"Mahdist/Sudanese skin colour" Topic

Hi all,
With the imminent release of the Perry box, we, at the Red Barons wargaming club, are embarking on a club project.
But we want consistency in our Sudanese troops and would like to use the same colours. Now we have been wondering what the best skin tone would be. Can someone give advice? We will use the Army Painter system for shading (Strong? Dark? Here also feedback appreciated). Vallejo is well available here so these references are spot on. And if someone knows of a proper spray can colour, even better.
Hope you can help.
Regards,
Henk

I believe my 15mm Sudanese are painted with Vallejo Dark Flesh. Looks right to me.

Vallejo Dark Flesh

Not even close, Sudanese are very dark skinned (as a general rule)

I undercoated mine black, painted Vallejo 822 German Black Brown, and highlighted (if that's the right word) Vallejo 872 Chocolate or 941 Burnt Umber to give subtle tonal differences.

I did the Fuzzys dark like that but the Ansar much lighter.

Ansar much lighter.

You mean like this pale skinned chap?

link

Non-friendly "Fuzzies" are Ansar. Ansar is not a tribe or a troop type, it is the name for the all the followers of the Mahdi.

Not wanting to gainsay Connard, but these friendly-looking chaps are all Sudanese:

And this guy…

is the uncle of this guy…

and the pair of them are descended from this guy…

The moral of the story is that Sudanese people come in a choice of colours…

Being an 'Arab' in Sudanese culture means being part of the Islamic society of the northern areas of the land rather than the pagan (and now widely Christian) south. It covers a wide variety of skin tones.

The people of northern Sudan sometimes referred to as Nubians are very dark skinned.

I know a guy from Khartoum who would certainly characterise himself as an Arab; his complexion is as dark as someone from Ghana or Nigeria.

Not wanting to gainsay Connard

Gainsay away. I did attempt to qualify my rather bald statement

I did the Fuzzys dark like that but the Ansar much lighter.

How about this small edit:

I did the Fuzzys dark like that but the OTHER Ansar much lighter.

As a painter I can give simple advise. You are trying to paint wargaming UNITS using a wash. Slightly lighter shade of skin color works better on wargaming table for Africans compared to their "real" color. As others noted there is a great variation of skin colors, so choose any one you like.

Because you are using brown wash I would recommend light brown color, your choice. Dark brown wash will make it slightly darker. When contrasting with mostly white clothing your UNITS will look just right.

"Being an 'Arab' in Sudanese culture means being part of the Islamic society of the northern areas of the land rather than the pagan (and now widely Christian) south. It covers a wide variety of skin tones."

Yep, as these:

And this fellow (not a fellah?) again, in situ:

Odd how words can mislead us.

Allen

"Other Ansar" could be dark-skinned too…

And not all Beja have very dark skin…

These things are rarely black and white (ha!). Like the British Army choosing to fight in a new uniform for every Victorian war, they do it just to with figure painters.

Fuzzy's on the table are nearly always painted as "blacks" – even the Perry box art reflects this bias.

I don't always see the non-Hedendoa painted as "blacks" though I know it's not impossible.

And everyone has units of "fuzzys" and units of "Arabs"( as do I ) but fuzzys would only be found in the early eastern Sudan campaigns. Later they shaved the head and adopted the jibbah with patches plus skull cap and/or turban.

For the OP's sake, might as well grag out the old CMON article on painting "ethnic" skin tones. More than a couple useful examples in here, with Vallejo PBN menus:

link

I have no recommendations for AP or spray paints--except perhaps to avoid them. If I were involved in a club game, I'd want to be recognized as painters, not sloppers and sprayers.

Allen

As has has been said, a variety of tones is best. It depends on the family and the region they come from it seems. I did my Fuzzies dark, while some of my Ansar are lighter and some are just as dark as the Fuzzies.

It's like banging your head against a brick wall.

Cripes, I think I'm turning into Allen! :)

Connard: I use Dark Flesh Tone by Vallejo and Dark Skin by Reaper. The Fuzzies in the link were painted with Vallejo Dark Flesh Tone, which I will have to disagree with your sentiment of not being "close".

try cot des armes negro over black and lighten as you see fit..

@aecurtis: You obviously do not know the Red Barons. That's extemely quickly jumping to conclusions. ;-)

I use either bronzed flesh or bestial brown as a base colour, both followed with a heavy peat brown inkwash. The latter comes out pretty dark, the former doesn't.

Well that settles it, might as well cancel my pre-order, it's simply not worth the effort.

OTOH I could just enjoy a good old Soudan bash-up a la Scruby and Featherstone, and ignore the vivisectionists…

I have a feeling the fellows in Plynkes' image above aren't aware that some of them have a bit too much, or too little, Vallejo code ### in their complexion.

How does "Sudanese people come in a choice of colours" translate into "not worth the effort?"

If anything, what I said should lend encouragement to people who want to paint them however they like, rather than the other way around. But why pay any attention to what people have actually written when it gets in the way of a witty forum post, eh?

Well, I think people should all congregate according to the colours of their faces, as matched to the coded of paint manufacturers. A sort of Vallejo Apartheid.

I can't see that working out badly, can anyone?

I remember when Martin Goddard brought the Peter Pig/RFCM game "Patrols in the Sudan" game "on the road" to the US, and I commented that in the display game, the British were all in red coats, whereas red coats in the Sudan--although documented on occasion--were the exception.

Martin's reply was to the effect of, "Red coats are what people expect to see."

Allen

>>But why pay any attention to what people have actually written when it gets in the way<<

Sorry, that post was in no way directed towards you or your comments. I simply chose the image you'd posted.

It could have as easily have been any of the other images in the thread.

My method has been to paint from the inside out.

Using acrylics and google images :) …………

1/ undercoat with white car primer.

2/ Paint flesh areas with Tanned flesh.

3/ Finish with a thin chocolate brown wash. Test it on one of your fingers you need just enough to see clearly your fingerprint outlined .

4/ Add black to the wash if you want a deeper skin tone.

5/ satin varnish finish to give the finished skin tone depth.

I am about to embark on the same exercise as the Red Barons and was wondering what was best too having viewed various different peoples efforts on different blogs etc. For Govt Sudanese I used Foundry's paint system with Dark African flesh, if only to discriminate them from the Egyptian forces who were sprayed black with light brown over that and then medium fleshtone followed by a sepia wash. Was going to use both systems for the Mahdists with a second coat of wash on some to darken them a bit more.

In reply to Allen's last post above, the Illustrated London News drew British forces in red coats for illustrating articles on Omdurman I believe even though they were in Khaki because that was what the British public expected to see.