Bring out your base colour Tallarn Flesh [or Cadian Fleshtone or RMS Fair Shadow] and layer over the skin, leaving the recesses dark. The face above is an angry superhuman Space Marine, so we want a lot of contrast to bring out his expression. For female or younger faces, you want to be more subtle and layer the base colour all over the face, just leaving a few key places in the darker colour created by the wash, for example inside the ears, below the eye brows, and where the skin meets other parts of the model.

Next, highlight the face with Kislev Flesh. Kislev Flesh is a paint with a lower opacity, so build up the highlight in a couple of thin layers for a smooth transition.

References

Glaze 4:1 Druchii Violet: Khorne Red heavily thinned on flushed areas, then retouch final highlight

The pigments used for Contrast paints are really strong and vibrant. In comparison to Citadel Shades or other washes, Contrast Paints have a slightly higher viscosity, which means they are not as “runny”. I recommend washing your brushes a lot when using them, as the heavily pigmented paint easily creeps up into the ferrule of your brush, where it might dry and make short work of the bristles. Contrast paints really benefit from a smooth primer (as do washes, as you can see). I also applied Guilliman Flesh over Wraithbone base paint. As a lot of layers were needed for perfect coverage, the finish wasn’t as smooth as with Wraithbone spray primer. You can see the Guilliman Flesh dried more uneven because of that. Sealing the surface with a coat of satin varnish might help to reduce this effect.First up, I use a lot of paint mixes, but they’re to get specific shades in particular ratios, and I don’t do much blending. Second, I use a lot of Citadel shade paints and also glazes on my skin work. Thirdly, I have recipes for you to follow, because I’m a lazy arse who mostly paints skin the same way each time. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin. Big variation here as you get the more yellowish East Asian skin with the more brownish-yellow skin of Mediterraneans and Latinos also fall within this group. Contrary to what many pots of paint would have you believe, there is no single “skin tone”. The reason for this is because human skin is a complex, multilayered structure and derives its colour as a sum of its components, much of which is constantly in flux in life. Skin is translucent and “skin colour” is largely a combination of the colours present within the skin – the pigment melanin, red of blood and yellow of fat. If you have had the misfortune of seeing a corpse, then you can observe the sallow cast that develops – the loss of blood from the skin on death leads to a loss of ‘red’, leaving the melanin and fat behind.