Akachi Onyele comes in the expansion, Beyond The Threshold, and let’s get it out there right from the off, I did not enjoy painting Akachi one bit, and I think it shows.
For starters, she was a terrible sculpt, with a lot of the detailing barely visible, especially the rings around her arms – you’ll see that I missed some on her right arm. It wasn’t until I was painting her flesh and thinking that her arm was a little deformed, that I realised there were supposed to be more arm rings there, but as I’d already painted them I just carried on with the flesh.
Talking of flesh. I haven’t a lot of experience when it comes to painting darker flesh tones and so it was a bit of an experiment really. I started off with a basecoat of Vallejo’s Game Color Smokey Ink. To this I added a little Elf Skintone and started highlighting up, increasing the amount of ES as I went. To bring it together I finished up with a glaze of the Smokey ink.
I think the colours aren’t far off but the application leaves a little to be desired – more practice required.
The reds of her dress were layered up using Scalecolor paint – Deep Red, Blood Red, Antares Red, Aldebaren Red, and Mars Orange. Once I’d done the Yellow and green, though, it just didn’t look right, so I applied a thin coat of Contrast, Iyanden Yellow, over it, which gave it a brighter, ‘Orangy’ look, which I think was a better fit.
Looking at the pictures, I think her arm rings and necklace don’t look too bad. They were painted with a variety of mixes of Desert Yellow and Olive Drab, with a little bit of Ivory and White thrown in here and there.
It has been a while since I actually painted her, probably three or four months, and she’s the last of my current batch of characters. I will have to get prepping the last, and hopefully final batch now; I might even get to play the game at some point, wouldn’t that be novel!
The Solo Meeple 
Great work on the skintone Justin, it’s an area paint manufacturers often overlook and doesn’t provide a big option, which is a pain as there are so many skintones needed. Shame that the sculpt was lacking in definition and made the painting harder, but I think you’ve done a great job with what you had to work with.
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Thanks Dave.
I agree. I looked at my paint collection and there was so little in there that really resembled the colour of skin I wanted, so I had to wing it!
I have another figure to paint with dark skin and I intend to try something slightly different but still using the Smokey Ink, as I think that has potential here. We shall see…
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Just remember the darker the skintone the more reflective it is and you need stronger contrasting highlights. Vallajo game colour has a dark skintone which works well for a mid tone
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Is that their Game Color Dark Fleshtone? I’ve never actually used it for this kind of thing, as it always looks too dark to me. Maybe I should give it a go. Thanks Dave😃
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Very nice, Justin – I really like her! 🙂 The colour match against the card looks really good! I can’t tell where there should be more arm rings, and I got confused between her right arm and the arm on the right when you look at her so I gave up! Nice mini I think!
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Cheers John.
That’s great, as I was trying to follow the card as closely as possible, which I’ve tried to do with all the characters and monsters.
Not so hard to see I guess, until you know they’re there and then you can’t help but see them!
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looks pretty fine, I reckon. I think she will look fine on the board during a game.
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Thanks, and yes, she’ll look pretty good on those lovely game tiles, especially with the transparent base to show them off.
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I think you did better than you described and while I know what you mean about the quality of the sculpt, consider this one a job well done. I agree that darker skin tones are not easy to paint. I was feeling pretty confident at them awhile back but I haven’t painted any in a while and need to give it a try again. I need to try this lady out in Arkham Horror: Card Game since I recently acquired her too. So you’ve inspired me to do two things with your post 🙂
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Cheers Jeff.
I think darker skin tones are much more difficult because of the way they naturally catch the light and produce such a tonal variety.
I can’t think that I have her in AH so will be interested to hear how she does😃
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I would agree and she’s in Path to Carcosa so if you’ve got that, then you’ve got Akachi! 🙂
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I like the mini, it’s got a nice colorful vibe to it. But I certainly how a bad sculpt can make it a frustrating experience. I’m not sure what colors in the Vallejo line work well for dark skin. I think I had used a Panzer Aces dark flesh base at one time. Citadel has some decent recipes for dark skin tone that is pretty easy to do.
I kind of wing it with Reapers triad right now, but am not always successful.
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I totally understand your issues with a crappy plastic sculpt, Justin, as I own a lot of original Reaper Bones minis 🙂 But she does look OK, her colours are nice and vibrant, and she’ll work for a game piece.
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Thanks Matt.
Yeah, I’m happy with her as a game piece and she’ll look good when we next get to play.
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