HOBBY: Practicing Skin Tones with Kingdom Death Starting Survivors

With their minimal clothing the Kingdom Death starter survivors make great subjects for trying out new skin tone techniques. For these individuals, I’ve used three different palettes to get three very different feels. I’m using all P3 colors here.

I started by spraying them all with some Model Master Gray primer.

I’ll start with our female survivor since she’s the closest to the typical Caucasian color palette.  I do want her to look a little pale though.  She gets a basecoat of Rynn Flesh with some Bootstrap Leather mixed in to darken it.

I begin highlighting with pure Rynn Flesh.

I go back in with my original base coat color to bring back some details I covered up the first time through.

The final highlight for the flesh is done by blending the Rynn Flesh up to P3’s Menoth White Highlight.  That last color is used sparingly in its pure form and only goes on at the apex of a few regions.

I give her “Red” hair by starting with a basecoat of P3’s Bloodstone which is highlighted up using their Rucksack tan and then more Menoth White Highlight.  I also get started on her her wrap using  a basecoat of P3’s Frostbite.

Then I highlight it by mixing in some more of that Menoth White Highlight.

Here she is with her rock shard and Lantern finished as well.  I’ll cover how I did those at the end.  I also left the base unfinished.  Eventually I’ll get my hands on those cool stone face bases that will be coming with Survivor.  I’m just going to wait and use those instead of making something custom for these survivors.

For our next survivor; something darker.  This guy gets a basecoat of Umbral Umber.

The basecoat gets highlighted up with some Idrian Flesh.

Then Rucksack Tan is added as a further Highlight.

Here’s a look at the back.  The musculature on the back can be even more difficult to get right than the abs and pecs on the chest.  It requires a more subtle touch since the areas of muscle don’t look right when they’re so starkly defined. I’ve kept the shade tone restricted to just the line down the middle and the creases at the base of the back.

I move onto the wrap giving it a basecoat of Frostbite mixed with Thrall Flesh.  I also finished the hair.  The technique there was pretty basic.  I just drybrushed it with Frostbite, and gave it a wash of GW’s Agrax Earth.

Here is our last survivor.  I decided to give him kind of a sallow complexion to match his thin Physique.  I start off his skin with a basecoat of Beast Hide.

 I begin highlighting it by blending in some Thrall Flesh.

I add some more Thrall Flesh.

Here’s a shot of his back at this early stage.

Here’ I’ve finally moved up to pure Thrall Flesh in some areas.  I’ve also darkened the shadows in some areas by adding some Umbral Umber and Beaten Purple to the Beast Hide.

One final bit of highlighting is done by mixing some Menoth White Highlight into the Thrall Flesh.  

The hair starts off with a basecoat of Hammerfall Khaki with a bit of Beaten Purple mixed in.  I gradually highlight it up to pure Morrow White.  For his wrap I begin with a basecoat of Ironhull gray with a little bit of Frostbite and Thrall Flesh mixed in to lighten it somewhat.  I give it a wash with thinned down Umbral Umber mixed with Beaten Purple.

I highlight the basecoat up by blending some Thrall Flesh into the basecoat.  I also add some more of that wash from above to darken some areas a bit more.

I add some final highlights to the wrap with – you guessed it – Menoth White Highlight and finish the rock shard and lantern.

Here’s a quick WiP of the rock shard.  I start it off with Hammerfall Khaki.

I shade it with some Gun Corps Brown.

 

Then I add highlights with Menoth White Base.

For the Lantern I begin with a basecoat of Battle Dress Green.  It’s almost more of a brown than a green but I think it will work great as a base for a Brass Color.

I highlight it by mixing some Rucksack Tan.   I also begin the glow by painting some Cygnus Yellow mixed with a bit of bloodstone into the lantern’s interior.

The final bits of the lantern are done with more of that Menoth White Highlight.  The lantern’s interior has some more of that color mixed in with it as well to up the glow factor.  I also add some OSL to the legs by blending some Cygnus Yellow in with the original skin and cloth colors.  I didn’t get any WiPs, but the red ribbons on the lanterns are painted with Skorne Red Highlighted up to Khador Red Base with a final highlight of Khador Red Base with some Rynn Flesh mixed in.  All the ribbons also got a wash of P3’s Red Ink.

And here’s one more look at them all finished again.

~ And a shot from the back.  Hope you enjoyed it!

Author: Ben Williams

Ben Willimans is a Professional Painter and Columnist at Bell of Lost Souls. He has been involved in the hobby and art side of miniatures and the tabletop gaming industry for over 20 years. He has won multiple national painting awards.