What flesh wash to use?

Valadorn · **Posted:** Thu Aug 28, 2014 9:17 am

In some dark (not black, less than dark flesh tbh) skinned I ve used agrax earthshade and worked fine. But in lighter skinned models like elves which product should I use? Or maybe make something on my own?

Wise Old Elf · **Posted:** Thu Aug 28, 2014 9:26 am

Reikland Fleshshade is the new flesh wash, but personally I dislike it a lot, for me it's just too pinky-red and can lead to some visual problems if it pools, which tends to happen a lot in my experience.

I much prefer washing light flesh with a very diluted Bugman's Glow (for Dwarves and Men) or Squig Orange (for Elves), which tends to work perfectly every time.

Valadorn · **Posted:** Thu Aug 28, 2014 10:55 am

Understood thank you.

Wise Old Elf wrote:

very diluted Bugman's Glow (for Dwarves and Men) or Squig Orange (for Elves), which tends to work perfectly every time.

You just dilute it with water? around how much of colour/water in the mix? I ve heard that some people succesfully used dish soap in the mix, does anyone know about that?

Sithious · **Posted:** Thu Aug 28, 2014 12:09 pm

Soap added to water breaks the surface tension. The main purpose of most soaps is just to make water more wet...or to flow better.

As for pooling, that is in the control of the user. Keep little on the brush and use it only where you want it. If you are trying to cover the entire surface and have some area's tinted while other area's are shaded, like an all over glaze wash combo, it is sloppy and of course will pool in the recesses. so use a bit more control and build up shadows and glaze/tint your area's with control and you will not have a problem. Keeping a clean brush near by to help remove any pooling would help too.

Valadorn · **Posted:** Fri Aug 29, 2014 12:24 am

Sithious wrote:

As for pooling, that is in the control of the user. Keep little on the brush and use it only where you want it. If you are trying to cover the entire surface and have some area's tinted while other area's are shaded, like an all over glaze wash combo, it is sloppy and of course will pool in the recesses. so use a bit more control and build up shadows and glaze/tint your area's with control and you will not have a problem. Keeping a clean brush near by to help remove any pooling would help too.

Those info are valuable to me, thank you. To help me understand it better in a practical way, could you post an image where this technice is used in the correct way. (glaze wash combo)

Sithious · **Posted:** Fri Aug 29, 2014 2:16 am

I am currently not painting anything using this but it is fairly easy to do. I am using washes on armor but not in a good example of this technique.

if you are trying to tint a color using a wash as a glaze, well put a little on the brush, then wipe off all the excess on a clean area of the pallet. Then wipe more off on your finger to test the flow of the glaze, make sure it is transparent (if too dark, add water until it has a better transparency). The apply this to the area's your are tinting.
Then when you are satisfied and want to add depth to a shadow with the same color, you can repeat the glaze in just that shadow area as many times as needed. Each layer of glaze with make it more opaque, thus darker. You can even step it up to a darker shade and repeat this process.
Then go back and highlight where needed and for table top you are done (some people going for display level, competition level or sale level will blend both directions more thoroughly).

You can find video's and articles on glazing by doing a search for miniature painting glazes.

There are people of course that will just dip or spread a 'wash' all over an entire model and at first pass on a table top it at least does a fair job. The biggest problem with this sloppy yet quick method is that not all recesses are in shadows. There are plenty of recess folds on tops of cloaks that are in direct light and thus should not be solid dark as one example. You can also find articles on 'dipping' that have done this and as I said, some people have great results just dipping models in a wash or stain and then dry-brushing the entire model with bleached bone.

Valadorn · **Posted:** Fri Aug 29, 2014 4:29 pm

I knew generally the technics you mentioned but I didn't know those details. I will reconsider the way I am using washes from now on!

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Sat Aug 30, 2014 7:03 am

I've used seraphim sepia before. It works alright.

Valadorn · **Posted:** Sun Aug 31, 2014 11:08 am

As a conclusion to this thread, this articles gives really nice information about the wash/glaze conversation before:

http://handcannononline.com/blog/2011/09/09/tutorial-basics-glazed-over-washes-and-glazing/

What flesh wash to use?

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