Help with chalky skin tones

[Al Capwn]

Skin tones have recently been my own personal quest. I have tried:

• GW's Citadel: I honestly quite like but find very one-dimensional and overall a little dark, so not great for fairer skin tones. Cadian/Kislev are ok, but there is a quite a jump from the red-pink Cadian to the yellow-ish Kislev. I do love Bugman's Glow as a base coat. Nice deep plum color with fantastic coverage. I consider it a satin finish.
• Vallejo Model Color: Basic Skintone ran into the yellow tones, devoid of quite a lot of pink. Somewhat of a semi-gloss finish, even more-so if using their glaze medium. Truthfully, never particularly cared for it.
• Reaper Rosy & Fair Triads: Rosy Shadow is great, love it. Fair/Rosy highlights tend to build up a rough texture. Like...1000-2000 grit sandpaper. Dries matte. For what it is worth, of all the triads, like @Cyradis mentioned; the Golden Skin triad I have oft heard mentioned as probably the best of the bunch. I may still pick up that triad to play with to give Reaper another shot at the title...
• Scale75 ScaleColor Skintones: Incredibly matte. Like...dusty matte. No sheen whatsoever. Much thicker consistency, smells ...different... than other paints (I know, weird anecdote) and behaves oddly. However, the tones blend into each other like some weird voodoo on a wet palette. I was able to thin them with just water down to practically nothing and glaze over, and they still dry matte without any grittiness, even with something as high concentration of white as Pale Skin. Rumor has it you can add some Flow Aid and it turns it more-or-less into the consistency of Vallejo/Reaper, but I have yet to test that out. Colors tend to run a broader spectrum, from a deep plum to a pale yellow. A little more effort is required to put together a "recipe" compared to Reaper / GW's system. Tends to run a bit more into the tan/yellow if anything.

There are still lots of paints I haven't tried, so obviously I don't consider this all-inclusive and I have the least amount of experience with the Scale75 stuff as I am still trying to learn particulars of its unique behavior and application. So far though, I really do like them for glazing. I will see if that continues to be the case over time.

 

[Cyradis]

I'll have to pick up some more S75 skin tones. I use their Arbuckles Brown for shading skin a lot though; it is a very rich purple-brown that thins beautifully. I even use it on fair skin for shadows. S75's Purity White is amazingly smooth. Sooooo smooth.  I'd also add Reaper's Olive Skin and Dark Elf Skin triads to your list. Olive is better than Tan, and serves about the same purpose. Tan triad has fine paint, but the three are too similar - get one, not all. Dark Elf Skin works great as described, but is also super useful for shading black. Reaper's Bronzed Skin triad works very well, but will give a kinda spray-tan impression unless you work in other hues like the Golden Skin or Olive Skin. That said, it compliments others really well, much like Rosy Skin does (I rarely use Rosy Skin triad as a starting point - I use bits of it to accent others). 

[NecroMancer]

Vince Venturella just posted a video on YT about painting white and he suggests adding gloss varnish to keep it from chalking.  Might work for other light skin tones since they are mostly white anyways. 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d0wWzjluaxM&t=690s

[Zink]

I'd try that out except I don't think I have any gloss varnish. I only use matte varnish. Might have to order a bottle the next time I make a Reaper order to try out. I've had the same problem with colours close to white.

[thelonegoldfish]

On 9/22/2018 at 8:10 PM, NecroMancer said:

Vince Venturella just posted a video on YT about painting white and he suggests adding gloss varnish to keep it from chalking.  Might work for other light skin tones since they are mostly white anyways. 

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d0wWzjluaxM&t=690s

 

Yeah, I found that glazing medium worked to stop the chalkyness a bit.