QUARTERMASTER

Hobby products for the wargamer.

The reality is that – what sorts out the skilled painters from the newbies – is probably down to a few particular techniques. Sure, there’s general shading and highlighting. And we could talk about not-metallic metallics or lighting effects... But generally – what makes or breaks a figure – is the flesh. Something we all look at everyday, think little about, and yet we can immediately spot it when – on a miniature – it’s just ‘wrong’.

Army Painter are releasing a Skin Tones Paint Set which allows painters to create highly realistic skin tones on miniatures. What’s more they have been developed to cover the widest possible range of natural skin tones, from fair to dark and loads inbetween. All of these are enhanced with washes and highlight colours.

Skin tones are labelled in interestingly nominal terms: we have Mocca, Jasper, Onyx, Dorado, Topaz, Amber, Ruby, Opal, and Tiger’s Eye skin colours. Added to that are three more paints called Obsidian, Garnet and Pearl Pigment Toners and – I have to say – I can’t tell what makes them‘pigment toners’as opposed to just paint (though they do certainly have a lot of pigment in them!). Next there are three washes: Soft, Strong and Dark Skin (I’m struggling slightly to see how they are different to their standard washes in these colours, mind you) plus a bottle of Mixing Medium. Finally there are four empty bottles (for use with the Mixing Medium) to make up your own recipes plus a packet of steel balls to drop into your bottles to agitate them. The results are certainly impressive, from the short stab at them I had, and they should cover most of your needs (Orion Slave Girls not withstanding).