Dark Eldar skin tones - paint recipe required

[StraightSilver]

Hi everyone,

Basically I just needed to get an idea of the best way to paint Dark Eldar flesh.

I haven't painted anything that wasn't either an Imperial Guardsman or a Space Marine in about 15 years, so I can do human skin tones in my sleep, but xenos have got me a bit stumped!

I plan to get them as close to the Studio paint jobs as possible, but the paint recipe is eluding me.

I am guessing that it's Dheneb Stone followed by Ogryn Flesh wash and then highlighted up with Dheneb Stone and Bleached Bone or Skull White.

However I know that the Studio army wasn't painted entirely with Citadel Paints so does anybody have any better recipes, preferably with example pics.

I paint with Citadel, Coat D'Arms, Vallejo and P3 paints so it doesn't have to be GW colours.

Cheers.

[pauljc]

Here's one of my recipes for fast DE skin.

When the DE first came out again, I had a couple days to get a box of Warriors ready for store display. So I went with this:

Dheneb Stone base colour, Skull white drybrush or line highlight. Then wash the whole face in Dheneb Stone. Thin it a teeny bit with water if you want it softer.

After that I added a little Asurmen Blue wash around the eyes. Then follow it up with a few facial tattoos, black line markings or swirls, whatever you fancy.

You end up with a pale, creepy-looking bunch of killers.

That recipe is for basic display quality, and table-top/gaming quality.

[Mazelf]

I go the simple way: tallarn flesh, greyphone sephia wash, elf flesh brush/highlights, green hair!

[StraightSilver]

@ Pauljc: Yeah that's pretty much how I was thinking of doing them, but I normally use about 7 or 8 colour transitions when painting faces and I'm not sure that Dheneb Stone is up to it as it's a Foundation Paint. I normally try to paint for better than tabltop, even though my figures are primarily for gaming, but with DE really wanted to do the models justice.

@Mazelf: You see I thought about working up from Tallarn Flesh but again that's not a route I would normally take either. Isn't that a bit warm for Dark Eldar tonally? Do you have any pics?

[Mazelf]

Im out of town right now but Ill get some pics when I get home tomorrow and post them for you, elf flesh really does a lot to tone it down but I do like my minis to look a bit darker since Im not that good a painter and use a LOT of citadel washes (or as someone here at BoLS called them: talent in a can)

[Vasagi]

If you want the studios recipe for DE skin,They put it in WD #370 apparently.

Basecoat:1.1 mix of tallarn flesh and spacewolfgrey

Shade:same as above with equal amounts dark flesh added 1.1.1

Shade2: devan mud in deepest recesses.."I like to skip this step for female DE faces so it makes their skin tone a little softer".

First highlight:3.3.1 mix of tallarn flesh,space wolf grey and skullwhite.

For the 2nd highlight its says to use the same mix as above but with equal parts skullwhite 3.3.3

Last highlight is skullwhite,and a little leviathan purple was used just around the nose and eyes for depth

hope that helps.

Used the above on all my DE including wracks

[StraightSilver]

Cheers Vasagi, you're a star! I must have looked through my White Dwarfs at least 2-3 times this week but couldn't see that for looking! :)

Your Wrack is beautiful btw!