TUTORIAL: Painting Mummified Skin

With the recent release of the Undead Legions this seems even more relevant then usual, now that two armies can take a Tomb King or Liche Priest as an option. Today I break down how I paint the skin on these mummified warriors.

This is a completely different method then how I painted my first Liche Priest (who may now get a makeover at some point). It's based off of an old 'Eavy Metal Painting guide I found in a White Dwarf back from when Tomb Kings were first released in 6th edition. These painting guides were how I taught myself to paint so I was overjoyed when I found some for my army while I was organizing my back stock of magazines. I knew there was a reason I kept all of them.

Step 1

The first step is to give all of the skin a basecoat of a Black, Balor Brown, and Screaming Skull mix. I would say it is about equal parts on all three of the paints, but it might be a little less black, so lets say 20/40/40. In the original guide they started with a Snakebite Leather/ Black mix and then worked the highlights up from there. I like to start with my midtone though and shade down, it gives me more control.

Step 2

This is followed with a wash of Black and Balor Brown, probably a 40/60 mix. Just water down your paints until they are the consistency of a wash, or use Lahmian Medium if you want.

Step 3

The last step wasn't dark enough for me in some areas. To fix this I did a wash of Nuln Oil in select areas, such as the face and hands.

Step 4

I then re-layered my original basecoat mix onto all of the skin, leaving the shades from the previous steps in the crevices and valleys of the muscle.

Step 5

At this point I did several more steps and actually "finished" the model, but later decided it was way to dark so went back and basically repainted everything from this point on. So you'll notice that the face is done as well as more of the colors around him. I'll go over the face at the end.

Next I mixed in even more Screaming Skull and layered it on everything, leaving just a little bit of the last step showing through.

Step 6

I mixed in even more Screaming Skull and refined my highlights, focusing on the prominent areas and the tops of the muscles.

Step 7

Looking at the model as a whole I decided that the crevices were a little to dark in some areas, mostly along the back of the hands and on the abs and chest. To fix this I used a glaze of the Balor Brown/Black mix with just a little bit of Screaming Skull. I used this to soften the shadows on those areas.

Step 8

I did a final highlight of almost pure Screaming Skull on the most prominent areas such as the nose, brow and knuckles.

Step 9

For the face I painted the eyelids and bottom lip black. This was highlighted with a Black/Screaming Skull mix and then softened with a glaze of Nuln Oil. I also used this point to try and blend the lip into the surrounding skin a little bit. The glowing parts were painted with Scorpion Green and highlighted towards the center by mixing in White.

At this point the skin is done and your mummy is ready to lead his undead soldiers into battle.

If you have any questions about any of the steps I did just let me know in the comments and I'll try and answer them.

Until next time,

Tyler M.