Sensei Yu WIP

Do you even lift bro?

Hi interwebs!

Just a quick update on the tiny bit of painting I managed to get done last night. I have been in a bit of a painting funk lately and hadn't gotten any work done. Every day I spend a good portion of it thinking of all the painting I want to do, only to go home and chillax with the wife and watch Agents of Shield or something. It's not a complaint at all, lol, just a statement that even for things I love to do I am a terrible procrastinator. 

So I finally got into gear and painted last night for about two hours. I finally got my hands on some Reaper paints when I went to the tournament in Austin and was eager to try them out, as they looked like they were the perfect skin tones to use as a replacement for my current formula using out-of-production GW paints. Although they were completely different colors, I've found I've outgrown my old paint scheme for typical skin tones.

My first attempt at painting him a while back

So back in May/June I started working on Sensei Yu. I got his pants sprayed orange using Vallejo Orange Brown and shaded it with Vallejo Burnt Umber and was really pleased with the color, as my usual paint formula for orange is generally very hot and bright. I decided to leave the shading and highlighting for later as it didn't seem as exciting due to the static nature of the pants' folds. I started working on his skin using my old formula, which is old GW Dwarf Flesh > GW Elf Flesh > White. When I started adding in the layers I decided that I hated it.

Don't get me wrong, the formula works well most of the time. But Yu is almost mostly skin tones over large areas. When used with other models it does a really good job for my style.

For Yu it looked very pink. Like, looks like a pig pink. It seemed unnatural. Also, he's not caucasian (I assume). I had never attempted recreating Asian skin tones, as the only other Ten Thunders models I've painted were Misaki and Yamaziko who both have only their face and hands exposed, so the tone doesn't really take over or become noticeable ayway. When the majority of the model is skin it begins to take over, and it wasn't pleasant to me.

So I scoured the internet and found an article from MaGie Miniatures, a blog I've followed for a while now filled with amazing tips and paint work. I appreciated the approach to skin painting tutorials and saw that the Golden Skin was around what I was looking for.

So far I had used the Golden Skin triad colors from Reaper and shaded it with Tanned Skin Shadow. I still need to define the shadows more, as it's a bit more flat than the picture shows. But let me tell you, these paints are awesome.

I love the matte finish it gives and applies very smoothly. I'm a huge fan of a matte finish and in order to achieve it with some paints I have to spray varnish on the model. They mix very well together and the dropper bottle is always a nice thing to have.

Anyway I have some BIG plans for this guy. It's going to be a massive undertaking and test my skills, but I'm excited to work on him more.