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Hi everyone, I'm always looking to improve my painting skills, and currently am working on the Last Chancers, 12 unique characters penal legion unit for Imperial Guard, 40k version of the Dirty Dozen
But well theyre all different creeds and backgrounds, and would all have varied tones of skin, I want to reflect this accurately. But painting skin is one of my weaker points.

Looking for any tips or advice tbh. Happy to buy some new paints, although I have a fair selection of citadels including a couple but not all of their fleshy tones.

For those unfamiliar with the unit in question,
There is;

Colonel Shaeffer, an old hardened imperial colonel, that hand picks the worst of the worst from various correction facilities to be sent on suicide missions that benefit the emperor, he personally oversees success of all these vital missions, and considers himself a sort of missionary giving these lost souls one last chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the emperor.

Scope ; the sniper guy.. cant really see his face,on account of his ghille suit, and he 'could' feasibly be wearing gloves.

Shiv ; this guy looks red indian, he's running with a knife up in the air, is supposed to be master of stealth, able to sneak up on anyone silently.

Hero ; An esteemed officer that wouldnt follow an order to go and die needlessly. He's old, wearing the big officers overcoat and hat, unsure where he's supposed to be from.

Grease Monkey ; He's a tank driver with his arm in a acast, wearing imperial uniform, with an oxygen mask hanging down,

Ox ; He's the big guy lugging the heavy bolter, wear's army pants and a vest, all muscle, apparently is really good buddies with Brains, to the point where he goes nuts when Brains dies.

Brains ; The geeky com's guy, said to have hacked his own pay grade a notch better can imagine he's kinda pale lol

Animal ; he's got a pony tail, kinda mad looking, wielding a meltagun with his shirt off, and no shoes on.

Warrior Woman ; she's skimpily dressed, longish hair, apparently acrobatic and very fast. Skilled in melee and gains extra attacks than usual for assaulting.

Rocket Girl ; shes wearing army pants and a tank top,and a lil jacket with a bag of rockets over her back, aiming a launcher, hair tied up in a bandana.

Fingers ; black market smuggler, dressed how i can best describe as a stereo type big game hunter with a safari hat on, he's Rocket girls loader, and carries rounds for her and a lasgun.

Demolition Man ; looks kinda russian, has a furry waist coat and big hat, with baggy pants, holding a lasgun with an ak47 style clip clutching his demolition charge with the other hand.

How about this paint set from Scale75?
http://www.scale75.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=55&product_id=131

Shiv ; this guy looks red indian, he's running with a knife up in the air, is supposed to be master of stealth, able to sneak up on anyone silently.

Just for future reference, the term you used to describe the color of this characters skin is extremely outdated and generally seen as pejorative.

Also, this is what you are looking for: http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1310-ethnic-skintones

Thanks for the links guys, having a read of the cool mini or not one at the moment.

Had no intentions of offending anyone with saying red indian... apologies if anyone is upset by that. I guess Native American would be the p.c term?
Didn't mean anything derogatory towards them, just that their skin has a red tint to it.. cowboys+indians and all that. My bad.

My skin tone notes from painting some Eschers:

Base color: Reaper Master Series Fair Skin.

Most are washed with GW Gryphonne Sepia.

A couple are washed with GW Ogryn Flesh. This gives a redder skin tone like American Indians.

The black girls are washed with GW Devlan Mud, and since the photo, have had an additional wash of Devlan Mud and Ogryn Flesh to both darken and warm up the color.

Yeah, avoid using Indian on non-Indian people. Fun fact: when the Spanish used to own the Philippines, they called us natives as Indios, too. It's basically assuming that anyone with brown skin is Indian. It's like calling all East Asian countries Chinese (only worse since Native Americans don't even live in the same continent!). Or calling all Caucasians American.

As for skintone, I'd go to Vallejo Model Color's range. They have a really big collection of different browns, all realistic-looking.

HairySticks wrote:
Thanks for the links guys, having a read of the cool mini or not one at the moment.

Had no intentions of offending anyone with saying red indian... apologies if anyone is upset by that. I guess Native American would be the p.c term?
Didn't mean anything derogatory towards them, just that their skin has a red tint to it.. cowboys+indians and all that. My bad.

Being PC is overrated.... I miss the days when people could just talk without having to analyze everthing they say through 15000 internal mental filters to make sure nothing they say offends any of the gazilllion offendable groups on the planet before they speak...

Pretty sure the use of the term "red indian" was not meant to be "derogatory" but was simply a way of differentiating that he meant american Indian/native american and not "India" indian...

grumble grumble grumble

 caledoneus wrote:

HairySticks wrote:
Thanks for the links guys, having a read of the cool mini or not one at the moment.

Had no intentions of offending anyone with saying red indian... apologies if anyone is upset by that. I guess Native American would be the p.c term?
Didn't mean anything derogatory towards them, just that their skin has a red tint to it.. cowboys+indians and all that. My bad.

Being PC is overrated.... I miss the days when people could just talk without having to analyze everthing they say through 15000 internal mental filters to make sure nothing they say offends any of the gazilllion offendable groups on the planet before they speak...

Pretty sure the use of the term "red indian" was not meant to be "derogatory" but was simply a way of differentiating that he meant american Indian/native american and not "India" indian...

grumble grumble grumble

This isn't a matter of being "PC" or not, it is a matter of being respectful and treating people with dignity. It doesn't matter if it was "meant to be derogatory" or not; it is a racial slur no matter which way you slice it.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 caledoneus wrote:

HairySticks wrote:
Thanks for the links guys, having a read of the cool mini or not one at the moment.

Had no intentions of offending anyone with saying red indian... apologies if anyone is upset by that. I guess Native American would be the p.c term?
Didn't mean anything derogatory towards them, just that their skin has a red tint to it.. cowboys+indians and all that. My bad.

Being PC is overrated.... I miss the days when people could just talk without having to analyze everthing they say through 15000 internal mental filters to make sure nothing they say offends any of the gazilllion offendable groups on the planet before they speak...

Pretty sure the use of the term "red indian" was not meant to be "derogatory" but was simply a way of differentiating that he meant american Indian/native american and not "India" indian...

grumble grumble grumble

This isn't a matter of being "PC" or not, it is a matter of being respectful and treating people with dignity. It doesn't matter if it was "meant to be derogatory" or not; it is a racial slur no matter which way you slice it.

No, I think you sir are being hype sensitive.

Most of this PC stuff is garbage. The original poster was trying to explain how he viewed each mini. His descriptions conveyed the ethnicity which he thought the sculptor had expressed and his wish was to represent the flesh color accordingly. Let me as you this, are you Native American, well I am, and I took no offense to his description. He was not trying to be derogatory or offensive but specific. You however chose to scold him and take his words out of context. What gives you that right (unless of course you were a moderator)?

The biggest problem that we have in this world is that we all want to focus on our differences. The original poster was asking about fleshtones, and because he didn't use the words that you deemed correct you decided to attack him. Here on this forum we are all wargamers, painters, hobbyists and players. That's why we are here. Let's focus on the things that make us the same and leave the PC garbage alone.

-Rant over-

Glad to see I'm not alone on this one Major!

Give it a rest on the PC bs for once, please.
Someone mentioned it, fair enough, it does not need to be dragged down that road simply because someone wants to draw attention to them.

The CMoN link that was posted is a pretty damn good guide, and should help you vary skin tones to no end.
Never seen that before now, but its now bookmarked.

What a can of worms eh!
Honestly never meant to be derogatory towards anyone, consider myself to be rather anti-racism, am glad that some others here feel that p.c has been taken a bit to far on some stuff.
Anyway, appolgies to anyone feeling offended.. my post is really not about you, or your peoples.. its literally about me wanting to not make a mockery of the skin complexion for my figures with clear stereo types on the models.

A topic which i feel neednt be ruined by calling racism, unless anyone shows up spouting actual hateful comments tbh.

This is supposed to be a thread about painting skintones. There are rules on this site about derailing threads.

For what it's worth I try to study the tone I'm going for, then pick three colors in that range.
Base; The darkest, after I'm done with this I lay out the shapes of the mouth and eyes.
Midtone: I use the trim the eyes and cover most of the face. (Leaving the recesses alone so the base makes shadows.)
Highlight; For brow and cheeks

You know what's red?

Angry moderator text. Knock it off with the OT discussion.

Lol ! that is red!

Anyways, Ive had a go at doing the flesh for 'fingers' the loader/black market smuggler guy, I mixed citadel elf flesh with kreig khaki (an old line flesh colour with a new line edge paint) to get him a less pinky tone, I like it, but feel that he blends with his clothing a lot... theyre not the same paints but thyere really close. may have to add a wash to his clothes, maybe agrax earthshade to make them stand out and exagerate his pale complexion.