Painting Skin for Survivors (Patreon)

We're having something a little different today, this is a look at how one can paint human skin, however this process applies to literally any kind of skin, you simply need to swap the pallets around.

So, outside of washing (if resing), prepping, priming and general preparation, the most important step is going to be deciding on your colour range for the piece. You don't need exactly what colours you are going to be using, but having an idea - cool metals, with bright colours for example, is helpful. 

Now, when it comes to skin, you're going to have to decide on a few important things, first of all a lot of what you do depends on your build ethos. If you have gone with magnetised parts, then you are going to need to paint all of your models in identical skin colours; if you've picked 'generational builds' (where the same head wields the same weapon type, for example Allister always wields axes, Lucy always wields spears) then you have a bit more flexibility for variation in skin tones and can diversify away from using the usual Caucasian tones that dominate many of the paint jobs in the game. 

So, have a plan, and work it out in advance. With my own models, I have some painted in Asian skin tones for People of the Sun, some with dark skin (Lucy and Zachary in particular look amazing with darker tones) and the rest are all painted with the colour set you see below.

This is the nocturna skin tone 'purple flesh' collection, and I enjoy using it because creates a weird, unhealthy look that accents the weirdness of the rest of the model range. 

I use 4-5 "root tones" when painting a colour and selecting the right ones to start is important. For me I want the following.

1. An ivory or other off white tone for the highest parts.

2. Brightest highlight tone for the main highlights

3. Light main tone

4. Dark base tone

5. Shadow tone

Here they are laid out next to each other:

It's vital to note that this 'recipie' here is just one of many variations. You can combine your skin paints in a bunch of different ways and as long as you check they look decent together and mix/transition/blend well, it will work. You do not need exactly the paints I have here, you can use approximations or even entirely different shades, if you want more natural ones for example you could be in the citadel range with bugmans glow -> reikland flesh -> elf flesh -> off white or something similar that uses ratskin flesh.  

There's no right skin recipe, and it's really just about how you apply it and what look you're seeking in the end. I have and do use Scale 75, Nocturna, Vallejo and Citadel paints  interchangeably, there are benefits to each.

While this will use the Nocturna purple flesh transitions, you can apply what is done to any set of skin tones, just change the colours you are using, in particular the bottom two tones do a lot to alter the look of a model from weird to fae to natural to cold.

That aside, here is the model we're going to look at painting the skin for, specifically it's the face that we're painting up here, because it is a smaller area, so I could do it relatively quickly - I don't have a lot of time in between commissions at the moment.

This is a Dragon Armor survivor, with the load out of a Sunshark Bow - one of my favourite load outs in the game because it combines all the flexibility of a bow with the power of a melee weapon. One of the things I always do before sorting out my models is I have a plan for what weapons they are going to be using, so I can try and have the model with a useful set of gear that I'll use relatively often.

At the moment, when playing People of the Lantern, I will always have the Sunstalker and Dragon King as quarries together (because the Sunstalker does a lot to make the DK stuff viable), so this load out is one that I use quite often.

As you can see, she has been broken into three parts, this is done post undercoating (which is a black/white mix to help keep details visible, not really a zenithal style, but related to it) and the parts that obscure access to areas have been removed for separate painting.

Here she is with the base coat on.

So this is tone #4 (the 4th darkest tone) and it's applied thinly onto the skin everywhere.  Generally I thin paints in a ratio of 90/10 (9 parts paint for 1 part water) and my wet pallet thins them a little extra. I will also use un-thinned paints at times, because they are a useful tool in order to increase the vibrancy of the colours. The old mantra 'thin your paints' is a misnomer and a meme repeated by the masses. It's not entirely right, you should thin your paints if it's appropriate and only by the amount needed. Too much thinning is as bad as none.

You'll work out what's best for you, myself it's paint and water. No fancy chemicals outside of that.

The next thing I do is work out the shades, this is done with tone #5 (Purple Shadow here) and it's a 50/50 mix of water and paint. Then immediately return to painting tone #4, which wet blends it together, this is why I can't share photographs of my process very often, it's normally either wet blended or stippled with hundreds of tiny brushstrokes and then glazed.

Tone #3 is also blended into this wet mix and at this point I will stop and let it dry. Because I want the higher sections to be sharper, so wet blending isn't an option.

This is what it looks like at this point.

The face is more finished than the body, I just blocked out some colours on the body for later use, picking out the areas which would be lit up, specifically to demonstrate something. I'm going to grab a picture of a bodybuilder for this one.

Our dear friend Arnold here demonstrates something very important about skin, there is a line down the middle of the body that picks up more highlights than the surrounding areas, even though it's technically 'nearer' the shadow than the other areas. In fact I'd absolutely recommend you spend time looking at pictures of bodybuilders of both genders to get an idea of how the light falls on the human body, you can get a lot better looking skin if you learn that rather than just put the highest points of colour onto the areas 'nearest the top'. It's nice to look at other people's painted miniatures, but reality is your best reference always, even when painting the fantastical.

Next it's time to add in the lighter colours, now my process here is as follows:

• Paint the higher tone in with a 9/1 mix using small brush strokes
• Glaze the area with the previous tone (1/9 mix) which will smooth out the transitions
• Repaint some of the higher tone where required.
• Repeat for each level up.

At this point we end up with this: I've painted in the eye sockets to add definition, and as before, it's the face that matters here, the rest is just roughs.

In the case of this smaller model, I skipped out on the ivory step because there just wasn't room for it. But if I wanted to go further I would introduce more glazes of deeper colours in the recesses and push the contrast further.

Here's the finished face:

As always, it's super hard to take pictures of my process and I can't do videos until I move in a few years time :( because I don't have an office at the moment. But here are some other pictures of the same process, using the same paints, but applied differently. 

First up, here is big Devil Stan in various stages:

In this piece, I'm wet blending and feathering a LOT more because it's a display piece and because it's not going to get played with (much ;) ) I've taken my time more with the skin and smoothed it out a lot more. It also has an additional shadow tone, which is the very purple Scale 75 colour "Black Leather" - one of my staples in my Kingdom Death style. This is creating the very darkest shadows you see.

Here's Devil Stanley, with the same skin tones, but she's earlier in the process, so the skin looks rougher. As mentioned, the way to smooth out painting, the best and fastest way, is learning how to glaze. 

Finally, this is not the best picture, because I still don't have a new lightbox, but here is what they look like when completed. (Mostly, Stanley is still missing her pumpkin candy basket).

Here is an Allister, painted with exactly the same colours as the others, except I've held back on tones #3, #2 and #1, which creates a different skin colour, but the same pallet.

Finally, here is the officially best survivor in the game (fact, not opinion) painted again with the same tones as the others, but with more emphasis on the lighter and purple tones (her hair picks out the purple even more)

So there we have it. In addition, the best way to pick up more of the stuff I'm doing, while I'm doing it is on the discord, where I can chat about specific questions you might have, or over on my instagram at https://www.instagram.com/fenpaints/ where I often post WIPs. 

Or you can ask any questions here!