Oils for Figures?

Modeling Subjects Figures and Misc.
1

Hello all,

I am new to the modeling world, have read some books on figure painting and i noticed that for skin tones the author uses oils rather than acrylics or enamels. Is this a good practice?

thanks

2

Oils are much easier to blend for subtle shading effects, so yes, this is a good practice. On anything smaller than 54mm (1/32), oils start to become very difficult to use however, unless you are a very skilled painter. For smaller figures, I only use acrylics, with Vallejo/Andrea being my favorite.

Regards, Rick

3

thanks rick, will put to good use

4

I’ve been using Vallejo acrylics for some time now, and I’ve not touched oils since I got these.

The key is to use very thin washes of paint to blend in the colors, using layers instead of actually blending them like you would with oils.

Jeff

5

I have used oils for skin tones and have found it very effective once I had developed techniques for using it.

Like Jeff and Rick I have started to use Vallejo acrylics also and have been very impressed with the results once developing the correct techniques.

Both of these methods can be a good practice once you develope the technique for using them.

6

Personally, I like to use oils for the flesh colors on all of my figures that are 1/35 scale or larger. On 1/48 and 1/72 scale figures, I use an oil wash for the shadows. I have only used acrylic paints for flesh on one figure so far, and was not very impressed with the results. I have seen several folks do wonderful flesh tones with these paints, but I plan on sticking with what works the best for me. Francois Verlinden has published a soft cover book on figure painting where he spell out how to use oil paints for flesh tones that you may also find useful. I believe that the title is Figure Painting, Volume 1, and I will mention that it was first published a few years ago. Good luck with your figures, and give oils a chance sometime, I think that you will like the results. [oX)]

7

can somebodt relate the technique for using acrylics for painting faces ? I use oils so i would like to try different methods,