The Waving Flag: 15 mm Flesh Pots

Monday 8 February 2021

15 mm Flesh Pots

Painting the different shades of human flesh on 15 mm can be a trial. To make the figure "pop" it's important that there's enough contrast in the flesh to define muscles etc.

Single colours look flat and uninteresting but if you highlight the areas too much the effect is garish and looks false to me. In the end it's all about balance.

I've recently painted a some early Libyan, Bedouin, and Nubian warriors with lots of exposed flesh and have developed quite a few new recipes which I thought I'd record for myself and anyone else interested.

European
This is my basic recipe and I use it for most Eurasian skin types as it really brings out the faces.  However, it's not ideal for lots of bare skin as it's far too bright.

Base Red Brown Plaka 52
Shade Tanned Flesh Miniature Paints 72
Highlight Shade plus Pale Flesh Miniature Paints 71

What now follows is a set of three recipes from tanned through to African flesh illustrated with very unforgiving close ups of 15 mm figures. To see the overall effect click on each image.

Tanned

Base Red Brown Plaka 52
Shade Tanned Flesh
Beige Brown
Miniature Paints 72
Vallejo Model Color 70875
Highlight Shade plus Pale Flesh Miniature Paints 71

Dusky

Base Burnt Umber Decoart DCA16
Shade German Camo Medium Brown
German Camo Pale Brown
Vallejo Model Color 70826
Vallejo Model Color 70825
Highlight Shade plus Tan Earth Vallejo Model Color 70874

African

Base Chocolate Brown Miniature Paints 83
Shade Base plus Light Brown Vallejo Model Color 70929
Highlight Shade plus Light Brown Vallejo Model Color 70929

3 comments :

Greg Kelleher said...

Thanks for your recipes. Just one question, where you indicate 2 colours for Shade is it 1 or the other or both of them? Cheers.

Vexillia said...

A mix of both. I usually start with a 50:50 mix then adjust depending on the required shade.

minipainter23 said...

excellent. really helpful.

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