by Bob Barnetson

Painting the skin tone on a figure can be intimidating. Choosing the “correct” colour, attempting to mimic the interplay of light and shadow, and getting a good result in a reasonable amount of time all have to be considered. For this article, we will examine ways to obtain a reasonable skin tone effect for both light- and dark-pigmented skin in a short period of time. These same approaches can be used to also paint horses such as those in the photo below.

Choosing a Colour
The variation in skin colour we see around us gives us significant license to choose colours we like. In choosing a colour, I generally try to keep in mind that the colour should be lighter than normal due to the colour shift (as discussed in Article 2) and should lean more towards a red undertone than a yellow or blue.

For light-skinned troops, I often pick up two colours: a darker, caramel or butter scotch colour and a lighter, peach-coloured “flesh” tone. These two colours can be used separately, mixed or used as a base and highlight to give a range of lighter skin tones. These basic approaches can adapted, depending on the historically predominant skin tone of the figures you are painting. When I paint American Indians, I might add a touch of red-brown or yellow-brown to the basic light-skin colour. If I were painting Sassanids, I might add some brown.

Highlighting & Shading
More often than not, I find myself painting light-skinned models over a black primer. Depending on the time I have, I might adopt one of three approaches:

• Quick: Using caramel or peach, I block paint the skin, trying to leave some black where shadows might naturally occur. For example, I might attempt to leave the recessed areas (eye sockets, below jaw line) the primer colour.
• Average: I paint each face twice, first with a caramel colour, leaving the recessed features the primer colour. I then go back with the peach and dab on highlights (nose, brow ridge, chin, ear tip, and cheek bones).
• Slow: Each face gets three coats: caramel base, caramel-peach highlight, peach highlight. This creates the most realistic look (and is recommended for 25/28 mm figures), but the effect is often lost with 1/72-scale figures.

Over time, I’ve come to prefer the speed of the quick approach, when combined with a dark wash or the magic dip. The lack of raised detail on 1/72-scale plastic figures really does not reward time spent highlighting.

When painting dark skin over white primer, you can get amazing results with washes and stains. This effect can be seen in the photo below.

Alas, you can’t really see these on the gaming table. Consequently, I normally drybrush brown over black primer, followed by one or two drybrushings of slightly lighter coloured brown (adding a bit of yellow to the base colour). This effect is not as nice as the wash, but does a good enough job in most cases.

Painting Arms and Legs
With ancient figures, you’ll often have to paint arms, chests, backs and legs (and, with starkers, other unmentionable bits). Here I try to paint in a way that highlights whatever natural musculature is carved onto the model. This would include highlighting shoulders and shoulder blades, pectorals and abs, biceps and triceps, forearms and hands (especially knuckles), buttocks, thighs, knee-caps, the muscular part on the back of the calf, and top of foot. The elaborate painting you see on many muscle-bound 25/28mm models is normally not worthwhile on 1/72-scale sculpts.

Painting Hair
Hair is often hidden under helmets but bare-headed warriors need attention. I find hair looks best with a combination of drybrushing and washes. I normally paint on the base colour at full strength. If I am painting over a black primer, I normally leave a bit of black showing at the edges and don’t worry overly about getting perfect coverage. I then apply a dark wash (usually brown/black). Once the wash has dried, I might return to the base colour and drybrush the area again to put in the highlights.

Up Next
With the skin painted, we’ll turn our attention to painting complex shields and clothing patterns.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 and is filed under Gaming in plastic.

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