Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Never occurred to me in my 20ish years of painting strictly 40k minis how embarrassingly ethnically-exclusive my skin tone painting skills are until I picked up a copy of Walking Dead: All Out War and was faced with painting black, asian, latino and others. My eyes seem to deceive me as I've gone through quite a few head bits practicing from photographic references. I was wondering if fellow Dakkanauts can help me out here with some recipes for different ethnic skin tones and maybe post a pic or two of the results if possible. Kinda sad/embarrassing that I can paint white skin tones all day long, and Eldar and such, but not any other color human being (save for Salamanders, but totally not the same thing).

For black skin start with either Scorched Brown or Bestial Brown (or whatever they call them these days) and layer the entirety of the skin. When its dry mix a little Ratskin Flesh with the brown of your choosing and layer it on, leaving the recesses in the base colour. Continue to further add small amounts of Ratskin Flesh to the mix and drybrushing each layer until your final driest of drybrushes is pure ratskin flesh. Then add a wash of flesh tone or soft tone to finish things off.

For a Philippines look do the exact same but use Tanned Flesh/Skin/whatever in place of Ratskin Flesh.

For an asian look start with Ratskin Flesh and highlight it with tanned flesh as with black skin, then use a soft tone to wash it.

For a paler asian look (ie, Japan) start with either a 50/50 or 30/70 mix of Ratskin Flesh and Tanned flesh then highlight with Elf flesh (or similar suitable pale skin tone) and wash with a very watered down soft tone.

For really pale asian skin tones (Japanese models, etc) start with tanned flesh and work in elf flesh as above. A wash is optional here, but should be watered down unless you like hard contrasts.

I find a nice way of painting caraibic/tanned skin is to start with Skrag brown, wash it with Agrax, but if it's too dark you can relace it with seraphim sepia, then again Skrag brown, and an highlight of 70% skrag 30% yriel yellow.

 master of ordinance wrote:
For black skin start with either Scorched Brown or Bestial Brown (or whatever they call them these days) and layer the entirety of the skin. .

Thanks for responding! Gonna give that Asian recipe a whirl.

For black skin, my first attempt was with a scorched brown but it seemed a bit too dark. Are you priming with a lighter or darker tone (if you're priming at all)?

Honestly, since the 40K universe would have little to tie it directly to any racial groups in the current world, just use any combination ranging from palid almost-blue white to pitch black. In a sci-fi setting you could even go with a variety of other colours if you so chose (perhaps the sun or atmosphere in a certain planet causes skin pigment to turn green etc.).

The entire purpose of a science fiction universe is that you can do whatever you want.

We do know Cadians commonly have purple eye color, so who knows with skin?

I've also had little success with skin tones (in general, really) but "ethic" ones especially. Though, when I did my "Egyptian" space marines a ways back I think I did a decent "middle eastern" look for the time.

M.

For a dark skin tone, I used this recipe for a bare headed Celestial Lion. Obviously it has more uses than just guys from Elysium IX.

Reaper Master Series:

Base: Ebony Flesh 9440
Highlight: Dark Skin 9041
"Higher"light: Ruddy Flesh 9441

You can then mix Lemon Yellow (9009) into ruddy flesh if you really want to blend the highlights way up, but on the example I've posted below it was just base and highlight. Blue liner is probably the best Reaper liner if you feel the need for one.

And here's an overly close up view of the paint job, to be super honest I can't remember if I just did Ruddy over Ebony or did a two step highlight.

I have experimented with different skin tones a bit. This guy I did by mixing a very dark, chocolate brown, highlighting with a lighter mixture, and then using a flesh tone wash:



And then this guy I painted with a mixture of a neutral brown and burnt umber, once more highlighted with a lighter mixture and flesh washed:



Burnt umber and ochre type colors are very useful for mixing darker skin tones, and pretty much all skin will need some level of redness or pinkness to look natural.

I don't have pics right now, but my Imperial Guard army is made up of Tallarns and Catachans. The Catachans are painted in desert BUD uniforms and many of them are black (think Carl Weathers)