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So i got my army just last Friday and i started painting them Sunday. I went back over them giving new coats, more detail, painting over the god awful green i used at first, and doing exceptionally well given my history with anything art related. But as i looked out on my troopers i noticed that all of them are white and I thought 'I could make the rank and file look cooler if i threw some melanin diversity into the mix" and looked at my mixing paints and decided i need help.

So i decided to ask you folks what colors i would need to mix to get a color that would make a decent skin color for a couple of black troopers. Only brown i have been able to mix has been a leather color so i feel i am out of my element. Any advice for making a more ethnically diverse regiment would be appreciated.

Hmmm well brown is a combination of all three basic prime colors so maybe play around with your leather paint color,

personaly I would add a little blue or even a dark green (Dark Angels Green) should create a nice dark brown

Elf Flesh with an Ogryn Flesh wash over would would really well for a different 'white' skin.
Fora darker skin I'd use Khemeri Brown or Tallarn Flesh and do a light Devlan Mud wash.

I was thinking about this too, all of my Guard are white at the moment, so i tried a few different skin tones on my unpainted dudes.

My standard skin is Tallarn Flesh with a wash of Badab Black, looks good enough to me.

I tried Scorched Brown, with a Devlan Mud wash, with a very light brush of Calthan Brown for my black dude. It looks the part, still seems quite a light tone mind.

SpectralAnomaly wrote:I was thinking about this too, all of my Guard are white at the moment, so i tried a few different skin tones on my unpainted dudes.

My standard skin is Tallarn Flesh with a wash of Badab Black, looks good enough to me.

I tried Scorched Brown, with a Devlan Mud wash, with a very light brush of Calthan Brown for my black dude. It looks the part, still seems quite a light tone mind.

That Tallarn Flesh with black was sounds really inhuman. I'd need to see it, but it doesn't sound realistic or good looking to me. I'd use Ogryn Flesh instead. Your technique for painting darker skin is pretty decent though, and is a good place for the OP to start.

Tallarn Flesh with Devlan Mud followed by a Tallarn Flesh overbrush/highlight/layering dealie looks like this:


Could probably work for some darker skins.

I use sort of a medium chocolate brown color and then dry brush with the Tallarn Flesh

Brother SRM wrote:That Tallarn Flesh with black was sounds really inhuman. I'd need to see it, but it doesn't sound realistic or good looking to me. I'd use Ogryn Flesh instead.

I tried some with Ogryn flesh, and they look much better, they've got some colour to their faces lol. Thanks I just used the black wash to give a bit of uniformity to my troops. (grey camo scheme)

Dark flesh works for the skin as well, you could just mix a bit of black in if you wanted it darker.

Tallern Flesh
Wash with Devlan Mud x 2
Drybrush a little more tallern flesh...

Gives my boys a good "haven't seen the sun in 20 years because it's been blotted out by pollution and nuclear warfare" look.

Also a good way to add variety to your guys, skin color wise, is to use different amounts/strengths of wash. If you put 10 people from the same ethnicity in a row in real life, they certainly won't all have an identical skin color.
It's really easy to do, and makes your army just a little more interesting.

You can mix up the whites a bit as well, using elf skin and dwarf skin as the basis for different troopers, throw in some tallarn on a few for some brown and there ya go.

you can use washes to modulate color too. the two or three guys wilth elf-flesh and a rime of red wash will look odd, but a 'sunburnt albino' would work quite well. Washes go a long way to changing the feel of skin-color on your models. (blue wash on your dead and dying... incase)

Dark Flesh with a Dark Flesh/Scorched Brown mix over the top can look alright if you're lazy.

I did two variations for my jurassic park troopers (count as penal legion with rending)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26990385@N06/sets/72157611748453491/with/3144598845/

I used scorched brown for the dark faces with wash of choice and for the other varient I think I used terracotta. It was a long time ago though. GW doesn't make the colour any more so you will have to use Vallejo Game Colour, they still make all the out of production gw citadel colours (their game colour line emulates the gw stuff but it is just better paint).


http://www.flickr.com/photos/26990385@N06/3144598857/in/set-72157611748453491/