The Next Part
The next phase, for me, after blocking in the uniform areas, is to go back to the skin, and really get to work the face & hands & in this case...well....knees....by first blocking in a medium flesh tone, and then working it in from medium to medium-dark.
I don't really need a full palette at this stage--that's just too much to try to do all at once, especially with this many figures I'm working in a row. Above is what works for me--a small cigar tin full of bottlecaps(save your caps!--if you drink beer or pop--drink it out of a bottle and collect the caps!! They are awsome for this--the Missus puts them in the dishwasher basket for me and into my collection)
For this stage in the palette is Vallejo
019 Dark Flesh,
024 Medium Flesh ,
80 / 20 % 147 Leather Brown & 150 German Camo Black Brown
70 /30 % German Camo Blk Brn & Leather Brn
All mixed down to 'feel' with Distilled Water
First I block-in the most medium shades of flesh using....well .....Medium Flesh! I use a fine 6/0 liner to draw out alot of the features, saving the areas of the dark wash in most cases, as they define the sculpt(and the coming paintjob) I also use a very typical choice of a #0 Round brush doing this, and a few other larger brushes to smooth out the larger areas to avoid build-up anywhere.
The next step involves all four colors in my tin(and some intermixing in some cases) At this point, things begin to take shape and I thank Andy Mitchell for nudging me to order the Hornet Heads for this!! The face has a somewhat 'digitized' look at this point, and is far from complete....but the importaint features are all readable, even if I don't worry about being entirely accurate about everything at this stage.
Thin layers of the darker skin colours are layed into shadow areas, actually softening the work of the original washes....but also blending some with the larger areas. Last step is to add basically the first highlight with the Dark Flesh, which is just slightly brighter than the Medium.
I paint all the areas of flesh as I work each figure--nothing worse than having to try to match your work later and having the legs not match the arms! Part of what makes this stage quick and effective for me is I actually do some wet in wet blending with the acrylics . YES...it can be done--no you don't have time for alot of manipulation, but as I don't need perfect colour placement at this early stage...I can use it to get far along in the shading process in just a few minutes. It helps to have multible brushes in hand for this--one for each color and another clean one to blend.
That kneecap will need some defining later with highlights (and widening) but not bad considering it didn't exist at all a few minutes ago.
Here is another of the Desert Rats taken to this stage. I got all six to this point in one evenings time....