[Question] - Basecoat flesh w/ inking?

[DrClarke]

Okay, I\'m a big time lurker, but I finally have to ask a general
opinion type question.

I\'ve only probably had less than a years worth of painting practice.
So, I\'m still a big time rookie.

Now, my question. I\'m experimenting with human(oid) flesh tones
finally. They\'re really a bane for me. I just have the hardest time
with flesh.

I\'m trying to learn a bit on my own from experimenting and a bit from
reading what techniques others have used to some success.

One of the more common starting methods seems to be to lay down your
basecoat of flesh, and then ink your flesh to get the depth and
shade/shadow lines established.

My Question: When you \'ink\' does all of your flesh get covered? Or
do you ink only in specific areas. Whenever I ink, I seem to end up
with all the flesh covered, and then I have to go back in and kind of
basecoat again avoiding the depth/shadow areas.

Does what I ask make any sense?

Example: http://www.foolarchy.com/Media/minis/inkexample.jpg

Basecoat skin: GW Elf Flesh
Ink: really really watered down GW Snakebite Leather

Notice how all the skin ends up getting covered with the ink.

~Shane

 

[DrClarke]

Great... can\'t edit or delete the post... sheesh.

 

[Chern Ann]

Whether or not you ink an entire area depends on

1. How intense your ink colour is
2. If you want to tint all areas or just shadows

Usually, if I ink everything I end up highlighting raised areas anyway, so there\'s no real difference.

You might want to try another way of painting flesh though:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/go.php?go=articlephp&aid=55

I prefer this method now, it saves some steps and looks better for me.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Basically I\'ve stopped using flesh ink as a wash for skin tones. At least for a display mini\'s. As I found That even with washing up liquid added, to break the surface tension, and thinned at least 70/30 it still pools too much for my taste. I still might use it for RAF\'s(*) and or washes for bases.
(*Still cant get used to RAF=Rank & File [RAF = Rough as **** where I come from]{mind you that still describes my rank & file troops})

For skin tones I\'ve recently experimented with Dark flesh/Dwarf Flesk mix for the shadows and worked out using a wash of Bronzed Flesh and highlightling by adding various amounts of Elf Flesh.

For a recent Blood Dragon Knight, I started with a base coat of Elf Flesh and specifically darkened around the eye sockets with darkened basecoat adding a minute amount of Dark Flesh to emphasise the eyes themselves. I used Pallid flesh as the resulting main coat and gradually added White to make the facial highlights as pale as possible.
It didn\'t work out too badly, sadly the rest of the mini is still to be painted.

Hope this helps a little.

 

[Errex]

Flesh tones usually look better when layered, since the ink washes (especially GW\'s), tend to be too strong, and not \"warm\" enough to portray shaded skin.

The shortest method I use is:
1.- basecoat bronzed flesh
2.- highlight elf flesh
3.- highlight skull white

You could use an intermediate highlight between 2 and 3 mixing equal amounts of skull white and elf flesh, but these three work fairly well on RaF models.

Also, your basecoat could be a mix made from bronze flesh and chestnut wash (about 80/20, depending on your preference), wich would give us about 5 layers for a regular healthy skin tone.

 

[Flashman14]

a bit late but here\'s 2 cents worth

I struggled forever to get a satisfactory way of painting flesh on human type males.
Here\'s what I came up with - a standard GW ploy frankly:
1) Basecoat: Dwarf Flesh
2) a coat of undiluted Flesh Ink
3) then base coat Dwarf Flesh again leaving all the creases the ink stained Flesh. The ink dries super smooth so you can blend this coat on easy - just lift up your brush on the end your strokes - it\'s effortless.
4) 50:50 Dwarf Flesh to Elf Flesh- hitting the highest portions: bridge of the nose, top of the nostrils, cheek bones, chin (blended backwards towards jaw), top of the brow before it dips into eye socket.
5) add 50% more of Elf Flesh to the above mixture then cover roughly 60% of what you just did in step 4 hitting either the highest points or the most raised points of the above features.
6) finally a smudged dot of Elf Flesh on all the above spots.
By then you should have some lovely gradations. If your paint is watered down a bit you\'ll some very nice and gradual blends going on.
Also, after all that is dry I give a dull coat to the flesh otherwise the Ink creases are still very glossy.

Off the top of my head I think all but 3 or 4 of the minis I\'ve contributed to CMON has this method demonstrated.

But this one (Figure 8281) is the best example becasue his arms are exposed so you can see more bare flesh:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/img3d755389ef436.jpg


hope this helps! Anyone else use this method? It sounds longer and more time consuming than it is

 

[Burzmali]

I find the GW Flesh wash too orange for my liking. I use the old GW Vermin fur (as sort of chenutty brown) and highlight with bronzed flesh and pwlnty of white (It varys from pot to pot. My old one didn\'t need much white. My current us almost orange...) for those special centerpeices.

And for RAF I use Humbrol Matt rust - highlighted the same way. Because I\'ve got plenty of it and can always get more...

But I\'ll have to try out using the method in the article a little way up the page...

Burzmali