Both from privateer press. With a red gore like wash around the scar.

Most of your demonstrative examples are tribal in nature..... And I can in fact, guarantee that anyone having scar-tissue will not naturally have darker scars, because those people will likely have sought immediate medical treatment or kept the wound clean. Your referencing tribal scars as proof of being right, and the dickweed attitude is not appreciable. When you consider that the ritual of scarring comes from africa, and one of the main reasons it was practiced was because the lighter skin-tone produced from the scarring was more effective than attempting any tattoos. Further ritualization of scarring/cutting can lead to the darker scars. How? Well, putting ash/clay in the scar is really quite painful, and for some people has religious or social siginificance, either the purifying nature of the pain, or the status symbol, or the proof that one can take the pain thereby proving strength.... or whatever other reason someone deems fit... and the side result is the darker coloration of scar tissue (also of why some of the scars puffed out like that after healing). As for the bright red, I will bet that those are fresh.

That being said, Menoth do look like the type to be entirely insane, so I'm with AustonT on this one and that guy needs darker scars, and the scars on the model look an angry fresh color. I don't think you could succeed in getting that kind of color without involving a purple somewhere near the base

This is what I have so far.

The only issue I see is that the bruise/burn extends too far down between the two branches of the cross, and not high enough on the shoulder.

I think the color is great.

Ah, I can fix that. I'll probably just highlight/layer over the extended area.

I'd take it a little higher on the shoulders but leave the other parts as is. I bet that sucker caused a bit of internal bleeding, and there is s body cavity there which would fill more easily with blood.
I still say that the scars should have at least ribbons of white on them but it looks great as is.
Nice work on the model!

Final.

This was my crack at painting scars:



Basically I went for a scar that is still healing/partially healed.

All I did was painted the skin tone as normal, then after the final highlight stage, grabbed some dark flesh and painted over the scar, but before the paint was dry just dabbed my finger on it to pull some paint off, which allowed some of the original skin colour to come through.

Winter wrote:This was my crack at painting scars:



Basically I went for a scar that is still healing/partially healed.

All I did was painted the skin tone as normal, then after the final highlight stage, grabbed some dark flesh and painted over the scar, but before the paint was dry just dabbed my finger on it to pull some paint off, which allowed some of the original skin colour to come through.

Thanks.
Good technique!