Painting Flesh Tones with Layered Glazes – PRELUDE

I recently undertook something of a personal painting challenge when I decided to paint the C- Girl Akito bust from Neko Galaxy. Although I’ve been painting minis, on and off, for 36 years I don’t have a great deal of experience painting busts. On top of that the subject of this bust is a youthful female and far more realistic in style than I’m used to painting. All in all I found it a daunting prospect, but it was an exciting one too!

The very first step was to sit back and study the bust. This gave me the opportunity to familiarise myself with the sculpt and develop a plan of action. It’s vitally important to think through any project as thoroughly as possible before you pick up a paintbrush. For example, I was able to consider such things as the order in which I would paint the various areas of the bust, the overall colour scheme, the tone I wished to create and the painting techniques I would use to achieve these things. My ideas may evolve as the project progresses but the initial planning gives me a strong foundation for that process.

It was clear that the first big challenge that I faced would be painting the flesh tones. They constitute the largest single type of surface on the bust and, as the innermost ‘layer’, would need to be painted first. I decided to begin with the face as I’ve always believed that if you can’t get the face right, it doesn’t matter how well the rest of the piece is painted it will all look ‘off’!

THE COLOUR PALETTE

There is a bewildering abundance of colours describing themselves as ‘flesh tones’ and choosing which ones to use can be tricky. My own choices were informed by a couple of factors. First, as a part of the overall scheme I’m creating, I’ve decided to paint a pale flesh tone. The other influence on my colour choices comes from past experience. When I’ve painted busts before I found it very useful to think in terms of broad colour zones. Yellow tones for the forehead and upper face, red tones for the centre and blue tones for the lower face. This principle is applied to male faces as the blue lower zone can help to create a five o’clock shadow – something I most definitely do not want on this bust!

However, the general idea is a useful one and it helped me make my choices. For the yellow tones I have picked Light Skin and Golden Skin, both from Scalecolour. The red tones are Pink Flesh from Scalecolour and from Games Workshop Bugman’s Glow and Baal Red. I am using a wash for the strongest reds because it’s translucence will give a more subtle effect than paint. Bering Blue from Scalecolour will provide the blue tones. This desaturated blue/grey mixes well with other colours and will not overpower them.

The base colour for my flesh tones is Games Workshop’s Rakarth Flesh. This gives me a neutral desaturated layer of colour beneath my glazes that helps to prevent the fleshtones becoming too saturated too quickly. For the highlights I will be adding Vallejo Model Colour Ivory to my palette. The ivory has a warm yellowish tone that works very well as a highlighting colour for flesh.

PAINTING TECHNIQUE

I needed to create a smooth and subtle blend of my colours for the flesh tones. In recent years I’ve been very focused on creating textures in my mini painting. But back when I first started painting, smoothness was the ultimate goal in all my work. This bust gives me the opportunity to create contrasting areas of smoothness and texture.

I decided to use the technique I normally employ when painting Nurgle Plaguebearers and paint the flesh tones with a series of layered glazes. This will enable me to incorporate a variety of different flesh tones in a subtle and controlled way.

I applied my flesh tone colours on top of the base colour in a series of highly diluted glazes. Applying the colour this way makes use of the translucent qualities of diluted acrylics. This helps to give the flesh tones a luminous quality and, hopefully, a life-like appearance. Because no single glazed layer makes a great difference to the overall effect, the skin tones can be built up in a gradual and controlled way. It is the cumulative effect of the glazed layers that creates smooth and nuanced flesh tones.

The exact degree of dilution is something I tend to do by instinct and can vary from colour to colour but the picture below should give a pretty good indication of just how dilute my colours are. It is very important to make sure that each glazed layer is totally dry before painting another on top of it!

This style of painting works by building up the intensity of colour from a light base. The first layers create broad areas of subtle colour and tone. As the layers are built up the painting becomes tighter and more precise. The final layers of colour are applied only to the areas of strongest colour and deepest shade. What this means is that in the lighter areas more of the base colour shows through.

Although the base colour is quite a light tone it will not be light enough to serve as a highlight. To create the highlights I take the base colour and mix it with a little of the various flesh tones. I then lighten this mix incrementally by adding ivory.

It is extremely important to build up the highlights very carefully. As with the shading I build up the highlights with subtle layers of very dilute colour. The only places where I have used pure ivory are the pinpoint reflections in the eyes.

It is all too easy to over do the highlights by using too much ivory or too little dilution. If this happens it can be remedied by glazing over the highlighted area with a mix of the appropriate flesh tone and Rakarth flesh. But be warned it’s tricky to correct so I’d recommend erring on the side of caution!

It’s worth noting that the highlights work in a different way to the shading. The glazed layers of shading are slightly translucent and the colours are seen through one another in a cumulative effect. This helps to mimic the effect of light penetrating the surface of the skin. The ivory and Rakarth Flesh used in the highlights are more opaque and this creates a contrasting effect. The opacity of the highlights helps to mimic the effect of the light bouncing off the surface of the skin.

I may have to adjust the flesh tones as the overall scheme and contrasts develop but for the time being I’m very pleased with how Akito’s face has turned out. Now I have to paint the fleshtones on her torso before I can turn my attention to her hair and costume.

Look out for the next instalment! A big thanks to Jay for the opportunity to contribute to this site and thankyou for reading, I hope you have understood me and find it insightful!!