Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Garlic]

What color mix/manufacturer do most folks use for oriental (Chinese/Japanese) flesh?

John Garlic

[scott holder]

I've only gone down this route once, back when I was at the USMC Command and Staff College and painted up a single 25mm Samurai figure for the Japanese major in our class. I ended up taking the lightest olive color I could find, then mixing it with either white or the lightest shade of yellow I could find. It took me several tries until I got a shade that I liked.

And after all of that, I figured it wasn't worth it. I use plain ole Warrior Flesh (or whatever the equivalent might be) and with the stained polyurathane overcoat, they figs simply look tanned and weathered. And I assume that my armies are all full of weathered, hardy veterans, thus, skin tone and color aren't all that different than a European counterpart. Heh heh, except for hair color of course!

Okay, it's probably a bit more caucasoid than it should be but at the army scale, it's never bothered me in 25mm. And I have two major figure pods (from which I derive various armies), Khmer and Song.

scott

[Greg]

I've taken to using Citadel "Pallid Flesh" as a base coat for all skin. I like to apply it with an airbrush, in order to get nice even coverage, and to get in all the cracks. Bonus, I prime in white and this color is so light, it doesn't cloy with the white primer effect.

Then you just have to pick your wash color. Citadel makes a washing ink called "Flesh Wash" that serves as a nice base. You can add a touch of another color to get the skin tone you want. Use a darker brown for desert folks, and add a bit of yellow (and I do mean A BIT) for oriental types. For very pale folks, thin the ink out a bunch and put in a SMALL smattering of blue ink.

Useful tip with this technique ... after you do the wash, let it dry in cool shade for an hyour, then put in in a window and let direct sun shine on it for a few hours. This dries the @#$% out of it and allows you to paint eyes, etc ... without having your paint pull up the washing ink, which is a hiuge problem and major negative for washing ink. I learned this while doing 90mm display figures.

I would hightly recommend Citadel paint for flesh, washing inks, white, and for airbrushing. Other than that, avoid it like the plague.

[Macbeth]

I have the same problem - usually I mix varying amounts of flesh, brown and yellow until I get something that "looks right". However what looks right is often different between batches.

When I was first putting together my Sung Chinese army I was house sitting for a workmate who was renting space in the house to Mainland Chinese students who were studying English.

I would sit with my paints and mix the colours, regluarly looking up at my bemused housemates at their studies.

Cheers