Introduction
This tutorial is based on me using advice and suggestions I took from the tutorials done by notoriginalminis.com. I am trying to apply these ideas to painting 40k and 30k minis among others.
The basic principle of this approach is to use bold sketchy strokes and then refine with ever less sketchy strokes. This is combined with layering over half transparent colors and by that smoothing out and unifying the blending. Without further ado - let's start.
Priming and base coat
I primed with black and then "dusted" the face with white from the direction of the main light source. This is as much used to give me a good light and shadow foundation as it is used to show me the details of the face. This where I actually get a good understanding of how I want to do the paint job.
The next step was a thin layer of Scale75 Golden Skin (any warm skin tone would work here). This is my skin base tone. It is important that the black and white foundation shows through. I just tried to avoid pooling and too obvious stains. But it is not necessary to be very neat here. Do not forget we are sketching. This even more visible in the next stage: the shadow sketch. It is very important to have the first layer dry completely before you go on.
Sketching
As you can see this is a rough sketch. I am using Scale 75 red leather (a dark red brown tone). The pictures show where it needs to be applied. Next step: lights.
To complement the shadows I sketch in the light using Vallejo Elven Skin (a pale and light skin tone). Again do not bother with blending or being overly neat. It is important to get an idea about light and shadow situation here. The refining comes later. Still it looks more like a skinned skull with the muscles showing at this point. A unifying layer of the base tone will help here.
This layer of the skin base color should applied heavily thinned down. Try to make sure that it is applied as even as possible. You might have to do two. But as seen in the pictures the light and shadow show through. It still looks rough and also the contrasts are not strong enough. We will improve that in our next step.
The deepest areas of the face like the eyes, under the nose, the lines separating the cheeks, under the chin, the lines under the eyes and so forth receive dark shadows - a mix of black and the shadow color (red leather).
Over that dark shadow another thinned down layer of shadow color was applied. This covers larger areas and as you can see also brought back the color into skin.
Refining
The transition from sketching to more fine work is blurry in this approach but let's say that from this point on the steps are more targeted and controlled then before.
Here I used the base skin color for unification again. I used it heavily thinned down and applied it to the transition between shadow and light areas. Here I pushed the color from the shadow into light areas. Make sure that the face is dry before you apply subsequent layers.
This shows my second layer of lights. As usual the color is thinned and is applied by pushing it into the light areas. The fact that the color is thinned down will create a smooth transitions.
To smooth out transitions another layer of the base color is applied over the rougher transitions.
At this point I felt that the face was moving into a much to pale direction.
I applied a heavily thinned down layer of orange over the whole surface. Rather err on the thin side and use multiple layers. The result is a much more tanned look. Still the skin lacks one important quality - life.
A thin glaze of pure red was applied to areas to have more blood flow in the face, the cheeks, the temple, around the nose tip, the eyes and so forth.
I used the skin base color for a first step to reestablish the highlights. I also used red leather to strengthen the shadows again
The strong highlights come back with the highlight color - Elven Skin. I also used it for the eye balls and the teeth.
Finishing
Smoothing things out and giving it the final touches come next.
This step was again using the base skin to smooth out transitions.
Below you can see the final pictures. This was after about an hour of using thinned down shadows, base skin and highlights to accentuate and smooth out things. I cannot give concrete steps here except for one: the eyes.
The Eyes
It took 3 tries to get the eyes acceptable so do not be mad if it takes a while. The steps are always the same:
1. the whole eye is painted in the dark shadow color
2. eyeballs are painted - do never use White for this but light greys or like here the highlight color
3. paint the iris with a very dark color (black or dark brown or dark blue)
4. the next step is the most important - the White dot for the reflection in the eye - this makes it come to life
This sketching approach might look like a lot of wasted steps but by getting ever more detailed it is much easier to establish light and shadow and colors and the finish is much smoother as the transitions are developed over time.
