Painting Flesh Skin tones

[TheDilfy]

I'm seeking feedback on what paints people use for flesh / skin on their figures. I'm always in awe of the painted figures on this fantastic forum, and I try to emulate the style and look particularly on flesh / skin, but end up being dissatisfied with my attempt.

I normally use the Duncan Rhodes formulae - GW paints:  Bugman's Glow, Cadian Fleshtone, Reikland fleshshade, Cadian Fleshtone and highlights of Kislev Flesh. I'm not happy with GW paints as their consistency can be somewhat pervasive, and I need to paint a lot of figures for my TYW project and would rather see them done this side of the century. Duncan's recipes are great but I think there a one too many steps involved on each area of the figure.

I have thought about a triad approach of base, shade, layer, but unsure as to which is the best. And this is just for Caucasian European / Mediterranean flesh / skin tones. I would also welcome the same for other skin tone colours - Black, Indian and SE Asian.

Please could you share your flesh / skin paint schemes and the paints you use and if possible a pic of a figure using that paint scheme?

[aircav]

The Foundry expert flesh set is a worthwhile buy

[Dags]

My go to caucasian flesh is Vallejo Game Color Beasty Brown Base to which Vallejo Model Color Beige Red and then Vallejo Game Color Bonewhite are added.

[OSHIROmodels]

I use the normal Foundry flesh triad for western types and the oriental flesh triad for samurai. For sub continent Indians I use a base of Spearshaft mid tone, Flesh shade and Flesh mid tone (all Foundry).

[Daeothar]

For caucasian skin, I have a very simple recipy that has served me very well over the years:

I tend to undercoat in white, so I'm going with the assumption that we're working form a coat of white primer here, although I've recently also done this without ill effect over a grey primer. Over black, I reckon you'd need to repeat the basecoat step a couple of times to get a smooth and vibrant colour.

Basecoat: I used to work with Vallejo Game Colour Filthy Brown (72.037), but Vallejo changed their colour recipy some years ago, and it's now a lot more yellow than it used to be (used to be a bit more desaturated). I guess the new formula would still work, but I've recently switched to Vallejo Game Colour Bronze Flesh (72.036) and this works every bit as well.

So a basecoat of VGC Bronze Flesh. Then a wash of thinned down VGC Leather Brown (72.040). Several very thin layers preferable over one thicker layer, obviously.

Then a cleanup with VGC Bronze Flesh en then a gradual highlight of progressively lighter mixes of VGC Bronze Flesh and your choice of white paint (I tend to use VGC Dead White, VGC White Primer and Vallejo Model Colour White intermixed; as long as it's white, it's right ).

Finally, I usually use VMC Brown Rose (70.803) to lightly glaze the cheeks and bottom lip of faces and sometimes also the elbows, knees and knuckles (when bare on the model). Same goes for possible scars, although I tend to go a bit heavier there.

And that's it! 3 or 4 colours is all you need for caucasian skin tones. For asian skintones, I do the exact same thing, but change out VGC Bronze Flesh with VGC Plague Brown (72.039)

[TheDilfy]

Brilliant thank you all for the useful replies and tips.  I'm going to come back and post my trials and tribulations.

[ced1106]

I think your skill is beyond mine, but just wanted to mention the Reaper skin triads to be complete. Or do you find them not as good as your existing techniques?

[Michi]

I already painted quite a bit of skin and always used Vallejo 72042 Parasite Brown for the basic skin tone and added increasing amounts of white for up to five layers of blending and highlighting. That is for caucasian appearance of course: