Unteroffizier, Großdeutschland 1942 - Painting the Face

In this instalment, I will briefly describe the painting of the face using AK Interactive's Gen 3 acrylics Flesh and Skin set. This six-colour paint set provides a convenient solution for the average military modeler to render a face or skin tones without too much hassle. Truth be told I usually prefer to mix my own flesh tones instead of using ready pre-mixed ones, but since a sample was supplied to me by the good people of AK Interactive I thought that might as well give it a go. 

The only shortcoming with this set is that it does come with any instructions on how to apply the colours and therefore what I am about to present is my take on how to use this set of colours. For more information on my technique for painting the face, do check out my DVD available HERE.

In my previous post, an underpainting was applied to the figure using Grey White to bring out the mid tones and highlights. The key feature of this technique is to allow the underlying white base to provide the luminosity and the overpainting to provide the colour; maintaining the saturation of the colour. Base Flesh was repeatedly applied in translucent layers to gradually deepen the areas representing the mid tones (the cloudy grey areas). I was careful to avoid to getting Base Flesh over the bright highlights as it will diminish the luminosity of the highlight colour that comes next.

Light Flesh is applied over the highlight areas. Likewise I avoided getting light flesh into the areas painted with Base Flesh as it will cause it to appear chalky.

Highlight Flesh is applied to the higher points of the face to enhance the appearance of the facial features.

Dark Shadow Flesh is applied to a deeper recesses of the face to deepen the shadows as well as the lips.

Once again, Highlight flesh is used again to refine the highlights on the face and paint the white of the eyes.

Paint the eyes with  a dab of Dark Prussian Blue.

Paint the eye brows with Rubber Black.

Add a little dash Dark Shadow Flesh to the deepest recesses of the face.

Finally,  highlighting the lips with a colour mixture of Dark Shadow Flesh and Base Flesh.

The completed result from this painting session.

Next up, the uniform.....

Cheers,

Calvin