Some Color Theory

If you've ever been curious at all about color theory- the mixing paint colors part- I thought I'd have a little fun and share some knowledge I've learned over the past few years. Portraits have always been my favorite thing to paint, so flesh palettes have always been important. I'm doing them on a micro scale tonight and mixing drops of paint for these mini models. I am mixing my palette on a Pringles lid- great palettes!

I have a basic set of Vallejo paint and a special order of panzer dk Grey airbrush paint. If I had the option, I'd pick alizarin Crimson, but im keeping special orders to a minimum- use what you got!Here we have flat red, flat brown, flat flesh, sky Grey and light grey.

Flat flesh out of the bottle is surprisingly yellowy- jaundice looking. See the pic of the rider next to the bottle..

So to get the right color flesh...
Basically, I mix in the most of flat flesh, touches of red, even less brown and panzer (depending on if you're painting recesses and shadows or highlights) after you mix the colors to a nice flesh looking color, add a bit of light or lighter grey to make it look more natural. If the color is too intense, it looks wrong, so the Grey is very key!

For highlights, add more flat flesh, but i like to keep the mix thin with water, so it's more like a wash.