Nagrus'z Strongarm - How i painted the various skin tones on the orc and wyvern banner!

Part 1 - Nagrus'z skintone.

First of all I want to say that I am a moderate painter at best and it is the help and guidance I received from Bohun, Camelson and Loler that has pushed my painting on these last couple of months. I have been asked several times on how I painted the skin and whether I would consider writing a tutorial. So here it is!Then more recently I updated the tutorial to also include how I painted the banner of wyvern hide.

First of all I was thinking about the overall colour scheme of the miniature and the setting I wish to place him in. As I am going with a cool colour (purple) for the dragonhide banner, I decided to go with a warm skin tone.

I So a warm green was needed and after speaking to Camelson who flaunted the traits of a particular Games Workshop colour I chose Camo Green (GW) which is a yellow/green and fitted perfectly. Camelson taught me to always add a touch of black to my basecoat, which basically begins to lay in the shadows. With painting the skin it is really important to block in the colours and define the volumes of the anatomy as quickly as possible, so I painted two or three layers of a thinned mix of Camo Green with just a touch of black added. Being careful with the direction of my brushstrokes so as not to leave strong build up of this colour in the shadows where it will become difficult to discern transitions from shadows to lights. The mini was painted with zenithal lighting in mind, so imagine a light source directly from above. Next I started lightening the skin tone with many thin layers of pure Camo Green, careful to leave the shadows within the darker base colour. So, to explain this in just a little more detail, bare in mind that when you start your highlights, to slowly cover less and less of each section of the mini with your chosen colour so that you eventually concentrate the pigment at the apex of the highlight, moving away from the midtones and the deepest shadows.

 

I always seem to struggle with highlights more so than applying the shades and glazes, so in this instance my base colour was lighter than I have previously done and it seemed to pay off. I currently find that when i keep my paints heavily diluted for the highlights, the paint can become chalky when i apply it to the mini and if anybody else has encountered this you will agree, the finished result is not too good.

To start building up the basic highlighting, increasing amounts of Elf Flesh (GW) were added to several subsequent layers of the Camo Green. Pretty basic stuff so far, just remember to keep the paints thin and use the direction of the brush to apply the paint. For instance when highlighting, your strokes should be aimed from shadow to highlight and vice versa when applying the shades. Remember even at this stage it does not matter if your blending is not smooth, the most important part is to have a nice transition from the shades to the highlights for the sake of contrast. I have traditionally struggled with this and no matter how crazy I think I am being with my colours, I always seem to produce another desaturated piece with a very natural feel to it. If your blending is not the smoothest, you can clean this up in the next stage with the use of glazes.

 

Now for the fun stuff. I had always assumed glazes were the same as washes but a very good, pug loving friend of mine from Poland, Loler (Adam Halon) showed me otherwise. 

Both are very diluted paints, but with a glaze most of the paint and water is removed from the brush, unlike a wash where the brush is loaded with paint/water and the miniature is flooded with the mix. With a glaze therefore you have much tighter control of where you place the glazes. 

So as I have already hinted at, the glazes will not only add varying contrasts and interest on the large areas of skin but it will also blend the various transitions that I had painted through 1) Camo Green + Black 2) Camo Green and finally 3) Camo Green + Elf Flesh. It is important that the glazes applied carefully and slowly and allow each glaze to dry before applying the next. A glaze will also dry  much quicker than a wash (so you can put your wifes' hairdryer away).

 

  

Firstly to accentuate the shadows a drop of purple and black was added to the base mix, thinned down and carefully applied to where most of the deep shadows would fall. With glazes it is important to build the colours up over several, almost transparent layers. Otherwise, you will simply be painting over one colour with a darker colour and ruin the paint-job underneath. Pure thinned black was then painted into the very deepest shadows. Sometimes as an extreme shadow, black ink can be applied, the glossy shine of the ink can accentuate the deepest shadows still further. Working out of the shadows purple by itself was added to the base mix (Camo Green with a touch of black) and applied leading up to the midtones, meeting glazes of blue which were added to the base mix. It is this careful application of several glazes that smoothes out the transitions and blending that was laid down in the previos steps of highlighting and shading.

With all these glazes beginning to take shape, especially in "busy" areas like the face, you can start to lose a bit of definition between the various components of the mini, for example between the face and the metallic elements of the helm, a dark brown/black mix, heavily thinned was used as “black lining” around the edges of the face and head, nose, eyes and especially important for gnarled orc faces, the top creases in the top lip. "Black lining" can also be used to define different areas i.e. certain muscle groups, the spine and around adjacent parts of the miini, for instance where flesh meets material or armour or belts and straps. This all helps to make certain details pop!!

Sometimes it is necessary to go back to applying mid tones and highlights and/or to tidy up certain areas. Pure purple  glazes were placed under the eyes and upon the bottom lip, and a red glaze was painted around the eyes leading down and onto the nose. 

The skintones were starting to get a little cold with the blue and purple glazes so to bring out some bright, warm spots to the skin some very dilute glazes of Camo Green and a yellow (doesn’t matter which) were placed in key areas again to add contrast and interest to the skin. Tops of muscle groups and shoulders are good places to do this as they have nice curves and volumes to them. The highlights were once again picked out and a final extreme highlight along eye brow ridge, nose, elbows etc were picked out with thinned down Elf Flesh. Unlike most of the painting of the skintones with very dilute paints, the final extreme highlights need to cover the skin quite strongly so these are almost applied straight from the pot, maybe just a touch of water. And that’s it! Oh now for Part 2, the flesh tones on the wyvern hide banner. Stay tuned for further developments. Happy Painting!!