Testing Painting Techniques - Vallejo Malefic Flesh paint set
I have been meaning to pick up this set for a little while now, reasoning it would be a good way to practice more fantastical skin tones. I would also need some models to practice one. Thankfully, I backed Claudia Rodriguez’s Fantasy Elves Kickstarter a few years back for exactly this reason. Unfortunately for me, Only Games botched the fulfillment and I ended up with no Morwen and two of Idril’s wolves but not Idril herself. It is what it is and I should have more thoroughly checked my order when it arrived. In any case, I still had three models I could practice on, which is exactly the number I needed.
I’m not going to talk too much about how I painted the clothing and other details as really I’m here to put the Malefic Set through its paces. Although I wouldn't call this a review as such, I’m more just testing things out. So any paints mentioned in this article will be from the paint set.
With that side note out of the way I cleaned up the minimatures, stuck them to some bases and primed them with Colour Forge Matt Black. The paint set comes with a little booklet on how to paint each of the three skin tones. Essentially, each skin tone has a base tone and a shadow tone and the paint set comes with two generic colours (Pale Flesh and Cold Flesh) to be used for highlights.
Arwen
With their twin daggers Arwen certainly seemed like the brooding assassin type, so I decided to test the blue skin tone on her. The first step was to basecoat the skin with Cold Flesh, which I was immediately impressed by. It flows easily and the coverage is excellent, I didn’t need to do a second coat. The next step was to use Frozen Flesh for the shadows, this is a deep yet translucent colour that feels like it would be great for glazes. Or you know, darkening certain areas to make them seem in shadow. For the highlights, the intended step is Pale Flesh. I felt this would be too different from the Cold Flesh basecoat so I mixed the two together and used that for the first highlight. For the second highlight I used spot highlights of White Flesh.
To compliment the darker nature of the skin I painted the clothes purple and the hair black. Even the accessories like the boots and knives I painted black, or metallic black in the case of the latter.
I really like how this turned out, the blue-grey skin is perfect for the shadowy assassin vibes the model has going on. If I ever need to paint some Drow I know exactly how I’m going to do it.
Yeatrice
Next up was testing out a purple skin tone. For this I selected Yeatrice, who looks like she has some druid vibes going on. I got things started with a basecoat of the titular Malefic Flesh. I then used Purple Shadow to add, well, purple shadow tones to the skin. A boring name but not inaccurate. From that it was the usual fair of highlighting with a layer of Malefic Flesh mixed with Pale Flesh. And finally point highlights on the nose and ears with White Flesh.
For the remaining details, I felt that forest green clothing would compliment the muted purple of the skin. Likewise I painted her hair a dark green. For the leather and wood I kept with my usual browns which worked nicely with the natural greens.
Once again I’m really pleased with how this turned out. I’m only using simple layering but even so I’m getting some pretty good looking skin.
Elentari
Last but not least was Elentari, who seems to be some sort of mage from the way she is throwing those spells. She did draw the short straw in getting a green skin tone perhaps. In any case I started with giving the skin a base coat of Forest Skin. As is tradition I then painted the shadows in with the imaginatively named Deep Forest Skin. I then layered the skin with a mix of Forest Skin and Pale Flesh, followed by point highlights with White Flesh.
To contrast the green-brown skin I painted the robes a vibrant blue. I had initially painted the hair reddish brown and the spells pink, but it made the model too busy and everything clashed. So I repainted the hair a deep blue and the spells an electric blue. With everything tied together the model looked much better.
I can’t say that the brown-green skin was my favourite, it didn’t seem quite natural. Maybe I haven’t found the right model for it. Perhaps the greenish tones might find a home in my Nurgle forces? Or perhaps some other fantasy race like a bugbear or an orc?
Final Thoughts
I’m really happy with this set, it’s a simple system that even I can get great results with. I’m sure if I broke out the wet palette and got fancy with the blends and transitions I can get even better results. Likewise, I’m sure that if I thinned the shadow colours with something like Lahmian Medium they would make great washes for quicker results.
I’m not sure when I’ll use these next, I do tend to mostly paint sci-fi humans. Although I do have Massive Darkness 2 to paint, which I believe has a bunch of non-human miniatures to paint. And like I said, the brown-green skin tone might be useful for Nurgle miniatures.