=][= Jack's Assassin

[mcjomar]

Okay she doesn't have a name yet, but I figure it's gonna be pretty basic and formulaic - religious parents, holy emperor's death cult, got picked up for assassin training, etc.
About as unique as the model, really.







Not my best work, but the face is better than it looks in the photos - my camera doesn't like to do really subtle stuff like the blend between elf flesh and bronzed flesh and my using dwarf flesh for the lips (looks great on women, but dodgy on men).
There's even an accidental beauty spot from the badab black wash. Wish I could say it was intentional.

I like the classic black and red from the source model, but I decied to tone it down to dark grey (skavenblight dinge), and darker red (scab red, classic pot).
I think I got *most* of the fine details picked out but I may have missed the odd one or two.
After this comes the female scummer lady based on the barbaretta model - I'm spending the next few days painting her.
After that comes a slightly more unique combo of parts and paints, so we'll see how that goes.
Basing is (after my shopping spree) yet to do.

[KaptiDavy]

I always deemed such unmasked faces unfit for a death cultist (they need a certain amount of dehumanization which the originals did well), but the figure itself is neat
Maybe some facepainting??

[mcjomar]

Hmm, okay, this is wierd. Did the photos just vanish?
Or is my computer broke? I'll try and figure out how to fix this soonish.

Anyways, I mostly disliked the originals due to the bionics and such - they didn't really feel as cool as the concept art to me.
I figured that maybe this would work due to the whole Natasha Widow thingy, hence the red bobbed DH head.

Incidentally, any good adivce for shading skin?
Ogryn flesh is simply terrible at the job, so I'm not sure what else to try.
And I'm not sure what ogryn flesh is even good for. But it's not good for faces, that's for sure.

[MarcoSkoll]

Hmm, okay, this is wierd. Did the photos just vanish?

Your addresses are to imgur pages, rather than the images.

Incidentally, any good adivce for shading skin?

My personal advice would be "don't", but that's because I'm not a massive fan of washes, and think that faces are a focal point that deserves more exacting attention than slopping some shadows into all the crevices.

I always deemed such unmasked faces unfit for a death cultist (they need a certain amount of dehumanization which the originals did well)

With the extent to which death cults ritualise combat, I could see certain cults buying into ideals like facing one's foe eye to eye. Other alternatives would be for their concealment of identity to be more metaphorical than literal.

[mcjomar]

Hmm, what's the best way to work with skin then?
I can deal with most other colours, but other than my shortcut via a bronzed flesh wash on some minis, my ability to work with skin is a bit weak. Especially when trying to use elf flesh as the core colour for pale skin.

[KaptiDavy]

Well I have the same experiences with "the simple wash approach", so maybe.. try some blending! These are a bit larger than the usual 28mm figs, and metal too, so you can experiment with it

[TallulahBelle]

Iv seen skin shading done well with inks and the beauty of the imperium is that there's loads of options for logic for stuff.

Is the stuff in the head bionics I always thought it was something to do with the ingestion of blood?

[mcjomar]

Eh, IIRC it's a little of column A and a little of column B. Either way, it doesn't really (for my tastes) capture the artwork nearly as well as I would like.

[MarcoSkoll]

Hmm, what's the best way to work with skin then?

I work in a lot of layers. It is however a method that needs a lot of precision.

For Caucasian skin (or its 41st millennium equivalent), it's usually a sequence of Dark Flesh (maybe with a little Regal Blue added), Tanned Flesh, Dwarf Flesh, Elf Flesh and maybe a little Bleached bone in the mix. There tends to be one intermediate mix stage between each of those, but sometimes two, depending on exactly how dark or light I want the skin.
The Dark and Tanned stages are very sparing though. A lot of the shade comes from the Dwarf stage, and by the time I'm at Elf, I'm almost highlighting, so the overall skin tone tends to end up somewhere between Dwarf and Elf.

~~~~~

That said, I wouldn't personally call painting my strongest point, so hopefully people with actual talent like Van Helser or RobSkib might come along with words of wisdom.

[RobSkib]

Incidentally, any good adivce for shading skin?

My personal advice would be "don't", but that's because I'm not a massive fan of washes, and think that faces are a focal point that deserves more exacting attention than slopping some shadows into all the crevices.

In the interest of maintaining coherent advice from all your respondents, slopping shadows into the crevices is precisely what I do on my models

Facetiousness aside, I do have a certain method that has worked for me. It's pretty simple: Flesh Colour > Wash > Same Flesh Colour > Slightly Lighter Flesh Colour. It gives it a four-stage highlight with only using two different colours of paints and a wash. I hate hate hate mixing paints and I will go to any lengths to avoid doing so, and this technique tends to work for me.