How to paint Dark Eldar Wych Flesh

Editoy's note: Click on the pictures to enlarge them in a seperate window.

First I will start with some general principals of painting that I always try to use:

1. Clean brushes. Nothing can ruin a brush than paint around the base of the bristles.

2. Thin the paint. I always thin the paint to the consistency of milk. Not too thick as you will loose the detail of the model, but not too thin because it will run everywhere. I prefer the Vallejo paints as they tend to cover better than the Citadel ones (they have more pigment in their paints), but I do prefer the Citadel inks (more choices and the quality is good) but the paint pots suck!!!

3. Several layers of a thinner paint are superior to one thick one, and they blend so much better.

4. Chose your color pallet before you start your minis. This will keep the process quicker.

5. Pick a number that you feel comfortable doing. Maybe a whole unit of 20 warriors is too many at one shot, so do 5 or 10 sized lots. This will help in the fact that as you finish the, say 5th , model with one color, the first model will be dry enough to paint the next layer of color. . .

6. Finally clean all the mold flash off of the minis. There is nothing worse than that to ruin a good paint job.

With that all said;

I first started off with a black base coat. Depending on the model and the color pallet I chose, I will use either a white of maybe other color based primers. I picked black as this is the color of the armor I chose for the models and also a better color to paint any metallic colors over.

In the first mini I painted all of the areas that were to be painted in flesh tones with Bronze Flesh. This is a thin coat of the paint as to not mar or cover up any detail. I prefer to start darker as I will be highlighting it at least 2 shades. I am not too careful if I get the flesh color on to other areas here as I will be painting them after. Also I feel it is more important to make sure that all of the areas you are painting flesh are covered so you don't have to go back over them at a later time.

After I have done this for all the models in the lot (for the Wyches I chose lots of 5) I painted all the recessed areas or areas that I felt needed shading with Flesh Wash (I know that Citadel does not make this any more, but I have enough for now. You can substitute in a mix of Purple Wash and Chestnut Ink or just the Chestnut Ink.) I am not an advocate of blanket covering the Bronze Flesh with the Flesh Wash, as you will have to go over the areas you desire to highlight with it again. I did have some touch-ups to do but it takes a lot less time than repainting the Bronze Flesh again.

Any high/highlighted areas are then painted with Elf Flesh. I mainly focused on raised areas of the model (biceps, thigh muscles. . .) and large areas (scalp, chest. . .) leaving only a little of the Bronze Flesh showing near the recessed areas or gaps.

The final highlight I made was with Bleached Bone covering all broad surfaces and raised areas as mentioned above. I chose this color to give that sallow/pallid look that I felt the drugged out Wyches would be suffering from.

Now you can get into the Details of the model. I will focus on the face. I had the eye socket outlined with the Flesh Wash, and then I painted the eyes Skull White. Don't let this get too big as the model will look like it is bug eyed. For the pupil I use a Micron .005 Black Pen to draw it in. I find that there is more control on the placement of the dot than with a brush. This will have to dry just like any other ink, so don't touch it too soon. I put the dot a bit off center in they eye (tending to be closer to the nose) as that is about the right placement. Also put the dot touching the top and bottom of the lid (top definitely, bottom is optional) as if it is totally disjointed, your model will look like a deer in headlights. If you put them to the outside a bit the model looks like it is wall eyed.

There are a ton of different methods to painting eyes, another would be paint the whole eye black and put two white dots on each side of what you want to be the pupil. A third would be paint the socket black, and then paint the eye white, leaving a bit of the black showing around the borders then painting a black dot for the pupil. I am using black but you can paint other colors if you want, it can give a very eerie look if you use red or blue or yellow. . .

For the Mouth I painted the cavity black then on the upper and lower part I painted a thin line of Skull White for the teeth, this is not necessary but is an added bonus (IMHO) Don't paint too far into the mouth.

If you need to paint lips (I did not) you can add a little Blood Red to the highlight color and paint it along the lower lip only on male models, you can get a bit more garish with female models and paint both lips. Same would be for eye shadow on female models, add a bit of the desired color to the highlight color and paint above the eye, don't do this too heavily as it will look too contrived.

Well this ends the flesh lesson. The next one will finish the wyches off with armor, hair and details. As shown below with the first five of my Wyches.