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I've always had problems with it;not the actual tones but the application. Faces I have no problem with, I have my method down to a tee. The problems start when bigger areas need painting.
What I usually do is this;

1) Paint a basecoat,making sure it's nice and even.
2) Give it a wash.
3) Go over again with the base colour leaving the wash in the recesses.
4)Add bleached bone to the basecolour and apply to about 80% of the flesh areas.

This is the method I use for faces and to be honest it does what I want. When I apply these steps to more flesh(legs,arms,torsos etc.) To my eyes it just doesn't look right(sorry no pictures) ,it doesn't look natural.To all intents and purposes it looks like islands of flesh surrounded by a series of interconnecting lines! Not very lifelike. I tried the foundry 3 shade approach and it does work on some figures but I wouldn't use it on figures with a lot of bare flesh as to my eyes it comes across kind of 'cartoonish',which is not what I aim for.
I've thought about blending and the more I think of it it feels like the way forward,although it seems time consuming.

I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on painting flesh and any suggestions?

I'd start with watering down your wash so that the crevices are less severe, and then using several thinner layers of paint, graduating, rather than 3 or four total.
Also don't be afraid to break it up with arm hair (shades area), tattoos, scars, etc. Very few people have baby fresh arms which is why it looks a bit weird to us.

Thanks for that,Commisar. I sometimes wonder if I'm too close and can't see the woods for the trees? Not objective enough? I tend to see shapes rather than the overall effect which might be part of the problem.

Yeah, exactly what BC says. Thinner layers of paint will create smoother transitions between colour shades, which will look far more realistic.

Slipstream wrote:
Thanks for that,Commisar. I sometimes wonder if I'm too close and can't see the woods for the trees? Not objective enough? I tend to see shapes rather than the overall effect which might be part of the problem.

Nah, a lot if people I know use the method you describe, and it works for tabletop but makes arms look like boiled ham.
I have a lot of bare arm Tanith to do, my issue is very similar.

The latest tutorial on GW's advent calendar may be of some help. Its slightly misnamed, as its not really pale flesh, but more of a Caucasian color.

Slipstream wrote:

This is the method I use for faces and to be honest it does what I want. When I apply these steps to more flesh(legs,arms,torsos etc.) To my eyes it just doesn't look right(sorry no pictures) ,it doesn't look natural.To all intents and purposes it looks like islands of flesh surrounded by a series of interconnecting lines! Not very lifelike. I tried the foundry 3 shade approach and it does work on some figures but I wouldn't use it on figures with a lot of bare flesh as to my eyes it comes across kind of 'cartoonish',which is not what I aim for.
I've thought about blending and the more I think of it it feels like the way forward,although it seems time consuming.

I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on painting flesh and any suggestions?

The issue that you are running into is your wash step, its probably going on too thick, so you are getting really strong defined lines rather than smoother gradations. I suggest thinning your wash with some medium so its less pigmented, and go from there.

Also a neat trick you can do is when you reapply your base layer (after the wash) paint slightly less area i.e. don't get right up to the recess, it will help give you a nicer transition.

thanks for all the comments and suggestions and to Ghaz for posting the video. A lot of things I hadn't considered or tried before and very enlightening! Cheers!

Something else that may help in conjunction with thinning the washes. Do base coat, highlight then wash. I have found that doing the wash after the highlight helps to key the base and highlight colours together. You can always go back and apply a highlight here and there to dial them back up again if needed.

Cheers, vim

A much easier way would be to continue with the steps you are doing now, but at the end apply a glaze of 50/50 your base flesh tone and Lahmien Medium. The glaze will brighten the recesses and tone down the highlights, giving a much smoother blend over all.

I second the Lahmian Medium comment.

For my daemonettes I'm giving them proper normal skin and to get a good colour I give them two coats of Tamiya 'flat flesh', then a wash of GW reikland fleshshade mixed 1:1 with GW Lahmian medium and then a light dry brush of the flat flesh again. Nice and easy and looks proper except for them having backwards knees and crab claws