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I'm assembling a Land speeder that I intend to paint in the Salamanders scheme. One of the crew doesn't have a helmet.
I want to paint the skin black as Salamanders are portrayed, but here is the issue:

It doesn't appear that Sallies are black as-is of African decent and I don't really like the "charcoal black with red eyes scheme"
So is there something in between? I can't really find good example on Google.
Everything I've found is either "Yep, that's a regular black guy" or "What are these dark grey skinned, red-eyed daemons in power armour?"

Can anyone share a decent picture of a Salamanders skin tone that actually looks like a real human skin tone?
I don't like the black with grey highlights, so I may try using dark brown highlights to achieve what I am looking for.

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It has changed over the years. They used to be just regular black dudes, but for some bizarre reason that was changed into charcoal black skin with weird red eyes. The latter usually looks bad on a miniature, IMHO. It is really up to you how you want to paint them.

I think they are dark skinned in the first place, they have a desease that turns their skin charcoal black
It’s in their fluff I read somewhere

 Rybrook wrote:
I think they are dark skinned in the first place, they have a desease that turns their skin charcoal black
It’s in their fluff I read somewhere

But from what I've heard/read, this fluff is a retcon from older fluff. I believe they used to just be dark skinned (as-in brown) but GW changed it for...reasons.
Either way, I am leaning more and more toward traditional human dark skin rather than some weird sci-fi future skin color.

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I'd go with a very dark brown, I've seen quite a few renditions of Sally skin just highlighting black and most look just more unnatural than it is described in the lore.

WarhammerTV made quite a good video:
I think that is quite a nice Salamander skin.

Lol there is only a subtle difference in the skin than the black primer. I would do brown, it looks nice and isn't as stark as lets say a black face. But then again I'm not up to date on their fluff, I thought they were darker because of it being a lava planet. That why I play Orks, lol.

Salamanders are literally black.

As for races, there is only one in the 41st millenium: the human race.

Well, and the abhumans, but we don't talk about those.

From what I understand, the Salamanders were always intended to be 'pitch-black/obsidian-black/dark-as-space black. It was a misunderstanding between the art team and the design team that lead to Salamanders being painted 'African' black. This is kind of supported by the fact that in older lore, they supposedly had infra-red designs on their banners that only they could see (So the special eyes has an older precedent too). The pitch black is said to be a quirk of their gene-seed, in that the melanin production is vastly increased from a defective, and is further affected by the higher levels of radiation of Nocturne. So the 'retcon' is actually a return to origins apparently.

As for an inbetween shade - try Eshin Grey, highlight it with Administratum Grey and then shade down to the desired tone with Nuln Oil. Not sure how good the pics are, but for results, see my Vulkan:




Perhaps if you want to strike a balance between African and Obsidian, add a little Rhinox hide to the Eshin and Ad. Grey, to bring out the brown undertones.

So the 'retcon' is actually a return to origins apparently.

Yeah, I seem to remember them being painted with purple-black skin, red eyes and blonde hair (i.e. like D&D drow) back in the Rogue Trader era. They were never supposed to just look like Africans.

Awesome Vulkan, BTW.

 Maddok_Death wrote:
Lol there is only a subtle difference in the skin than the black primer. I would do brown, it looks nice and isn't as stark as lets say a black face. But then again I'm not up to date on their fluff, I thought they were darker because of it being a lava planet. That why I play Orks, lol.

I guess if you paint the (rather bright) green armor, the difference is less... subtle.

I still don't like the greyish highlighting on the "Obsidian" skin. Human skin pigment is brown for all races. Some of us just have less of that pigment which allows the translucency of skin to show the red blood underneath, thus giving a pinkish tone.

The opposite (having SUPER high amounts of pigment) should still show brown to some degree.
Thus I will prime black and highlight dark brown (not grey)
It is also going to be needed to contrast with the armour since I highlight the black shoulders with grey.

If I just use grey to highlight, the skin will just blend into the model and I want it to stand out a bit.

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 Duskweaver wrote:

So the 'retcon' is actually a return to origins apparently.

Yeah, I seem to remember them being painted with purple-black skin, red eyes and blonde hair (i.e. like D&D drow) back in the Rogue Trader era. They were never supposed to just look like Africans.

Nope.

 Galef wrote:

 Rybrook wrote:
I think they are dark skinned in the first place, they have a desease that turns their skin charcoal black
It’s in their fluff I read somewhere

But from what I've heard/read, this fluff is a retcon from older fluff. I believe they used to just be dark skinned (as-in brown) but GW changed it for...reasons.
Either way, I am leaning more and more toward traditional human dark skin rather than some weird sci-fi future skin color.

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Before the 3rd edition Codex Eye of Terror came out, there was nothing special about Salamanders. Yes, some of them had black (as in, like sub-Saharan African) skin:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e2X0ZP5Mwjs/TPZ5k4nvyuI/AAAAAAAAD3Q/XTj_0BmKeK4/s1600/Old+Citadel+Painting+Guide+Space+Marines+Painting+Strictly+Average15.JPG

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VxKP6XgogdQ/U-uVJnpByMI/AAAAAAAAGDE/WqJ8B6In-EA/s1600/24-009d2bb002.jpg

but then again, some didn't:
http://www.orderofgamers.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/battleforarmageddon_box.png

After that 3rd ed Codex, they're now coal black with red eyes, as a result of an interaction between their melanchromic organ and the radiation from their homeworld's sun.

Personally, if I ever paint any Salamanders, I'll ignore that, as I think it's silly and looks daft, but do what you like.

There's a good process for painting very dark skin on the Perrys' website, for painting Zulu warriors:
https://www.perry-miniatures.com/pages.php?page=painting-dark-african-skin