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I was curious as to whether or not Agrax Earthshade would work well as a shade to use on Cadian Fleshtone for my minis? Has anyone tried it, or am I just an idiot?

Until recently I used Reikland Fleshshade, but now I have tried Agrax on my Wulfen. I liked the result on their beefy muscles, but I don't know how it will look on faces.

Would you say Reikland is a worthy investment? I just don't really want to shell out on something I'd hardly use

As they now only sell the big bottles I would try Agrax on a test model before shelling out the money

I think it really depends on your models and what tone you want to archive. But Agrax should be fine as long as you want skin tones that are more tanned than pale. So for humans it should work, for Eldar (or Raven Guard ) I wouldn't use it.

Cheers mate, super helpful. Though I may have to get Reikland anyway as I'm doing the dark vengeance set and don't want my Chaos army looking sunkissed

From personal experience I'd have to say the Reikland Fleshshade is far better for flesh tones (although I'm no expert when it comes to painting flesh)

For me Agrax Earthshade is much better for shading armour panels etc..

Daruahii violet, trust me, purple shade is the secret weapon, use it in gold and flesh, it bams

Remember that you can add a dash of regular paint to washes, and thin them just like you would anything else; often when painting faces I'll have a wash with Agrax in it, but also thinned down a bit and with a slight hint of red (for warmer tones) or purple (for paler faces) in.

That's why I say if you only have one wash, make it Agrax, it's 'plain' enough that you can alter the tone slightly for a whole range of colours and shades, whereas adding another tint to something like Nuln Oil or Fleshshade is a lot less practical in most cases. Those are better for certain things, but at a basic level there's not a lot Agrax can't be made to do (the exception is grey-based/cold colours rather than brown-based/warm colour, you'll want Nuln for those)

I tend to use both on the same guys, saving Agrax for where I want more contrast or darker areas. And another vote for how handy a bit of purple can come in. Blue too. In short, skin is very rarely a consistent colour all over so mixing things up is the way to go.

I use agrax on the deepest recesses and reikland on the more shallow details...with the paint highlights working their way up to white dots on things like cheeks and noses. You can check my gallery for what this looks like on my Angron or Lorgar models