Realistic skin tones with no fuss

Fear not the bare head, mini painters! With the application of some simple colour know-how and really really easy techniques, you can get any human skin tone you like, with minimal effort.

Dark Skin Tones:
Base: Molotow Violet Dark, Hazelnut, Burgundy
White for Value upping: Liquitex Ink Titanium White
Colour Zones: Liquitex Arylic Gouache Primary Red, Yellow Deep, Prussian Blue
Main Filter: Liquitex Transparent Burnt Sienna Ink
Variation Filters: Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber transparent inks.
'Blood' Filter: Winsor & Newton Artist Oil Colour Quinacridone Magenta (thinned with mineral spirits)
(Brush work at the end is done with mixes of the Gouache Red Yellow Blue and a little Gouache Burnt Sienna and titanium white)

Light Skin Tones:
Base: Molotow Lobster (and a little Hazelnut on some heads)
White for Value upping: Liquitex Ink Titanium White
Colour Zones: Liquitex Arylic Gouache Primary Red, Yellow Deep, Prussian Blue
Colour Zones: Liquitex Arylic Gouache Primary Red, Yellow Deep, Prussian Blue
Main Filter: Daler Rowney Peach Pink ink
Variation Filters: Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber transparent inks.
'Blood' Filter: Winsor & Newton Artist Oil Colour Quinacridone Magenta (thinned with mineral spirits)
(Brush work at the end is done with mixes of the Gouache Red Yellow and Blue and titanium white)

Music: "Valentine" by Wintergatan

#paintingminiatures #paintingminis #warhammer #warhammer40k

[GRGMiniatures]

OK, so I should probably clarify what I mean by 'simple' and 'no fuss': Good looking skin is a complicated beast, with oodles of very subtle tonal variation, both on one person, and across all the natural skin tones. There are simpler ways to get 'passable' skin, but I wanted to show really varied and interesting skin in the easiest way I could. None of the steps in this require much skill, just a bit of airbrush control (no tricksy wet blending or glazing or anything), and there are a few paints, but that's to get all the variety we need, without relying on subtle colour mixing, which is the sort of thing I would consider more advanced.

[Edheldui]

That is genuinely useful. I painted an Amazons blood bowl team just two days ago, my first proper try at a dark skin tone, and had quite a lot of trouble getting the reds in, they ended up looking more desaturated than i anticipated, but looking forward to use this method next time.

[davidstone]

Delightful as always! The “clown” look you mentioned has been a lifesaver for years for me! It’s why I don’t dread painting faces like many painters!

[rainerhorbach]

I'm currently in the process of pinting arround 50 Neophytes and couldn't be more grateful for these tips!

[tomsmith]

Lol, no fuss? That's the most involved and multi stepped process for skin I've ever seen... Not many people will own that amazing range of inks and paints for example. Still very interesting to watch and great result though!

[SweenyMarc]

Techniques beyond my current skill level, but those final glamour shots were incredible. Seeing the little crocodile clips holding the sprues reminded me, it's not as swanky a video subject as your great painting but a video or two on materials, tools, mixing ratios cleaning methods etc would be really helpful for a lot of newer painters.

[mr.m]

When you put the red, yellow and blue primary colors on, i was yelling "wtf are you doing! you ruined it!" But then i relaxed because I had already seen the final product and was really curious how you were going to get there after the clown paint. Good job!

[theChistu]

This is a great practical lesson with a lot of useful theory; can't wait to try it out!

[DoktorBeta]

i'm 3 months late but the yellow on top is not only "sunny yellow" light from above, it's actually the color of skull bone showing through the skin of forehead

[GloriousMiniatures]

I do enjoy painting these heads and I love the results you had! I'm a big fan of the 3 primary colours when painting the skin, although, they tend to be glazes with me. I'll have to give your method a try next time!

[marshallhunter]

I enjoyed this style of video, even if I dinnae currently use an airbrush. The overall colour placement your using is useful for myownself in learning how to properly setup for painting a large amount of the heads on some of my models.. and seems to apply to much of the model with skin showing like say a squad of dwarf slayers... Thanks much for the great tutorial.

[S.A.S.H.]

Great guide and results. As a first-timer to your channel I'll be wanting to watch more of your work for sure.

[TheFriendlyEnglishman]

Epic guide here - thanks so much - I always struggle with skin tones and these look amazing!

[matthewbull]

They look awesome, but I have questions!
1. What steps would you for matching skin elsewhere, like arms, chest, legs?

2. What would you change for regular humans or space marines, not GSC?

3. Would these results clash with a mini that has a different bold colour (e.g. space marine armour), like blue, green, orange, etc? I'm thinking that the shadow isn't the same, so may look off?

[MoronDude]

Mmm, grape flavoured. Cracking result. Quite a few steps, but feels like once you've set up for each one they'd fly by. So the more heads you have to do, the better it gets

[BrooksSligh]

Nice work! I've always favored the idea of bare heads on my Marines (they have stone bones & transhuman physiology, nothing that would be deflected by a faceplate wouldn't be deflected by their ceramite bones and anything else wouldn't be stopped by either. Unless they're dealing with hard vacuum or prefer the auto-senses to the Emprah's genetic mastery of their augmented senses I can't see a reason buckets would be mandatory) but while slapping a wash on a base might work for armor it loses out on skin. Excellent technique with the inks & oils, I really need to go pick some of those up at the craft store.

[Kelann]

Outstanding video on the nature of skin tones and techniques to achieve them. That's a whole video on it's own, but to show how you achieve it, and with such ease, at the same time is a real accomplishment. I really felt like this is something I can achieve and loved watching you do it. I'm shocked I hadn't come across your channel before but you're doing amazing content and I'm now a fan and follower. Thanks!

[WoodImp]

Always good to see solid colour theory in work. Great stuff mate, awesome result

[trentonbaird]

Anytime I hear Wintergatan, it’s an instant like. Thank you.

[jacobdjurhuus]

Thank you for this useful video. great to see a video that does not GW paints :)