I’ve been working on the skin for the Parasite Queen in the short windows of opportunity I’ve had to actually sit down at the desk. I get asked a lot about how I paint skin on my models, so I figured I’d document this a bit more than usual. I personally like my Kingdom Death models to have a more vibrant skin tone rather than something that’s realistic. These models sit on my table so I like them to pop a bit. If you’re looking for realistic skin you may want to look somewhere else.
Building Up From Dark Undertones
I like to start with a dark color as the undertone for the skin. I’ll usually grab a dark red and spray it with the airbrush from a low angle. In this case I’ve mixed in some blue just to cool it off a bit and darken it a bit more. Once I’ve got those shadows established a bit then I’ll work my way up to the lighter skin tone. For the Parasite Queen I’m working my way through orange/peach colors up to a fairly warm white.
Once that initial work with the airbrush is done I usually like to hit the skin with a wash with the darkest base tone. This just makes all the details stand out really nicely and shifts the tone a bit. On a model like this one it also makes the guts a lot more defined with minimal effort.
Yeah, it kind of looks like I’ve wiped out all the work I just did, but all of these colors make the skin look a lot better. I alternate between the airbrush and the brush to blend and introduce imperfections. That’s the thing, the imperfections that show up with the washes and brush work make the skin look better. Blending with the airbrush is fine and all, but I still want the imperfections to show through. Skin isn’t perfect.
Dry Brushing the Highlights
Now that I’m happy with the state of the base colors I wanted to knock out the rest of the work quickly. That means I’m pulling out a large soft makeup brush and loading it up with a mid-tone for the skin. Yep, dry brushing the highlights here. Mid-tone, then the brightest color. I didn’t snag a shot of that, but you’d see the whole thing was dry brushed. I’ll be sure to grab that photo next time. Then, it was back to blending things together with the airbrush. Very thin paint to make sure I can smoothly blend all of this back together. I’ll be coming back in and adding some details later like blush and nipples, but this will be good for now. Keep an eye on the Gallery, she’ll be getting added there before too long.
