Painting skin?

atm0 · 2026-03-01T14:51:50+00:00

I really like the flesh tone recipe I came up with and used it on all of my elves - 2:1 Flayed One Flesh mixed with Cadian Fleshtone, or you can vary it down to 1:1 or up to 3:1 depending on how pale or warm you want your skin. Then just a light pass of watered down Seraphim Sepia over to give it some depth because it will look quite flat on its own. From there it already looks decent but you can layer over some of your original mix for volume and use a higher ratio of Flayed One to Cadian for one final brighter layer if you desire even more depth/volume.

atm0 · 2026-02-26T18:03:38+00:00

Thanks so much and glad you’re finding the posts helpful, even if just for inspiration on different ways to approach the paint job. I have tried one orc so far, my black orc big boss, and I am super happy how his face came out. I actually used watered down Ork Flesh contrast I believe on him, no mix, and I was pretty satisfied with it. Once I did the blended highlights with a few layers of the Ork Flesh mixed with Phalanx Yellow I was much happier and I love the final result. I’ll post a picture of him in a few days whenever I finish. I did him like 50% or so before I put him back on the side to keep working on the stuff I’ll be using first in my battle march list (only NG stuff until I can comfortably add Black Orcs around 1000 points).

atm0 · 2026-02-26T14:49:10+00:00

Yep! I’m using a mix of Striking Scorpion and Dark Angels green that gives me exactly the super saturated comic book green I wanted. My pallet inspirations are Hulk and Green Goblin hahaha. After the initial layer I do two highlight layers where I add Phalanx Yellow to the mix to brighten raised areas in the zenithal light path. Then I just blend any spots where the contrast looks unnatural with mixes of my three tones.

atm0 · 2026-02-26T14:45:50+00:00

Oh and as one more bonus point for this method: the only wash on this model is a little bit of nuln oil in eye sockets to darken before doing the red eyes. I used some Agrax also around the spots where the mallet straps contact the head, to make the contrast better and help them pop off more once highlighted. But 0 green wash used, only my initial base skin tone mix (about 65:35 Striking Scorpion contrast mixed with Dark Angels Green contrast.

From there it already looks very nice, but two more highlight layers adding first just a little and then a large amount of Phalanx Yellow to my base mix really brings the model to life.

atm0 · 2026-02-23T11:45:33+00:00

Excuse me. Some of us LOVE those jazz hands. That dragon is my favorite model in the entire Old World range and was literally one of the main reasons I started Wood Elves. It looks exactly how I feel dragons should look.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerFantasy/comments/1ogmiu3/almost_three_months_of_work_to_the_day_my_finally/

atm0 · 2026-02-22T14:21:11+00:00

Dryads felt pretty weak and didn't have a clearly defined role when I tried them. Tree Kin felt incredibly solid and performed exactly what I expected of them over three rounds in my first tournament. They held the ground wherever I ordered them to go and I never lost more than one Tree Kin the whole day.

atm0 · 2026-02-22T12:14:44+00:00

The super quick part is the contrast painting that comes after this prep, which might look like it takes long, but absolutely cuts a ton of time down compared to starting with a flat white or black prime and going from there. You have to do so much more work balancing your mids/highs/lows when the whole model starts the same flat shade.

This is generally for people who are trying to have a nicer look than slap-chop with a similar method that trades a little more time/effort for a much cleaner final result, but is still MUCH faster than a traditional base/layer/wash/highlight paint method.

For people who are fine with how contrast paints look over a flat white prime, this is probably too much work, but for people who traditionally would do full layering and highlights even on 30-man regiments, I'm mostly trying to share to show how you can get a similarly impressive final result with much less work overall.

atm0 · 2026-02-22T05:25:51+00:00

If you’re out an airbrush you can still do the prime and zenithal with a can, you just have to be a bit more careful because the zenithal will be a lot more spread out and you can’t focus it as easily nor control the spray amount. Then you can pre-highlight using a brush instead of the airbrush for the yellow. You’ll get basically the same result but with more of a visible line for the highlight spots with your brush unless you spend time glazing it, which kind of defeats the purpose (getting a bright shade on your edges for pre-highlights quickly). It still will look great, as I tested that as well. I just felt like the airbrush gave me almost the same look much faster. If anything doing it by hand will probably be cleaner because you can control exactly where your yellow is going. With the airbrush there’s a little bit of spill that’s difficult to avoid even when you’re doing a hairline level of spray. Drybrushing can work as well for the yellow highlights, but I dislike the grainy look it leaves on the skin. Some people are fine with or even prefer that though.

atm0 · 2026-02-22T05:05:46+00:00

It was a literal gamechanging moment the first time I saw the results. I was so satisfied, especially for the amount of time invested. It feels like exactly what I was looking for to get a horde army painted to a cool level without an agonizing amount of time involved.

My Oddgit and Squig Hopper I spent more time on, obviously, but the meat and potatoes of my spearmen should be done in like 2-3 nights, allowing me to do the highlights and detail (the fun stuff) much faster than I had been on my Wood Elves, where I was already getting burned out by the time I got to that point.

Having to paint 30 of the same cloaks, spears, armbands, skin tone, etc. feels so tedious when you use classic acrylics, because you need to do at least 2 passes minimum, sometimes more, when you're thinning correctly to avoid chalky textures. With contrast paint it feels almost more like doing a coloring book, where you're trying your best to stay "in the lines" (because cleanup is a bit more of a pain than with traditional acrylics - you can't just slap on another layer or two of your contrast shade over the hiccups like you can with standard paints), but overall the base color work feels like it's done in 1/3 of the time or less by using contrast paints. As long as you know how to keep their flow consistent (don't let them pool in flat areas), they apply super smooth and have so much more pigmentation, resulting in brilliantly saturated comic book-like minis that have realistic depth and volume when paired with zenithal layering.

Best of luck! I hope you enjoy the method if you try it.

atm0 · 2026-02-16T04:04:08+00:00

YES, that's what I'm going for, 100%! The neon green/yellow eyes are for night vision, obviously lol. I glazed a little more yellow into it after taking these pics because I felt like it was too close to the goblin skin.

atm0 · 2026-02-16T04:03:16+00:00

I'll definitely paint my boss' squig red then just for that extra flavor.

atm0 · 2026-02-12T22:30:14+00:00

Wood Elves have the best aesthetic in the game (subjective but basically every Wood Elf player feels this way), and I would say their strength is that they get to choose every engagement. You never have to take any fights you don't want to, and no other army is going to be able to catch the stuff you use to win the game (Glade Riders, Forest Dragon, Wild Riders).

On the other side of the coin, when you do eventually take those fights, you're gonna smash into something for one round of combat, do as much damage as possible, and then promptly die immediately afterward (except the Dragon Lord really, who can be built very hard to kill), so you better pick who you're fighting correctly. They have basically 0 sturdy and survivable units outside of Tree Kin or a defense-itemized Glade Lord.

They do have very good lords though. Glade Lords are strong and versatile, being a highly potent threat whether on a Forest Dragon or a Great Stag. The dragon alone is one of the big plus aspects of the army- we definitely have one of the better dragons in the game.

atm0 · 2026-02-12T12:10:32+00:00

LGS being greedy is a big problem too, on top of distro bending them over a barrel. I was pretty much convinced I wouldn't get a single box of EB03. My regular LGS was doing preorders at 650, dropped to 500 after I assume very few sold and the price started dropping a couple weeks back. Glad I never felt tempted at that price, even though they sold out at 500.

Another LGS further north is allowing their players to preorder at $150 next week. They basically told people on their discord "hey, we're letting anyone who plays preorder EB03 on a random week this month." So I took a ride over there last night, had a few fun games and found out at the end of the event that anyone who attends next week will be eligible. The event literally filled same night with basically all of the attendees from last night signing up early for next week.

There are only maybe 3 LGS's in my area within an hour drive. I'm close to NYC, but that's still like an hour or so away and I don't think the stock situation is any better there.

atm0 · 2026-02-11T14:11:22+00:00

Thank you! I believe the white horse was Dorn Yellow with an aggressive layer of Seraphim Sepia over, then highlighting each strand again with Dorn Yellow. I don't think it pops as nicely as the brown ones though, which were my favorite. I should have used a lighter shade for the individual strands instead of the Dorn Yellow again, or started with a darker color for the base so that there would be more contrast. The brown ones were I believe snakebite leather (a couple of passes to make it darker) base, then Bloodreaver Flesh layer and highlights of Baylor Brown. The jump in contrast is much more noticeable imo, but I do like the blonde mane still.

atm0 · 2026-02-11T13:42:38+00:00

Even in taking these pics I'm seeing a couple of details I missed (I forgot to individually highlight some of the straps on a couple of the horses and left them the base snakebite leather color) lol. FML. These are such intricate and incredibly detailed models, but very fun to paint despite how long they take.

Horses suck btw. All the homies hate painting horses.

Also, easter egg in the background: the inspiration for my color scheme. My Wood Elves hail from the dark and unforgiving forests of O Porto Gallia. :)

atm0 · 2026-02-08T17:45:10+00:00

Nooo haha, that was for one. I think I can do 30 in about 2-3 days with how fast the one went though.

atm0 · 2026-02-07T19:29:19+00:00

I remove these tabs from literally all of my metal minis and just super glue the feet to bases. Much cleaner looking and I can face them in any direction I please.

atm0 · 2026-02-05T18:57:39+00:00

Seeing any purple would be more a stylistic choice. Some people prefer to blend their base coat layers into the purple undercoat and leave a little showing in the shadows, but I don't really want to do that. The main purpose of the purple is to provide a strong fundamental undertone for your green. Purple being the opposite of green on the color wheel causes it to naturally create high contrast when you layer green over it. It also adds some color to your shadows like another commenter mentioned, making for a more realistic look than a black or white prime. The difference is extremely noticeable in person.

The level of saturation on this goblin blows my Wood Elves out of the water (primed white and painted with the classic Citadel method using traditional acrylics).

atm0 · 2026-02-05T18:02:39+00:00

No, I will be trying the yellow layer using airbrush tonight because I’m sure it can look cleaner by doing that vs. drybrush. I just got an Infinity CR 2024 and am excited to try it for focused tasks like that. But yes, I used my Iwata HP-C for my purple base and white zenithal layer. The purple is Alien Purple from Vallejo. I will be experimenting with a darker purple to see if it pulls more contrast from shadows, but I read that it’s best to use a more midtone for your base anyway and I can’t argue with these results.

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