Painting Tanned Flesh

I use the following paints in the tutorial below, all Reaper Master Series Paints:
Tanned Shadow: #09043
Tanned Skin: #09044
Tanned Highlight: #09045
Linen White: #09061
Deep Ocean: #09076
Rosey Shadow: #09067
Burgandy Wine: #09025
Pale Violet: #09027
Pale Indigo: #09081

Step One

I like to start with as even a layer of primer as I can manage - usually this means a light spray of primer (Krylon, White) followed by a thinned layer of vallejo brush-on white primer. On this model I have chosen to dark line before applying the fleshtone, because of the relative lightness of the flesh compared to the darkline (Reaper Master Series Brown liner). This will mean less layers to coverup stray dark paint, and also usually means less touchup for me.

Step Two

After the darklining is in place, I put down a smooth layer of Tanned Shadow. The paint was thinned about 1:1 with my thinning gunk (filtered water and a very small amount of flow improver). I also use a wet pallete, so my paint would be a bit thinner than someone using a dry pallete. With RMS, this first layer of flesh will require two coats of paint. While I was at it, I painted the eyes with thinned Reaper Linen White.

Step Three

Now that I have the flesh painted, I finish the eyes. The first step is to paint the whole eye with Linen White. Second, I paint a line with my eye color (in this case, Deep Ocean), from top to bottom of the eye. Usually, I have to go back and dot the corners of the eye with Linen White again to even up the eye. After I'm satisfied with the eye, I line the eye with Brown Liner. While I had the paint on my pallete, I also went ahead and cleaned up the dark lining where I'd gotten fleshy paint in it. The final step was to clean up the face, particularly around the eyes. I also went ahead and cleaned up any spots on the rest of the model where I got brown liner in the wrong place in the step above.

Step Four

A picture of the model with cleaned up darklining & flesh, before moving on to highlighting. You will probably notice by now that I haven't painted the hand on the scroll - I've decided to leave this the last, after the scroll is done, because I expected to use washes that might get messy on the scroll.

Step Five

Now that the eyes are finished and the base flesh color is smooth, I'm ready to move on to highlighting. I thinned RMS Tanned Flesh about 2:1 water/paint and carefully applied it to the surface of defined muscles on the model (luckily this one was pretty well defined - otherwise you have to make it up), knees, elbows, calf, top of the leg, cheekbone, edge of the jaw, chin, forehead. I apply two layers of paint on this step - the 2nd one covering slightly less surface than the first in each of the areas I painted.

Step Six

I reapplied thinned (2:1) dark flesh along the edges of the highlighted areas to smooth out transitions, particularly around the knee, thigh, and face. Also, the space between the fingers usually has to be re-shaded because I always mess that up. :) I also applied another layer of thinned Tanned Flesh to the top of the bent leg, the shoulders, the nose/chin/cheekbones, and the inward-facing muscle on the upperarm (I forget it's name), the knees, and elbows.

Step Seven

Using thinned Tanned Highlight (2:1, ish), I hit the cheekbones, nose, chin, eye-ridge on the forehead, fingers, knee, elbow, shoulders, and top of the leg (a larger area on the bent one and only a thin line on the straight one).

Step Eight

Some of the transitions above were a little harsh, so I used a glaze of tanned flesh to smooth it out again, and then reapplied tanned highlight to key areas - mostly the face, knees, shoulders, and elbows. place that tend to stand out.

Step Nine

Lastly, I finished the face - eyeshadow, eyebrows, and lips. Her eyebrows look a little funny, because the hair isn't done yet, and overall the flesh looks a bit 'off' - but this is mostly because the rest of the model isn't painted yet. The eyeshadow is very thin Pale Violet mixed with Tanned Shadow - you want about a 2:1 mix of violet/flesh. The lips are a little more complicated. First I mixed 50/50 Rosey Shadow & Tanned Shadow, but it wasn't dark enough, so I added a touch of Burgandy Wine, which seemed too dark, so I put in just a smidge of Pale Violet (each additional color was about 1/4 to 1/2 of the amount of paint already there).

Step Ten