It was suggested I ask here for help on my painting problem.
So naturally on my first post I come begging for help. =P

One of my Lizardmen happens to have some shrunken heads hanging from his shield for no apparent reason. However, I can't seem to paint it to look right.

I've tried painting them a few shades of green, in the hopes they were originally Orc heads. But after being questioned as to why there was moss hanging off his shield, I tried some other skin tones.

I still can't get them to look like anything more than flesh blobs, even with adding a little watered down black paint as a makeshift ink wash to fill in the details.

Just in case, here's a picture of the more recent attempt:


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a294/Sirithre/liz.gif

I think they look great. Seeing as fire was part of the head shrinking process, browned/blackened skin works perfectly

Mm. I suppose you have a point.
It just seems so bland next to the bright colors of my Lizardmen.
Blends in too easily, I guess. It's especially difficult to tell what it is from any sort of distance.
Then again, that could simply be because they're small, and have nothing to do with the paint scheme.

You could try painting the shields a different colour, like Dark red or Green, to make them stand out some more.

Well, as I have it now, I'm really liking the contrast of the black and gold on their shield/weapons.
I also throw in bits of red for the mucisians and standard bearers, but I don't know....


Perhaps if I colored the shrunken head's hair, but I'm not sure how that would look, either.

From a distance shrunken heads never look like heads; if you can only tell close up then they look right.
Scorched brown, hilighted with kommando khaki and shaded with black; that's what I do, you look to have done something similar.

One of the tricky things about painting in this scale is to know when to be realistic and when to just go for effects.
Sure shrunken heads might be quite brown/blue/purple or whatever, but to make it readable in this tiny scale you might have to go for a paintjob that is more focused on telling people what it is by painting them in a highly unrealistic way.

I think they'd look far better with much more highlights. Preferably all the way up to bleached bone. I also think they could do with some green shades for the dry dead look. Maybe even give it a purple wash.

I know it sounds...well stupid(?) but I really do think you'd get a good result.
You could also just try to paint their hair in a different colour, maybe blonde or grey to make more of a contrast if you chose to keep the dark skin.

One of the tricky things about painting in this scale is to know when to be realistic and when to just go for effects.
Sure shrunken heads might be quite brown/blue/purple or whatever, but to make it readable in this tiny scale you might have to go for a paintjob that is more focused on telling people what it is by painting them in a highly unrealistic way.

I think they'd look far better with much more highlights. Preferably all the way up to bleached bone. I also think they could do with some green shades for the dry dead look. Maybe even give it a purple wash.

I know it sounds...well stupid(?) but I really do think you'd get a good result.
You could also just try to paint their hair in a different colour, maybe blonde or grey to make more of a contrast if you chose to keep the dark skin.

I agree with Anduciassus on this one... i used as similar method on my Flayed ones, trying to give the impression of rotting skin. I worked my way up through pale skin tones, and then gave it a light wash of a mix of Purple and Green inks; and i was quite happy with my result.

Other than that, good luck, and your lizardman looks great :)

Here's him with the other group I have painted so far, to get an idea of the color scheme if anyone was interested.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a294/Sirithre/lizmen.gif