Exucutioner/Flesh tips wanted please!

[ScottRadom]

Still trying to get better at painting flesh. I'll take nay hints and tips offered. I've been trying to use colors I wouldn't normally and this guy was based with VMC Brown sand and shaded with the same and some olive drab added as well as some pure black-red. Highlights are Brown sand and VGC Elf flesh a couple times glazed with the GW thinned flesh wash a couple times then thinned GW purple a couple times. Any pointers would be appreciated!

edit: Finished

Edited July 30, 2009 by ScottRadom
all done.

[nilus]

Looks nice, personally I like to do a dark wash on my skin(I like GW Ogryn flesh) and then highlight up from that. But I am hardly the best painter in the world so YMMV.

How did you do the body hair in your Executioner?

[EricJ]

I have a style of painting flesh that I don't think is very common, but I like the results. While most people tend to think about flesh in terms of browns and tans...all those neutral colors we associate with flesh, I tend to think about it different. Real flesh is made up of reds, blues, yellows which in combination turn into those neutral colors we're used to seeing, and as such I figure painting with a combination of those colors is the way to get a more realistic look to flesh.

For example you have steamborg

But if you look at him up close, his flesh is really made up of reds and blues:

Admittedly I often take this to the extreme sometimes, and there is definitely places for browns and tans in painting flesh, but this just gives you an idea of the theory involved.

[blkdymnd]

So what kind of bases do you usually work up from, Eric? What extremes do you go in the reds, blues, etc and how do you blend in those different colors to get the cohesive look you got above? Not asking for a complete step by step, but you have a good theory on flesh, and I've been trying to lately experiment myself on some different ways to build it up, so just some examples on how you did the buildup above would be cool.

(not to derail this thread, of course)

[EricJ]

I always start with a white basecoat, and usually start with a rather heavy wash of both blue/grey (something like greatcoat grey from P3) and a reddish brown (like bloodstone from P3). from there I then pick an intermediate flesh color and start working out of the shadows towards highlights. There are of course additional washes of the red and blue colors throughout the process, and some theory about the placement of these washes apply. Basically undercuts will get blues, but as it's working from blue to flesh away from the light, you can use more of the red coloring. Basically as you shade away from your light source use more blue, as you shade toward your light source, more red...not sure if that makes sense...lol

After you work up your intermediate flesh tone, then it is important to choose where your brighter flesh tones (all the way up to white) will be placed, which is important as it will indicate the direction of your light source.

Of course once you have these reds and blues in your flesh, adding blue veins looks very natural, as it's not a foreign color to your fleshtone, alone with cuts and irritated areas in red (like those around the implants on steamborg).

That's my theory at least, lol!

[blkdymnd]

Thanks, may have to take some bits out of that for my own work.

[EricJ]

I'm by no means an authority on Flesh, and there are many on this board who are likely more accomplished at it than me, this is just the theory and ideas I've been working with for a while, and honestly I have gotten mixed results through my efforts with it over the years, lol

[snakeking]

good points by Eric. while I am not a particularly skilled painter the same idea is applied to flesh on 3D models, particularly using blue when lighting the skin to give it a more real feel.

[Silmarilias]

Using reds and blues is good but it depends on what look you are aiming for as reds accentuate warms tones and blue will do the same for cooler tones, so if you are doing something in a warm climate go for red tones and vice versa blue for colder climates .

That said though you technique seems to work quite well Eric after seeing the steamborg close up, so i guess it comes back personal choice and a bit of experimentation .

[ScottRadom]

Allright, cool discussion so far.

The example of the Steamborg is a good one, but it's flesh is meant to look quite odd, do you have an example of a model that would be sort of a more "conventional" flesh tone but painted in the same manner?

...read that and it sounds stupid. What I mean is the Steamborg could easily be a shoe in for the wierd undead kind of borg look, but anything from a normal walkin'-around-eatin'-and-breathin kind of fig? I'd love to get a closer look at your style before it's a finished product, any WIPS of yours here or elsewhere?

Thanks for the tips, I've got lot's of models I can think to use that style on. I think the undead hookers for Seamus or another flesh construct for McMourning right off the tip of my hat.

[EricJ]

true, admittedly I first used the style when working on another cyborg-type years ago

This one

But you can also see it on several wyrd minis I've done. Viktoria done with a lot more blue than red giving a pale look:

Viktoria

And on Perdita, with more red than blue, giving a redder look:

Perdita

Hope that helps!

[ScottRadom]

Cool, thanks! That Perdita is my Fav version. Very, very nice work. Much appreciated!

[Thryth]

Who says that EricJ doesn't paint? There are plenty of examples. At least one per year!

(And all of it fantastic, BTW)

[TheLemondropDan]

Thanks for the advice! I'll have to give that a shot myself -- the results are clearly amazing.

[DeafNala]

Ever the Devil's Advocate, I rather like the way you did the flesh tones, & the body hair. :ahhhhh:Keep up the GOOD WORK! :fing02:

[AoM]

For your flesh, I think the highs need to come up a bit more. He looks like he's mostly shades and midtones right now. Very smooth, though.

[EricJ]

I actually agree, after everything I pointed out, I think your flesh looks very good, with, as AoM says, perhaps a touch more highlights to really help define where your light source is coming from.

[ScottRadom]

Much appreciated so far guys. I will bring the highlights up more, and still unsure about the shading and such. Ritual suggested I go back and remove the Olive drab shading as it looks a little off and replace ti with more of the same under the belly. I thought I'd do a little more of the mini and see how I felt in the context once I got more color added. I was going for a kind of Jester look to the mini, 'cause I thought it might look a little different. Thanks so far everyone!

[Grimwolf]

I like the jester idea. Good lookin' stuff. I will keep watchin'

[Shade]

I have a style of painting flesh that I don't think is very common, but I like the results. While most people tend to think about flesh in terms of browns and tans...all those neutral colors we associate with flesh, I tend to think about it different. Real flesh is made up of reds, blues, yellows which in combination turn into those neutral colors we're used to seeing, and as such I figure painting with a combination of those colors is the way to get a more realistic look to flesh.

Eric - dude, I'm right there with you.

I'm a big Genestealer Cult fan and back in the day I cut my teeth on 'flesh' by giving my Hybrids a unique flesh scheme. Everyone loved 'em.

Since then, for example, I sometimes will make a Guardsman look gaunt and near death with a grey or blue/grey base. I almost never paint flesh with just regular browns and tans...

Just wait until I get some my minis posted... you all will see!

Latez,

~Shade~

[ScottRadom]

Did more work. Tried using the Automaton article on mettalics from CMON, I think it turned out okay but I defo put the different glazes on way to sloppy. More washed then glazed. But I think the metals are much improved. I'm gonna "Finish" the mini then go back and improve it using the suggestions I get.

[EricJ]

Looking great actually. With the metal I would think about adding some color to the metallics, either a brown/red look to give it an aged feel, or shade with a dark blue over the black to give it a clean steel look. Just when it's fairly monotone, it tends to look unfinished.

[ScottRadom]

Looking great actually. With the metal I would think about adding some color to the metallics, either a brown/red look to give it an aged feel, or shade with a dark blue over the black to give it a clean steel look. Just when it's fairly monotone, it tends to look unfinished.

GAH! It's actually been shaded with....

-2 layers of Liche Purple

-2 layers of Dark Prussian Blue

-2 layers of GW Dark Flesh

-2 layers of Bloodstone

-2 layers of Yellow Ochre/Black

then back over the metals with model air color Gun Metal, Steel, Chrome, and Vallejo metal medium.

Sigh.....

I don't disagree with you at all, I think that if I were to re-do the metal I would either reduce the Blue tinged stuff to one layer or omit one of them (Like the Purple and prussian blue omitted for a red look or the Dark Flesh\bloodstone for a blue look). The article by Seb Archer has a great finished look to it but I defo didn't do the technique justice yet. Maybe I'll try glazing the metals again with a red tinge?

While we're on the topic Eric, any secrets for when you do metals? More so then any other area of my painting I think the Metals are the area I need the most improvement on. I won't give up on the method I tried this time entirely until I've gotten more experience with it. I think if I had applied them more properly as glazes then the efforts of the first steps would be so overshadowed by the finishing stages perhaps?

Thanks so much to everyone for the C&C, much appreciated!

[nilus]

Looks really good. The only thing I would say you might try a bolder color for you light half of the hood and pants. It might be the picture but the light brown doesn't stand out really strongly against the skin color.

[EricJ]

Well, again this is just my experiences, but I think that in a lot of ways you don't want metalics to always be the top layer. Look around at metals in your house, there are only some areas that really have that strong metallic glint, where most of the other areas just hint at the metallic glint. Also the real highlighted layer looks pure white, not really metallic, just bright.

So basically, let the shading do the shading, and you don't need to go back over with metals, let it dull the metal and only let a little bit of the metallic look show through. I also highlight the hotspots with pure white, not metalic, I've found it really helps to define where those spots are. In some ways this method combines metallic theory with NMM theory, so it's a bit of a hybrid. But I like it because it photos well like NMM, but also shows well in person like Metallics...

Again, this is just kind of my theory on it. But from the looks of it, your last layer of metallics over everything sort of dulled all the rest of your work and made it look to the camera that none of those other colors are showing through.