"Painting very tan Caucasian skin (pirates)" Topic

I am painting up some 25mm 1600-1700 Caribbean pirates (Foundry, Old Glory, Dixon) and having some difficulty getting a realistic really dark-tanned skin tone. I am assuming that due to constant exposure to the sun while on board ship, and the climate in that area, they will have almost a very dark brown skin tone, but that doesn't seem to look right. The 'sun-tanned skin' paint I have from Reaper looks more dark pinkish. Any suggestions?

Also on a slightly unrelated note – any suggestions for the font used by pirates when painting the name on their ship? Any help would be appreciated!

For the font: Arrrrr-ial.

I'll get my coat.

Sunburn red???

Mix your own. Mix multiple shades. Nobody tans the same.

Vallejo Rose Brown?

My guess: your usual skin tone paint and when dry, put a diluted red-brown wash over it. Maybe several washes. Leave some areas undone to show untanned skin.

My favourite is Howard's Hues 'Native American', highlighted with 'Suntan' from the same line. It gives a reddish brown shade that looks great, in a carcinogenic sort of way.

"Florida grandma"?

I actually paint mine with brown leathery looking skin so they have the real sea-dog look about them. I think they look fine like that and would actually think a mid-tone would look a bit odd.

As for the font – I doubt they cared and would most likely have done a freehand unique design for their letterforms. In some instances these may have looked great depending on the skill of the crew. I'm guessing they would carve wooden letters.

I agree with Mexican Jack – I use Suntan as my normal skin tone for troops on campaign.

Rose and brown wash…. Also are your gamers that picky?

Oh next week lets try a cutting out expedition against Whalers in the artic……

Middle ground….

"Paint very tan Caucasian skin": Not all Caucasians look alike, you know. Some might even be offended by sweeping generalizations like that. Not me, however. In fact, I'm going to make some only slight less sweeping generalizations myself:

Some Caucasians turn bright pink, then their skin peels as if they have leprosy, and when that's gone, they're back to their milky-pale complexion. Red hair and freckles often accompany this solar response.

Some get all bronze with red and gold streaks in their beards and head-hair, and blond hair on their bodies (I'm in that category, except that now my head and beard are gray).

Some just turn more and more brown and their head hair goes from black to shiny blue-black (that was my father, actually -- I didn't get any of those genes).

Some Caucasians have darker complexions than others even without exposure to the sun. Tan response also varies. Some people go from quite pale to very dark; others stay in a smaller range, even with long exposure to the sun.

For these reasons, I recommend that you avoid uniform skin tones (and hair color) for your Caucasian pirate crew.

For more sweeping generalizations, consider the national and ethnic origins of your crew. One would expect a crew of Englishmen to be paler on average than a crew of Spaniards, for example.

Historically the colour of pirate skin was described as 'nut brown'.

As I recall, I used a base coat of Citadel bestial brown with a highlight of the colour I usually use as the basecoat on standard European flesh: a concoction of my own made by mixing flesh and a Humbrol red-brown that's more red than brown.

One of the forgotten advantages of being a pirate was that you didn't have to worry about the long-term effects of solar exposure. You probably weren't going to live long enough to get skin cancer!