Mixing and painting the skin tones was the most difficult part of the process. I tried to get the skin tones as accurate the the reference images as I could. I watched lots of videos to learn how to mix skin tones. I decided the most efficient way to do this would be to make a big mix of paint from equal parts red, yellow and blue then from that base created each models individual skin tone. I started with the darkest skin tone and worked to the lightest. This way I could work off the previous tone to create the next one. I did all the skin tones before I started any of the facial features. At this point it became very tricky to get into all the little areas without getting paint of the hair of clothes. Due to this progress became slower and the skin took me around 15 hours to complete.
Once all the skin was dry I started the facial features. I did research looking at marvel and other action figures to see how to do the facial features what what level of detail. I decided for each I’d do the lips, eyebrows and for the eyes, the white bit with a black pupil and line at the top for definition. I had to exclusively use the thinnest brush I have for these. I completed all of 1 feature before moving onto the next. I started with the lips, I used a more red version of their facial skin tones. This was the easiest feature to do. Then I did the eyebrows and used a variation of the hair colour. Finally, the eyes which where by far the hardest part as there was more detail and more room for error. I spent a while on each trying to get them symmetrical which was difficult with the texture of the models. I used black pen to get the pupil as it was too small to accurately use paint. These took me about 5 hours to finish.
Samuel Green Illustration 