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I feel like I'm stuck in the trap of base coat, wash, base coat colour clean up, highlight. This is how GW teaches it but I've watched many streams and videos where they don't use a wash at all, and glaze in the shadows and I think it looks great. I've ordered 3 Reaper Ogres to try and practise new methods, so I'm interested to hear how you guys do it.

On the minis below, I recall I used a targeted, slightly thinned wash (different wash for each).

My (limited) understanding is that smooth, light transitions and subtle shading/highlights are better.

 MrH86 wrote:
I feel like I'm stuck in the trap of base coat, wash, base coat colour clean up, highlight. This is how GW teaches it but I've watched many streams and videos where they don't use a wash at all, and glaze in the shadows and I think it looks great. I've ordered 3 Reaper Ogres to try and practise new methods, so I'm interested to hear how you guys do it.

Glazing in shadows been my go-to method for larger models. These are some Ogres I painted about a decade ago- apologies for the quality (thanks, Photobucket).



Basically it's all manual highlighting and shading over a base of Tallarn Flesh (a little darker than Cadian Fleshtone, I believe), glazed together where necessary to smooth out the transitions.

It was a ton of work for each model, but every time I try to do a 'quicker and easier' approach, it doesn't work out to my satisfaction. I'm still on the lookout for an alternative.

There is no real quick/easy way of painting flesh well. It's all about building up depth through layers. For regular white skin tones I usually start with bugmans glow. You can then apply a shade or wash to the recesses, especially if you're doing a face. Then I go back over with bugmans glow, and soften some of the starker shadows. Then it's a case of working cadian flesh tone into the BG, then ivory into the CF and working up nice transitions. I also use glazes, not just for shadows either. For example, on faces, classical art generally has green/blue tones in the jaw/chin, due to the prevalence of veins and general shadow. The eyes and ears have red tones, due to them being more flushed with blood in capillary vessels, and upper areas like the forehead will have yellow tones, as this is the most common colour for an overhead light source like the sun. So it can be fun to experiment glazing these colours into your flesh tones for a bit more realism.

One coat of any "skin" color paint
One wash of darker and warmer version of set "skin color"
And then just painting in the contrast, and my favorite pink cheeks with a highlight.


For me, painting in the contrasts is always the best part, so I do not mind the loop.
Although the loop is my own, was never interested in GW step by step, and ended up never learning it :(

I don't use the recognized washes as I find they are either too sharp in tone or too rusty brown, i.e. too unrealistic.
I use vallejo heavy skintone as a base, wash with heavy sienna then mix heavy skintone with bleached bone(or cream or buff)
For darker skin I use Wargames Foundry's triad of African skintone, which works really well, sometimes adding heavy fleshtone to lighten the highlights.

For my dark skinned guardsmen I usually skip the shade and do base + 2 layers.
Rhinox Hide => Doombull Brown =>Tuskor fur for rather dark/reddish Brown

Rhinox Hide => Doombull Brown/Mournfang brown =>Mournfang Brown/Samesi desert (or a similar tone) for more of a cinnamon instead of reddish Brown
Mournfang Brown => Tuskor Fur => Cadian fleshtone + Cassandara Yellow for a slightly orange tinted brown (more in a polynesian direction)


For lighter Skin I do more or less classic Bugmans glow => some shade depending on how dark I want to be (Seraphim Sepia, Agrax Earthshade etc.) => Cadian flesh => Kislev flesh


The results are not award winning but I'm pretty satisfied with them.

Here is one minute job with Contrast paints over Wraithbone. Chaos lady skin painted with Darkoath flesh, Space dude with Guilliman flesh.

I found the best thing to do was not be too prescribed with it and wing it. Start with whatever dark tone you want, and then work up using glazes and blending.

I was trapped in the GW system too and I was getting frustrated because I wasn't improving. I picked up the Scale 75 range and decided to start painting marines without using any washes or citadel paints and it's really helped me break out of the rut I was stuck in.

Glad you posted this thread,

Flesh is something I have struggled with and I am going to practice on some old models with exposed skin over the next few days before I tackle Fabius Biles Face. It’s very small and detailed hence the practice.

I have the classic bugmans Etc but also have the GSW skin set and some Vallejo so will be trying them all.

 Sentineil wrote:
No idea why that image won't work

Because you're linking to a page and not an image.

 catbarf wrote:

 MrH86 wrote:
I feel like I'm stuck in the trap of base coat, wash, base coat colour clean up, highlight. This is how GW teaches it but I've watched many streams and videos where they don't use a wash at all, and glaze in the shadows and I think it looks great. I've ordered 3 Reaper Ogres to try and practise new methods, so I'm interested to hear how you guys do it.

Glazing in shadows been my go-to method for larger models. These are some Ogres I painted about a decade ago- apologies for the quality (thanks, Photobucket).



Basically it's all manual highlighting and shading over a base of Tallarn Flesh (a little darker than Cadian Fleshtone, I believe), glazed together where necessary to smooth out the transitions.

It was a ton of work for each model, but every time I try to do a 'quicker and easier' approach, it doesn't work out to my satisfaction. I'm still on the lookout for an alternative.

These where nice skin tones. Man, I really love the Ogre models.

jullevi wrote:
Here is one minute job with Contrast paints over Wraithbone. Chaos lady skin painted with Darkoath flesh, Space dude with Guilliman flesh.

It was that easy? I am loving cintrats more and more.

Using Contrast paints require some practice but once you learn how they work, they can be really useful. If you are used to basecoat - shade - highlight method, Contrast paints can save the time spent normally basecoating by combining the basecoat and shading. I use them for basecoating but often the end result is so good that I don't have to bother with highlighting at all.

I have found that light Contrast colours (including skin tones) behave better on smooth surfaces than dark colours. It is generally a good idea to use large brush to move the paint faster and prevent it from causing stains. I use Citadel Medium Shade brush almost excusively with Contrast paints.

EDIT: And yes, the skin of both models is one coat of Contrast paint straight from the pot with no additional shading or highlighting. No thinning apart from the water that was left in the brush. The burnished gold armour on the dude is also Contrast paint experiment, Aggaros Dunes over Iron Hands Steel.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Sentineil wrote:
No idea why that image won't work

Because you're linking to a page and not an image.

Cheers. I was trying to use the [ img][ /img] tags but failing.

I find painting skin tones weirdly annoying compared to anything else, and seconding above, I've found the Contrast paints an absolute godsend in that regard, they're just magic for skin. I can get it out of the way and get back to the flouncy livery and dented metal panels I prefer

I'm not totally sold on them in other respects (though I've done some interesting experiments with them over metallics) but for skin tones and maybe little tufts of fur etc they're the bees knees.

Having said that, I've mostly been doing pallid or white complexions, has anyone nailed down a base/contrast combo for dark skin yet?

I think getting a variety of tones in the face makes a big difference (pinks / blues) but you've got to be really subtle glazing them in.

This video does a good job of getting this across. Obviously mere mortals like us aren't going to do all the steps, but it's helped me a lot to realise you can drop a very thin red around eyes and lips to get variety.

I avoid washes. I use them on monsters for good effect, but, for human faces they don't work for me. I paint mostly fantasy miniatures, so haven't really tried them on tough battle-scarred guys, though.

Reaper has various triads. Again, since it's fantasy, males get the Suntan triad, while females, elves, and anyone who's stayed indoors or underground, gets the Rosy Skin triad. They have other skin triads which I haven't tried yet.

I don't like mixing paints, but will use brown to shade, undercoat, brownline, etc. flesh.

I only paint to advanced tabletop, so haven't gotten around to using better techniques.

I also think you have to use a different flesh technique for different types of fleshes. A fleshy disgusting ooze is quite different than maiden skin.

+1 for Reaper Triads and +1 for not using washes.

Well, actually, I use washes for stuff like eye recesses but only in very specific ways.

I've used all the human and a few of the more fantastical flesh triads and they're all pretty good. Not the biggest fan of "Bright" or "Bronzed" largely for the same reason which is the top shade is quite different from the mid, making highlight placement a little trickier than some of the others, but I've still got good results, they're just not the first I reach for without specific reason.

These guys were mostly done with Rosy because they're all from Northern climes and are basically Scots.

My method is pretty simple.

I paint the skin first white/light grey.
Then I get Contrast Guilliman Flesh.
I add a bit of water to it, thin it up.
Run it over the white
Tap it with a dry, soft brush to soak up excess 'watery' paint/pooling.
Have a good look at it.
Repeat if need be, maybe with less water.

So, for those that don't wash and simply layer and/or glaze, how long does that take you? More specifically, is it a speed you're comfortable enough to do the skin tones of an entire army if the goal is making an army within a reasonable timeframe (~3-6 months)? Or would you say it's better suited to painting the important/special characters and units?

I like P3s skin tones because they are very opaque and smooth I use Vallejo flesh tones too but I don’t love them.
I base with either Vallejo 943 Grey Blue or 926 Red. In this picture the left is Midlund Flesh the middle is Khardic Flesh and the right is Vallejo 845 Sunny Flesh. Sunny flesh is highlighted with 955 Flat Flesh and Midlund is highlighted with 928 light flesh.
I shade them with a glaze of an artists Payne’s Grey. I just retone Khardic with itself after shading.

@ Casualty:

Having said that, I've mostly been doing pallid or white complexions, has anyone nailed down a base/contrast combo for dark skin yet?

The guy on the Pangolin and the camel rider are painted with Cygor Brown on Wraithbone


the lighter Brown horses here are painted with 3 parts Cygor 2 parts Skeleton Horde contrast on Wraithbone

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
There is no real quick/easy way of painting flesh well. It's all about building up depth through layers

There is one actually, even without airbrush, and it's oil paints. Venturella has a few videos on the matter. The basic paints you need is yellow ochre, red & white. The shadows on white skin are green, if you're white you can see it by just turning your hand and looking at it.

Yeah, I still wouldn't call that quick. It's quick in the sense that someone practiced with oil paints would get nice transitions quickly, but the learning curve for oils can be quite steep. I've used them myself, but my technique for painting faces with acrylic is still way faster, due to much practice

I agree it's a new skill and you need to re-learn everything, but potential is huge. Also if you paint bunch of big dudes with big muscles, maybe colored rattle cans can also help - Frisoni just made a great video on them.

My preference is a thin base coat over white, and then I mix 1 part paint, 3 parts medium, 4 parts water, and 2-4 parts "darkening wash".

So, for pale skin I might use elf flesh as a base, mix up an elf flesh wash (1 paint, 3 medium, 4 water) and add 2 parts of Reikland Flesh shade. Wash that over top and magic happens.

For a more "medium" skin, I might go with a medium skin tone, mix a wash, and then add 3 drops of Agrax, for example.

For a dark skin tone, I would (probably) start with a milk chocolate brown, still thinly applied over white primer, and then make a wash from it, and add 4 drops of Agrax or Nuln oil.

You can quickly vary the skin tones in a unit by adding another drop of "darkening agent" to your mix as you go. By starting with a base of your original colour, you get very nice, and subtle transitions of skin tone.

THAT SAID! the contrast skin paints are Flippin amazing, so fast, and give great results. I strongly suggest giving them a try.



Elf Flesh - Pale on left, more tanned on right (by adding a drop of Reikland Flesh, I think)




Medium Skin - Especially excellent looking is his sword hand, where you can see a beautiful tone shift along his knuckles. If I may brag...

 Shadenuat wrote:
I agree it's a new skill and you need to re-learn everything, but potential is huge. Also if you paint bunch of big dudes with big muscles, maybe colored rattle cans can also help - Frisoni just made a great video on them.

I'd like to try oils more. I tried a couple of world eaters using white oils, to try and speed up the process whilst still achieving high quality results. They came out ok but I had to touch up with acrylics once they dried. I need a little more practice with them. I generally use them for washes, or occasionally blending and highlight.

 MrH86 wrote:
I feel like I'm stuck in the trap of base coat, wash, base coat colour clean up, highlight. This is how GW teaches it but I've watched many streams and videos where they don't use a wash at all, and glaze in the shadows and I think it looks great. I've ordered 3 Reaper Ogres to try and practise new methods, so I'm interested to hear how you guys do it.

I cover it with a power armor helmet. I too do the basecoat, wash, highlight. But I rarely have a lot of skin. I just like putting them in helmets anyway, and even get slightly annoyed at kits that won't let me. One of the things that helps me with painting is something my dad used to say when he was working concrete. Perfect is the enemy of pretty good.

I'll chime in that I've had pretty good luck lately using my airbursh to prime and basecoat the large primary/majority color(s) then hand paint some wraithbone or light grey primer on some of the details (If I need to or got sloppy with the airbrush) and use the new one step Contrast stuff from GW/Citadel for details or sections like gun casings, or faces.

One way to do very pale skin (I'm talking vampire-pale) is to basecoat with something like Rakarth Flesh or Reaper's Vampiric Shadow and then use your fleshtone wash to give it a hint of warmth and depth.

Casualty wrote:
Having said that, I've mostly been doing pallid or white complexions, has anyone nailed down a base/contrast combo for dark skin yet?