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After a little dabbling with the Dark Vengeance Dark Angels marines this weekend, I managed to have a crack at doing Sergeant Raphael. It's coming along well but the thing that seems to be stumping me is the face. How do I make it look good?

Can find lots of tutorials online through a simple search. Here's an article GW put out back in the day:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2570007_PaintingFacesMasterclass.pdf

Note that the colors mentioned are the old citadel colors, so you'll have to adapt to the new ones

This is in my opinion one of the easiest ways to paint flesh. try to make sure that any flesh parts are primed white then paint on a very thin later of a light flesh tone and i mean very thin as to not ruin the small details. then put a light wash of a 1to1 mix of reikland fleshshade and water after that dries then do another wash of a 1to1 seraphim sepia and water. the eyes are the hardest part i don't really know a trick to that i just do white with a tiny black speck and i usually do that before the washes just keep practicing. keep up the good work!

I tell you how i do it on my Imperial guard minis. i think it looks quite good.
basecoat black then a covering layer of your favored flesh tone (i use tallarn flesh), wash it with ogryn flesh (my prefered wash for skin) and then i drybrush it with very very little colour of tallarn flesh.
after that i paint the eyes and wash only the eyes with ogryn flesh.
i like the citadel colours for skin, they are indeed quite good. of course you can use similar colours of other vallejo or whatever.
if you have the new citadel colours use the closest to the old ones. they look quite similar.

I think the method you use depends on whether you want a light or dark skin tone.

If your going for a darker or tanned skin tone reikland flesh works well for shading.

Im trying out a light skin tone for some daemonettes at the moment that just uses a white undercoat with thin layers of Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Wych flesh to add depth to shaded areas with a very light drybrush of white for raised areas. Using a wash for that skin tone was a bit too strong.

you will need atleast 3 paints and a wash. (although i dont know any of the new colors) start with a purple-ish basecoat (or mix purple with your skintone) and apply that in a thin but even layer on the face.
then apply a thin layer of your skin tone over the entire face, leaving the deepest recesses (like the hairline, edges of the face near bionics.
then give the entire face a diluted purple wash (1:1 wash:water)
then hit the area's where the wash pulled away completely with a light bone color

dont bother painting eyes, and you can maybe paint teeth if they are showing with the same bone color as you used for the highlitghts if his mouth is open give it a red wash (dont paint it red, wont look good!)

This tutorial changed my life:

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-paint-rich-skin-tones-and-their.html

Aside from the tutorials above, you also need to learn brush control and thinning your paints. You can read all the tutorials in this world but it wouldn't help you if you can't control your brush properly.

I usually do a white base coat, then built up layers of Flesh wash and brown wash.

Reikland Fleshshade, then Agrax Earthshade, followed by more Reikland Fleshshade. Not too much wash on the brush, keep it relatively thin. After about 4/5 layers, you have a rather nice and easy skin tone. If you productionline paint, you can easily do 5 at a time, giving enough time for the wash to dry.

Here is an example using the technique mentioned above:


The mini you have done in the OP looks like a good start point. 4/5 washes of Reikland Fleshshade will do it well. (Note that it looks terrible up untill the final wash so stick with it).

Its also worth mentioning, that you can swap the layers of Reikland Flesh with Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil, depending on how dark you want the skin tone to be. Reikland flesh and agrax earthsade will usually give you a white skin tone. Play around with the different colours and see what you like.

Post a pic when you do get the face done

I go with the following:

Black Base Coat
Rhinox Hide Layer
Tallarn Flesh Everywhere except recesses.
Kislev Flesh Highlight
Agrax Earthshade Wash
Kislev Flesh extreme highlight

Example:

Many thanks for all of your advice so far ladies n gents

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all and I trust you all had good holidays.

Soo I went back and had another stab at the fleshy details on Sergeant Raphael... Here is the result...

That's a great job there man!

Paints used were as follows-

Bugmans Glow x2 (base)
Reikland flesh wash
Cadian Fleshtone
Kislev Flesh
A very small amount of Nuln Oil for the facial stubble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 heartserenade wrote:
Aside from the tutorials above, you also need to learn brush control and thinning your paints. You can read all the tutorials in this world but it wouldn't help you if you can't control your brush properly.

Yes well, thanks for your input. Practice makes perfect doesn't it?