Mahdist skin colour recipes?

[cram]

Hi all, I have some of the fantastic Perry plastic Mahdist's coming through the post to me.

Could some of you please suggest some paint recipes for the skin of the Beja and also the Nile Arabs? Foundry and Vallejo are my favoured paints but I will happily work with other brands.

Many thanks.

[Ming]

There's a tutorial on the Perry's website & Coolminiornot have one too

[italwars]

hello...if you use to go for the easiest and sufficiently effective way..as i did with my mass/native units:
just clean the minis with soap..spray them with black (fuzzy wuzzy types) or brown (Ansar/Arab types) from  those cheap car spray cans at less than  2€ cost...then dry brush with any Rust colour you have using  an old shortened brush....the add details and clothes..then face details..the result of such a mass painting will be, in my opinion, Ok...

[Phyllion]

I use the method on the Perry website.

[tom_aargau]

I used the Perry recipe, too.
Here an example of the result:

[Happy Wanderer]

Here's a super fast and effective way.

Spray model in Army Painter Leather Brown (or black and then use Foundry paint colour Dusky Flesh - pot 6B). Then apply army painter DARK tone all over.

Spray matt....finished.

VERY fast and an excellent result IMO. If you have scads of mahdists to paint I'd seriously consider this method. You can very nicely fiddle around with the other Foundry paint browns to get different shades of skin colour. The AP dark tone really gives them a good 'dark' shading that provides a 'richness' to the final figure for very little effort.

See more examples here.
https://abyssiniancrisis.wordpress.com/category/resources/miniatures/


...and here are some plastic Perry's painted that way also.

...more here

https://agrabbagofgames.wordpress.com/tag/berbers/


Happy W

[Atheling]

I *think* I used the following on mine:

All Foundry colours (I think! It's been a while):

Foundry Musket Brown:

All three from dark to light followed by:

Foundry African skin Tone Light:

All three tones from dark to light.

This gives a great deal of depth, I only hope the pics do the layering justice:







Note, these miniatures are pre-varnish

Cheers,
Darrell.

[cram]

Thanks for all the advice and cool photos everyone! Lots to consider.

I take it the Beja would all be dark skinned, but would they all be one skin tone or would some be darker than others? Same question for the Arabs, who I imagine would range from dark skinned to fairly light skinned? but maybe that's not correct.

I can see myself having some fun trying out all the different methods suggested.

Many thanks.

[FierceKitty]

Contemporary British observers were certainly struck by the extreme darkness of Fuzzy-Wuzzy skin. Not PC, but that's colonial games for you!

[Atheling]

I take it the Beja would all be dark skinned, but would they all be one skin tone or would some be darker than others? Same question for the Arabs, who I imagine would range from dark skinned to fairly light skinned? but maybe that's not correct.

As far as the Beja were concerned the skin tone varied as they were from all parts of the Sudan. It's also worth remembering that the Ansar (literally "follower") were originally Beja who went through a slow change in fashion

Darrell.

[cram]

Searching the net it does appear that the Ansar ranged from very dark to fairly light in skin colour as you say Darrell, this is good in my book as I like a lot of variety where possible.

[Atheling]

Searching the net it does appear that the Ansar ranged from very dark to fairly light in skin colour as you say Darrell, this is good in my book as I like a lot of variety where possible.

It's how I'm painting mine..... though I have to say, I've devised a simpler technique to save my sanity!  

For a quick dark skin tone try:

Matt Spray on Primer (Edited)
Andrea Black Undercoat (very matt)
VMC Black mixed with equal amount of VMC Medium German Cam Brown
Citadel Agrax Earthshade Wash (Straight of out the tin and applied liberally)
Foundry Dark African Skin B
Foundry Dark African Skin B and a small amount of Foundry Dark African Skin c

It's a lot quicker. I've been trying it out on some Foundry DA African Tribal Warriors with Braided Hair - DA071. I'll post up some pics as soon as they work their merry way out of the painting que.

I'm a little concerned that given the larger areas of 'detail' on the Foundry models that it might not work as well on the Perry Beja but we'll soon find out!  

Cheers,
Darrell.

[Timmo]

Not all the Ansar were Beja – huge numbers of Ansar were arabs. However, by 1885 the Beja tribes were adopting the uniform of the Mahdi's main army. The best single explanation of the various tribes and how their dress evolved is in the Perry Go Strong book.

Beja – my view is that they should be very dark but with some variations of skin tones. I paint mine using wet-into-wet blends so they are fast to work on. They can look really dramatic if you paint them with nubian not brown skin. I mix Vallejo black with burnt umber add flat earth to burnt umber for the lightest areas. If you do this wet-into-wet you get really subtle tones. Don't forget that not all the skin is the same colour all over. For example, the soles of feet and under arms are lighter.

It's worth looking at some of the famous paintings of the battles such as Tamai and Tofrek to get some inspiration for skin colours.

[Timmo]

ooops

[Atheling]

Not all the Ansar were Beja – huge numbers of Ansar were arabs. However, by 1885 the Beja tribes were adopting the uniform of the Mahdi's main army. The best single explanation of the various tribes and how their dress evolved is in the Perry Go Strong book.

True, my mistake. Though I do have an article from an old none wargaming mag that a very kind gent in Canada from the Victorian Wars Forum sent me which is adamant that the change in dress was a slow process. I think that Mike concurs with this hypothesis in his book.

Whilst I am here, here's some pics of the Beja with varnish and finished bases (these are done using the first recipe I suggested):







Darrell.