HQ12-02 Race Queen [WIP - Experimenting with lacquer-based flesh colored paints from Gaianotes]

Using an airbrush to paint skin tones admittedly, for the moment at least, imbues me with a feeling of being in a rudderless journey. Specifically I'm facing a lack of nuanced control in how paint reaches the miniature figurine. Previously, the use of a hand brush meant I could see exactly where the paint was going to end up. With the use of an airbrush, there's a literal disconnect between where the paint leaves and where it ends up. There are ways to mitigate this but details such as eyes, lips, hair and small, hard to reach places (e.g. in between fingers) would still require the good old hand brush. 

Gaianotes lacquer paints from its Gaia-color flesh series

Essentially, skin tones layered onto the figurine with the airbrush will form a general 'blanket' of flesh colored transitions of shadows, mid-tones and highlights. Where necessary, this 'blanket' will receive additional colors in the form of acrylic, pastel, enamel, oil or lacquer paints via hand brush to further define the depth of the skin tone. In short it's going to be a lot of work. So to start the ball rolling, I mixed a batch of Gaianotes lacquer paints to test out, using a dilution ratio of 1:1 with a thinner.    
A slower drying thinner namely the Gaiacolor T-06h was used in the paint dilution process.

Primary thinner used is the Gaiacolor T-06h which is supposed to dry slower

Opaque and densely pigmented, Gaia color's EX series promises good coverage

Gaia flesh colors from its standard line help complement the main basecoat color of Ex-05

All the Gaia flesh colors were airbrushed onto plastic spoons to see how they looked out of bottle

By themselves the flesh colors look nice enough but it's only in combination that they can begin to look more natural and life-like. So using the pre-shading (shadows followed by main color) technique followed by the highlighting (main color followed by highlights) technique, I proceeded to airbrush a series of flesh color schemes. Essentially, these schemes varied mainly in how dominant either the pink or orange hue was when present in the final mix. This little experiment started with a flesh mix that was dominated by pinkish hues especially in the shadowed areas (see below). 

First flesh mix is dominated by pink hues

First flesh mix was airbrushed onto a plastic spoon in the order of shadow, mid-tone and finally highlight

Then, to add tonal variation to this initial pinkish skin tone, I added a second mid-tone color comprising a pale pastel orange tint (see below). This dialed down the pinkishness of the first flesh mix and tilted the skin tone towards a more East Asian look, at least one that could reasonably be attributed to a fair Japanese girl, which is what I am after for atelier iT's HQ12-02 Race Queen.

Second flesh mix adds a pale pastel orange hue into the predominantly pink tones of the first mix

Technique used to paint the flesh mixes is essentially a combination of airbrush pre-shading and highlighting

Subsequently, the pink shadow was ditched completely so I ended up with a skin tone with a pale pastel orange shadow instead (see below). Use of this flesh mix resulted in a paler/fairer skin tone minus the allegedly healthier rosy/pinkish glow. This mix will have its uses but not for now.

Third flesh mix's dominant hue is the shadow hue of pale pastel orange

Contrast for the third flesh mix is effectively the lowest among all the mixes

Finally orange hues were laid on rather heavily in the shadow areas (see below) to complement the largely pale pastel skin tone (see above). This constitutes what some would call a tanned look and I suppose they would be right in certain cases. However, this flesh mix also isn't the look I intend the Race Queen to have. So the resulting 'tanned' skin tone is one I'll file under as 'for future projects'.    

Final flesh mix introduces a strong orangey flesh hue into the overall color scheme

Inclusion of a darker orangey flesh color increases contrast slightly

Based on early observations, it's the second mix that's currently most appealing to me for use in the Race Queen project. A few more practice runs with the 0.2 mm airbrush is in order as I try to find a way to get paint accurately onto small shadowed areas of the figurine, e.g. the nooks and crannies of her face. In fact, there is a large possibility I'll have to invest in a better mid-range airbrush for use in painting skin tones and figurines. The budget airbrush I'm using now is serviceable but it isn't giving me sufficient paint/air flow control. Looks like I've a pricey decision to make in the coming weeks.