Figure Color Series - Face & Skin Tones Model Color Acrylic Set

The face decides the whole figure

A viewer looks at a finished figure's face first and only then at the uniform. The area in question tends to be smaller than the nail on a little finger, and the eye sockets, the cheekbones and the lips all have to read on it. That is precisely why skin is painted differently from the rest of a model: not with one covering coat but by blending several close tones step by step.

The make-up of the palette

The set is put together around a middle flesh color, to which warmer and cooler variants are added, along with deepening red-brown tones and light shades for picking out the raised areas. Thanks to that you can mix skin from very light to dark without reaching for paints from other ranges. Everything is water-thinnable acrylic in a dropper bottle, matte once dry, so no inappropriate sheen forms on the skin.

Working in layers

The proven sequence is simple: the middle tone as an overall base, the darker variant let into the eye sockets, under the cheekbones, around the nose and under the chin, then a lighter tone on the forehead, the bridge of the nose and the chin. The boundaries are evened out with a very thin glaze of the middle color. Leave the eyes until the end and paint them with the finest brush from the dark area toward the light of the eyeball; the opposite order is far harder to correct. For stubble choose a grayish tone rather than black, otherwise the lower part of the face closes up visually.

Tools that are worth having

For a face a single good round brush with a fine point is enough, along with a palette that does not dry the paint out too fast. A wet palette of blotting paper keeps a thinned tone usable for tens of minutes, and with blended skin that means a far smoother result than mixing again and again.