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I wanted to throw this tutorial up because I've found that painting small faces for 40k seems to have a steep learning curve. There are a lot of us out there who know we'll never be master painters, but still want our models to at least look decent for the battle-field. With a little practice, almost anyone can get an army to an acceptable table level of quality without being a real pro, but one thing that held me back for a long time was trying to get my faces to look like anything other than total crap.

Thankfully, I eventually learned an easy way to do a flesh toned face in just a few minutes. This technique won't win you any awards, but it does come out pretty good, and from a distance (i.e. during play) they look great.

This isn't anything new either, but I searched and didn't find a tutorial for it here so I figured I'd throw one up. After all, there's a contest on right?

So here's our volunteer for the project, a vet from my command squad. I would normally do the face fairly late in the painting process, but I'm not letting myself paint these guys until I finish my assault marines, so base-coat is all he gets.


The first thing you want to do is paint the whole face in a flesh color that is really pale and nasty. The more it makes you say "oh god... that's awful" the better. I went with GW elf flesh. I wouldn't bother worrying about the little tech doo-dads. You can always paint them over later.



Now you want to get a cup or something and put just a little bit of regular hand soap or dish soap in to make some soapy water. Take an old crappy brush and use it to dab some water on a plastic tray or any other surface that won't soak it up (the plastic cover from a blister pack works great for this.


Pick out a wash that's brown with a bit of a red tint. GW's Ogryn Flesh Wash works great for the tone I'm going for. Take that same old crappy brush (wiped clean) and dip it in the wash, get plenty on there. Now take the brush with the wash and just dip it in your little puddle of soapy water. Once or twice is all, you don't need much. The soap will break the surface tension of the wash when it's applied to the face and allow it to run down into the recessed areas. Apply the wash+soap to the face liberally. Really, go ahead and get a lot on there. It's better to kind of dab it than try to spread it around to much, but just try to cover the whole face.


Right about not the face is looking something like that second picture. Awful, and with a bit of zombie vibe. There's a very important step you need to make sure you follow here. Ready for it? Go make a sandwich. Or paint something else, browse the dakka gallery, watch Desperado... Whatever you do leave this guy alone until the ink is dry. There's temptation to look at the face at this stage and think "something must be wrong, I need to fix it." In reality, you can't really do much to control what the ink does at this point, and if you try to do too much you'll end up with a face that looks like mud. Just back off and let it dry, it doesn't take that long. And once it does, you're done! The wash naturally darkens the skin and shades the recessed areas and with the soap will leave that ultra-pale elf flesh color on the raised areas. So you've got a nice shaded, highlighted, appropriately colored face. And it was painless!

Oops, meant to preview and posted. Ignore this while I edit the first post to finish the tutorial. :-p

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Edit: Mmk, done! Hope this is helpful to someone.

Not to sound rude but, aren't you just pointing out that washes shade things?

The soap isn't really necessary with the new washes as they flow much better than the old inks.

You might as well write a guide pointing out that adding water to paint makes it thinner.

Ouch.

I know this might be obvious to a lot of people, but when I was just starting to paint (read: about 2 months ago) I had an idea of how washes worked but wasn't really sure how to use them. I wasted a lot of time trying to paint teeth and eyes and winding up with clown faces before someone finally told me "hey, here's a trick." There are a lot of people here that are new to the hobby and even if they do know how a wash works it might not come to mind when they're trying to do a face. Or it might but they might not realize how light a shade they need to start with, I know I thought elf flesh would be to pale until I saw it darkened down, and when the local shop owner suggested using a flesh with a little more red in it, that looked better than what I had first used. And while it's probably something I'm doing wrong and not the wash itself, my faces tend to come out cleaner looking with the soap.

I wasn't serious about this being considered in the contest. My goal was just to have something simple that would pop-up when a novice searched the tutorial forum for "face." The only other one that shows up is an excellent tutorial but very intimidating towards anyone new to painting. Just playing the same role my friend did saying "hey, here's an easy way." I don't see what the harm is...

I think this is a nice, easy tip, with good table top results. Thanks for sharing!

Painting the finer details on faces (teeth, eyes, scars, etc) takes one heck of alot of practice and, even for some very experienced painters, can be almost impossible to get right.

OK, maybe i was a little harsh. It's just that there are quite a few tutorials on t'internet about how to thin down washes, use paint mediums, etc... already.

Most of the tutorials on this page tend to go into quite alot of detail and often involve more than just a couple of processes. I wasn't criticising you for trying to win 'the contest' with what is, i concede, a nice trick. Just that this is information that can be easily gleaned from even a cursory search on the web.

This would make a great entry as part of a bigger 'tips 'n' tricks' article. Maybe as part of a large collection on how best to use washes in different situations?

Short, sweet and to the point. Little tips like this are exactly what this forum is about...it doesn't need to be long to be informative, you put up some good pictures to re-inforce the information so well done, I like it.

J.Black wrote:
...this is information that can be easily gleaned from even a cursory search on the web.

Quite correct it probably could, BUT, I would rather have everything I was looking for under one metaphorical roof rather than spend time searching the net. Don't forget, this site is inspirational and informative to beginners and veterans alike and everyone has something to contribute.

Cypher871 wrote:
Quite correct it probably could, BUT, I would rather have everything I was looking for under one metaphorical roof

A roof like 'the internet' perhaps? Try typing washes+painting+40k into google and see what happens. Just an idea.

I joined this site as a beginner, and i am not be-littling the OP for posting a basic tip. I just think that this forum should contain more advanced techniques than those that can be found with the ability to type words into google.

J.Black you did come across very scathingly and also I found that very little comes to the fore when dealing with searches about this kind of stuff on any web browsing site, This is just the kind of stuff i've been looking for. Charlatan presented this in a clear understandable and easily reproduce-able way. i think that was the entire point of this tutorial forum. Good job Charlatan.

J.Black wrote:
This would make a great entry as part of a bigger 'tips 'n' tricks' article. Maybe as part of a large collection on how best to use washes in different situations?

As soon as my camera returns to life one of my past threads will be updated with more tests i have done with washes and so will likely become a washes tips and tricks section so feel free to post this there
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/235872.page

Nice tip simple, and great for beginners. Ive found that pure O flesh looks a bit red - so my guys look sunburnt! Ive started watering the washes down when going over pale stuff, and doing multiple layers.

I also use tallarn flesh for amore 'swarthy' weathered look, but it also highlight up from this with watered down flesh colours.

examples.


Im aware Im no golden daemon winner - but these get the point across.

Great article. I think people need every bit of help to get their models toa table top finish!

side note: Where in the codex, does it let you equip a model with a powerfist and plasma rifle?

Nice painting guide I am going to bookmark this for future reference... really helpful!! Thanks for putting it up