This tutorial is long overdue. It shows how I created the dark bronze skin tone on my Zvezda Egyptians, some of the first pictures I posted on the forum here more than a year ago: http://www.bennosfigures.com/forum/view ... ght=#11011
Here are the colors (acrylic) I used, thinned with distilled water. I like to use acrylics because they're cheap, don't smell, are easy to clean, and pretty easy to control:
Here are the steps (the pictures are a little overexposed, couldn't really fix them with PhotoShop without messing up the colors):
1. Primer.
I used a thin coat of dolphin grey, which is a very, very light grey.
2. Base Coat.
The base coat consists of a thin coat of skin tone.
3. Add Brown Layer.
Add a layer of raw sienna. Make sure it completely covers the base color. It's important to work in sections here, because you don't want the paint to dry on you.
4. Remove Part of the Brown Layer.
With a wet brush, remove some of the brown paint from the high parts of the figure, in this case the calfs, ankles, knees. Wipe off and rewet your brush often. You want to remove paint, so that the brown paint that stays behind creates shadows. This step takes patience and some practice.
5. The Torso.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the torso
6. The Head.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the head. In addition, you can add a thin wash of dark brown to the ears, eye sockets and mouth here once the paint has dried, or do it at the end.
7. Drybrush.
Once the paint is completely dry, dry brush all of the skin areas with the skin base color. Again, this takes some practice. The skin should now be done.
8. Garment.
Add a second layer of dolphin grey if needed, then shade with pewter grey and highlight with white (although I learned on this forum that tan shades are probably better for linen).
9. Final Details.
Paint the final details (spears, head if not done earlier), and seal your figure with your favorite spraycoat; in my case Testor's Dullcote. And voila!