Warhammer (with the models and everything)

Tomo

Those highlights are very, very crisp indeed for somebody just starting with it. Crikey. Be prepared to get a bit of stick for doing Ultramarines though 😂.

Faces - and anything more organic really - I’d steer away from a more mechanical pure edge highlighting style - it looks like you have one dark tone and then one very thin highlight in a much lighter tone. This actually looks absolutely fine but maybe I’d do a thicker highlight in a mid tone, leaving the darkest in recessed areas such as the temples and under the cheekbones only.

So I’d possibly have done a brown like Mournfang or Gorthor across the forehead, cheekbones etc and then picked out the very lightest areas with the lightest colour at the end. The mid tone bit wouldn’t be done like a line highlight but more ‘blotchy’ for wont of a better word.

I’m a bit loathe to post my Reddit profile here but it’s easier to show than tell so have a look at this post and scroll through the pics to the Captain and Librarian to see this sort of thing in practice:

www.reddit.com/r/Ultramarines/s/CbKta5V47g

There are people that can do this with absolute scientific accuracy but for something as tiny as a face I take the approach of selling the impression of reality, if that makes any sense, so quite a soft approach with the elements coming together to sell it to the eye from distance. That’s the excuse I give myself for it falling apart under close scrutiny 😂

For your hair, you could try a dark grey with a similar theory, with thicker lines and then a more silvery grey just at the tips or, if you’re really accurate, inside those thicker lines. Black I always find a tricky colour to work with as left flat it can look toy-like.

I will say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your model so I am uneasy in giving this CC and you may not even like my work or style, I’m just trying to honour your request in peace! You are doing phenomenal work with much more proficiency than I was when I first dipped my toe into this stuff.

I haven’t yet done any dark skin to my shame, mainly because I’ve tended to copy the box art and there’s a definite white bias there. I do intend to rectify this over time and have been looking at recipes - I’ve seen people use purple wash shades to good effect.

Or given what you said, maybe I can just be a bit more pronounced with midtone and then bright highlight?

I might leave it for a while anyway until I've painted some more heads.

Edit - sorry Tomo lots of posts firing across as I type. Yep you can absolutely go back to it and improve, you don’t need to strip it or completely re-do. I’d use it as a basis for a dark skinned marine - or keep as is.

Second edit - the Guilliman stuff I describe below is equivalent to Fork’s speed paint techniques. Fork is a master of this contrast/speed stuff so it might be worth searching the thread for some of his giants or something which were really great - you might well like that approach.

Original content:

OK, I’d say Rakarth is far too bright as a starter for white skin. It’s better to build up from darker for this rather than try to start light and shade it down - things can get muddy.

I would start from something like Bugman’s Glow or Cadian Fleshtone at the lightest. Then the Reikland, and then move lighter. You might find your shade makes it too dark so you can reapply the first tone on flat areas before highlights if you wish.

So if you’re going dark to light, Reikland, Bugman’s, Cadian, and then the final highlight colour, you’d actually be starting with the second colour, then darkening the recesses, then building up with as many steps as your taste/patience calls for.

Guilliman flesh can work on its own over a white or off white - it’ll colour the tops and shade the recesses for you - it can be tricky because too thick and it goes very dark and blobby and too thin and it can look like they are ill lol. If I were to do that approach I’d probably lightly thin it (and I mean lightly, like load your brush, wick off some excess and a quick dip in the water pot) and try a couple of coats until happy.

I haven’t seen this tutorial of Duncan where he uses it in conjunction with Reikland.

The hair - now after zooming in I can see the Corvus, so just take a lighter grey - Dawnstone or similar will do it - and with not very much on the brush at all just use the side of the brush to pick up the raised strands and/or tips. I’ll often do this with a regular brush but I’m basically drybrushing - so a few passes with a feather touch.

It also looks like you’ve done eyes with pupils and pretty much nailed it, unless that’s a trick of the light. Bloody hell 😂

(can't edit on broken mobile browser - previous post was in response to Form)

m.youtube.com/watch?v=rz76A0Jpp7E

If you skip to 20mins, Dunc does a face.

Right this convo is getting a bit mad now lol so apologies for all the spam.

So yeah my description is more for ‘classic’ style whereas he’s using a very pale tone, then using the contrast paint to do most of the work, and highlighting on top of that. I’d call that maybe ‘contrast plus’ style.

Looks like it works well, but note how he isn’t putting that much Guilliman on. I think the combo of Reikland and then Guilliman on top was probably too much shading for what you were going for. Rakarth is also a bit of a grey flesh colour as a start too - so even if you skipped the Reikland you’d get a slightly different result from Duncan there. Just experiment innit.

It’s not dumb, it’s plot/character armour so they are actually safer.