Skin color

Without seeing them its's hard to say Mike. This is where it can be confusing and time to take a step up in your figure painting.

The level of painting done these days on figures is an artform in itself. The use of skin tone or flesh colors are really only a base coat for more complex painting, even at a basic level. Meaning that the skin tone should be considered as a base only. On top of this you would add a highllight in areas and a shadow in others as appropriate. Using your original flesh tone as a starting point and adding colors to make for tonal variation on your figure's face. Depending on his setting this can be rather extreme and as your painting skills improve you may use a whole range of colors to achieve a final result that adds life and character to your figure.

By itself your Testors skin tone may look odd, but once modified and applied it will soon become apparent that the overall effect is right. You might add some brown to darken and white to lighten and experiment until you become more comfortable and want to add things like reds, blues, yellows etc. to really fine tune your skills.

There are several really good publications as well as websites that deal specificaly with figure painting and offer great advice to beginners as well as old pros.

Kalmbach Publishing (the owners of this forum and the publishers of FineScale have a very helpful title in their catalog . "How to paint realistic military figures." Another title is Shep Paines book on Dioramas. Both offer some really good advice working with a variety of paints.

Don't give up hope yet. If its not too late keep the base color you have now and make a light wash of dark brown. This will recede from the hisgh spots and settle in the low spots and creases etc on your figures face. It will look muddy at first and you will wonder "Geez, what was he thinking?" but as it dries you will see the detail picked up and a slight tonal change to the base color. Go in and with a fine brush add your highlights with a lighter flesh tone. This can be done meticulously with a fine brush or you can take an easy route and dry brush this on your figures face so that the high spots (nose, cheeks, brow, lip etc. ) are highlighted. This actually gives a pretty fair rendition of detail and will cover these until you can experiment with a technique, style and paint system that is comfortable and works for you.

Good luck.

I had the same dilemma when I started out, everything looked way too pink. I started using Vallejo paints, and use Beige Red for the base color. To give you an idea of the shade, when I put the color on my forearm, it matches. From there, as Renarts said, apply your thin washes of paint to achieve your highlights and shadows.

Kalmbach's 'Painting Scale Figures' by Lynn Kessler is a superb place to start. Lynn also has a step-by-step article located here:

http://www.track-link.net/articles/96

This article alone has transformed the way I paint faces. Everything I did prior looked like Gumby!

Jeff

Thanks for the help. The article helped me alot, although some of it confused me, since I'm new to this. The only thing I would like to know, is, how to make the washs used in the article 'Painting Scale Figures'. I just need to run out and get some Acrylic paints, once the snow storm lets up.
Thanks again,
Mike

Washes...real simple...mix the paint with distilled water...you can tell by the color of the mix how thin it is...typically you want a 50-50 wash, which will cover like thinned paint...a 75-25 wash, here you can see through the color but it still has much of it's original tone. And for highlights and blending, a 90-10 wash which is basically tinted water...

Jeff

Sounds good, alot easier than I thought it would be. I guess I should stop procrastinating now... I'll try it after Christmas....
Thanks,
Mike

I learned that the key to making acrylics work is to apply as little pigment as you can to the face...in other words, get 90% of the moisture out of the brush before you touch it to the model, almost like dry-brushing, but with a wash instead of pure pigment.

It's almost like creating a controlled, chalky effect with the paint...it's so easy to show, but kinda tough to explain.

Jeff

Jeff, do you mean get the paint on the brush, then wipe it off before painting?
Mike

Absolutely, let the brush soak up the wash, then let a paper towel soak up the majority of the wash from the brush.

Here's a 'litmus' test...if you brush the back of your hand with the wash, it will feel damp, not wet, and you won't be able to see the paint pigment.

It's a process that requires lots of very thin layers, instead of one or two heavy ones. If you apply a wash that's to heavy, it will puddle. If you can apply the wash to the model and it appears like you're simply getting the surface damp, then you're doing it right.

Jeff

Been reading this post. I have the same problem. But figures are absolutely essential for realistic dio's....so I gotta get this.

Thanks all.

Mike

I tried using the Step by Step, http://www.track-link.net/articles/96, by Lynn Kessler, but it didn't turn out right. The skin still seems to bright. I also tried Renarts suggestion, of a dark brown wash, and that worked out, but when I tried ligthening the raised areas, they don't blend well. I experimented with differen't amonts of paint in the washes, but I couldn't find a happy medium, they were always to thin, and completly ran off the cheeks, nose and lips, and settled into the eyes, mouth, and around the helmet. Or the wash was to thick, and didn't run, but stuck were I painted it.
Thanks for the help everyone.
Mike

Mike,

Maybe the term 'wash' is throwing you...the water/paint mixture is very thin, in most cases, tinted water. But when you apply it to the face of the figure, it shouldn't be glopped on...with the brush almost dry, paint only the area you want to highlight, like the bridge of the nose for example. It's just like drybrushing, instead of whisking the brush over the surface and depositing pigment (in dry brushing) you're applying very small amounts of thinned pigment to specific locations in layers.

Hope that explains things a little better...perhaps I should get the camera and figure paints out... :-)

Jeff

Jeff, I did try putting very little paint in the water, but it didn't leave any color on the figure. The dark shadows worked, but the rest doesn't show up. I tried drying the brush first, and that didn't help much. I'll try it a few more times and see if I can figure it out.
Thanks for all your help.
Mike

Mike,

Make sure you allow the water to evaporate off first. It's very subtle if done properly, in fact, you mightnot be able to notice the first two or three applications. But once its dry, it will lighten up and start to show through.

Jeff

Thanks alot for all your help Jeff. It's working alot better now. Still looks a little funny, but practice makes perfect. It is much harder learning to do something when you can't see it done. I'm sure I'll be back in here soon with another problem for you all to help me with.
Thanks again,
Mike

Jeff is exactly right on target for this matter and I can't offer a better explanation. Mix the paint like a wash but apply it like you are drybrushing.

Think of your brush like a printer cartrige. You are going to make a bunch of subtle passes with minute color to build up the desired effect. You are doing it right if you cant really tell a diffence after the first pass. One round of blending should barely be evident. You will have to do this several times to get the correct blend and you will also have to change the color you are painting with as you progress through the shading.

Blending is an art.