Figure painting

[Chris_C]

Hopefully, what follows is a pretty straightforward guide to my method figure painting - but going beyond the basic colouring to get something that looks fairly nice. This is how I do it, and it works for me, but obviously everyone has their own way of doing things! I thought it might be interesting or useful to some!

 

STEP 1

I always give my figures a black undercoat. Here we have two test subjects, from ModelU, which have simply been sprayed with a black primer. 

 

 

STEP 2

I work my way outward for my painting, so I paint the skin tones first. For my figures, I use Vallejo flat flesh. For some variation, I might add a little 'basic skintone' or 'dark flesh' (both Vallejo). It's probably not obvious in the photo, but at this stage there is no need to be neat, as long as the paint goes where it needs to.

 

STEP 3

Again, I'm working my way out from the skin tones, so the next colour on these figures was the shirts. other than around the bits where this meets the skintone, again there is no need t be neat. Throughout the process, if you do get a bit of overlapping paint, you can always do some touch ups later on.

 

STEP 4

Continue working outward with the layers. I tend to leave things like ties, hats, shoes and hair until last.  It's probably worth saying that as you get into the last layers, or the details such as ties, having a finer brush will help to keep the paint where it's meant to be. I tend to leave any touch ups until all the basic colours are on, as there's nothing more infuriating than having to repaint the same fiddly bit 6 or 7 times because you slip with another colour! 

This is where a lot of people will say that their figures are done, and call it a day - so we're going to look at how we can go a bit further and improve how they look!

 

STEP 5

My next step is one that requires a steady hand, and can be missed out if you're not happy with it! I pick out the eyes and lips (only on 7mm+ scale models). You'll need a very fine brush too!

The lips are done with a mix of 'flat flesh' and a dark red colour, to something that just looks a little pinker than the skin tone. This is then applied very thinly to the mouth area. 

The eyes are done with a mix of white with a touch of flat flesh - just to avoid bright white eyes! This again is applied in a thin mix to the eyes. A touch of 'black grey' is then added to represent the pupil. It's not easy to get this right, but it's easy to just go over the eye with your flesh colour and try again if you get it wrong. You can also add a little flesh colour around the edges if you think your eye looks a bit big. Practise makes perfect - and the better the quality of the moulding, the better the result will be! It's hard to get a photo of this step that really shows what's been done, so we'll go to the next step. (You can see in the image below I've also picked out the buttons on the waistcoats.)

 

STEP 6

This is the first shading step. I use Citadel/Games Workshop 'Nuln Oil' wash, which is the only black wash I've found that works well as a wash for figures. This is just applied directly from the bottle over all the clothing, but not the skin. It can be added to the hands if they're resting on the figure, or if your figure is holding something, or has very crisp hand mouldings! When adding this wash to white, I do tend to thin it down, as otherwise it takes the brightness off the white. It's also worth adding a spot of 'Nuln Oil' to the ear to give it some depth.

 

 

STEP 7

Next up, we need to add some shading to the skin. I do this with Games workshop 'Reikland Fleshshade' wash and 'Seraphim Sepia' wash. I apply the sepia first over all the skin areas, and then the Reikland (which is a red colour) with a fine brush to the areas that need a bit more shade, such as the fingers, and around the nose, mouth, ears and eyes. 

You can subtly build up the effect, but be careful as it's very easy to go over the top! If you need some extra shade, it can be worth doing the deepest shaded areas with a very light touch of 'Nuln oil' (no photo here, but the photos below show this step to good effect)

 

STEP 8

Once all the shading is done and dry, I drybrush the highlights with a lighter shade of the relevant colour. So a grey for black clothes, or mix the original colour with a touch of white. This highlighting is very lightly dry brushed over the relevant areas. I'll also just give the upward facing parts of the face a very light dry brush with either 'flat flesh' or 'basic skin tone' just to bring out the highlights.

The whole model is then given a coat of AK Interactive 'Ultra Matte Varnish' which is the best matt varnish I've found so far!

 

 

And that's pretty much all there is to it! Before varnishing, things can look a bit odd, as there's a variation in the glossiness of the paints, but the varnish helps to bring everything together nicely! If the figure is wearing glasses I'll give them a bit of gloss varnish mixed with a tiny amount of light grey paint to give them a bit of a glint.

 

I hope this has been helpful! Feel free to ask questions. The only additional things I'd say I use other than whatever you use for painting your figures are the 3 Games Workshop/Citadel shade colours - 'Nuln Oil', 'Reikland Fleshshade' and 'Seraphim Sepia'.

 

Here is a cruel close up of one of the figures from above, and the rest of the cast that were painted at the same time using the same techniques - I like to paint figures in batches!

 

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and I'll answer what I can!

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Chris_C

[Andrew D]

That was incredibly useful, thank you! As a total noob I shall practice first on the ‘free’ train crew enclosed with the Hornby 0-4-0s. There seems to be a scary amount of investment in various paints and fluids so I might just try and mix my own colours first. Once again, thanks for the top tutorial!