Bloodreavers skin enhancements

Introduction

I gathered several ideas of this sort over time, and I finally got to try out some of them on the Bloodreavers. Sadly, they are mostly helmeted and their flesh is ridden with all sorts of details - leather straps, bracers, rings, horns etc - but they show enough skin to be experimented upon.

White war paint on dark skin

Original.

Trace a skull with Ghost Grey (left) or Stonewall Grey (right). Stop at the upper lip. Draw lines on the bottom lip and chin.

White highlights - where the face would get naturally highlighted - brows, nose etc.

I also tried other tribal designs, but at this scale the skull faces look best.

Red war paint on light skin

Blood Angels Red. I tried to dilute it with Contrast Medium for more translucency, but it came out desaturated and dull. I applied a second layer - it could have gone straight out of the pot, to be honest.

Raised scars on light skin

Original. TODO LINX These minis have sculpted scars, but this would work on plain skin as well.

Mix the last highlight color (in this case, Elf Skintone) with Warlord Purple 2:1 to trace the scar.

Mix in more Warlord Purple (about 1:1) and trace the lower lip of the scar. If it wasn't sculpted, I'd trace the lower limit.

Mix in more fleshtone, and trace the upper lip.

Take the pure fleshtone, and draw jagged lines in the middle of the scar.

If you want the scar to be relatively old - stop there. I leaned into the "fresh clean recruits" look-and-feel, and dropped Druchii Violet on it all over.

Raised scars on medium skin

Original. Same idea, except take a mix of Heavy Skintone and Pale Flesh as the fleshtone to mix.

After highlight and lowlight.

Pale Flesh to draw the middle.

Druchii Violet makes it way too pink - this looks raw!

Stubble and chest hair (light colors)

Original.

Mix Pale Flesh and Sombre Grey 2:1, then dilute heavily with Contrast Medium. Then dilute Ghost Grey with Contrast Medium, and apply stiples or dots with a detail brush.

It came out too stark, so I diluted Darkoath Flesh and glazed over to tone it down.

Stubble and chest hair (dark colors)

First try: heavily dilute Sombre Grey with Contrast Medium. Draw a V-shape on the chest and stomach.

Mix in Pale Flesh to highlight on the raised areas.

Way too light and stark, so another round of diluted Darkoath Flesh.

Second try: mix Contrast Medium, Nuln Oil and Sombre Grey (about 2:2:1).

Mix in more Nuln Oil to darken down the recesses and the center line in general.

For the third try, I diluted Black Templar 1:2 with Contrast medium and drew the V-shape.

Red tattoos

Dilute Scarlet Red with water, then draw the tattoos which are supposed to look fresh. Small patterns on script (much like on parchment) work well (left side).

I also tried an older, faded look by mixing Scarlet Red with Heavy Skintone to draw the serpentine dragon form on the right.

Highlight with Scarlet Red.

This came out a bit too strong (although it would work nicely for a fresh tattoo), so I glazed over Heavy Skintone diluted with Contrast Medium. The lore here is that the tribe worshiped some sort of serpent, before converting to Khorne.

Blue tattoos

Dilute Heavy Blue with water.

I did a sneaky World Eaters symbol on the right, but it gets lost on the skin - especially after the fade. Maybe blue works better on lighter skin?