Generally when you write a review, you want to keep some mystery about it and not tell the reader too much from the beginning. I’m going to break this rule for once and say that Volume 6: Flesh & Skin is not worth buying unless you have an interest in painting larger scale minis, particularly historical busts.
Contents – To start to get an idea of why I recommend this book to a narrow slice of miniature hobbyists, let’s take a look at what the book covers.
There is an introductory section with some of the basic concepts on skin painting. This has some fairly obvious information like what tools you need to paint but also some useful information such as what technique is used to paint faces (glazing) and some basic ideas on lighting and warm and cold skin colors. None of this is very comprehensive though and I’m afraid the book is going to lose a lot of beginners at this point because it isn’t as clear how these ideas applied as it could be.
Afterwards there are a couple of short tutorials on somewhat random topics including hair and beards on a dwarf (which is the only fantasy miniature in this book), eyes on a large scale bust, painting skin with an airbrush, and painting Native American skin with oil paints. If this sounds a bit scattered in terms of subject matter, your humble reviewer would agree. These tutorials don’t really build off each other either which is not ideal.
Fortunately, the tutorials get a bit longer and more comprehensive from there. The remaining 50 pages are longer form tutorials about painting the faces on busts and a single 1/35 scale miniature. Almost all of these busts are WWII era sculpts with the exception of an African tribesman and what I think is a Viking. All but one of these subjects are Caucasian more significantly. I will say that there is a nice variation in colors and techniques used across the busts so some care was put in there.
What is Missing – This book is 80 pages long, like all of AK Interactive Learning Series books, so there is obviously some space constraints and they likely can’t cover everything relating to painting skin in a small volume like this but there are still some noticeable absences.
There is only a passing mention of how to paint hands. Nothing about painting stomach muscles or feet which are both painted fairly often on full scale minis. Its a bit of a headscratcher how coverage of painting hair and a beard gets a couple pages but nothing about painting various parts of the human anatomy. There are also several tutorials that branch into painting eyes which I wouldn’t consider skin, personally, though I can imagine that people are generally interested in learning about that so I can see why it was included to some extent.
More significantly, there is not a section that includes any real color suggestions for painting different types of skin. Many painters are seeking paint suggestions for less commonly taught ethnicities like Asian, Middle Eastern, and African, and unfortunately, this book doesn’t help with that. The only tutorial for someone who isn’t white (the African Tribesman) is somewhat lacking in specific paint recommendations. Which brings me to what is by far the most surprising omission. While a couple of the tutorials are pretty thorough in highlighting what colors and paints they use, others are do a really poor job of it. You would think that AK Interactive would want to promote their paints heavily in books like this but some of the tutorials barely mention what paints are used which limits their usefulness to painters even if they exclusively paint WWII busts.
Lacking a Cohesive Vision – More than anything, Flesh & Skin needs a more cohesive vision and a stronger editor. There is a fair bit of repetition in the tutorials and you almost get the feeling that the tutorials were copied and pasted from other places to create this book. I think AK Interactive might be wise to hire a single painter to write all of the tutorials. That way a single writer can cover a wide range of subjects in the book and write each tutorial in a consistent fashion. The problem with their current approach of having a number of different hobbyists share their techniques is that the tutorials are all written in different ways and there is no cohesiveness to them. One tutorial might be well-written and comprehensive and the next is vague with little mention of the paints used, for example. This approach prevents Flesh & Skin from being a better resource for hobbyists. When you only have 80 pages to work with, you need to use them wisely and this book unfortunately does not.
It is a bit of a shame because painting skin is something you can’t really escape in miniature painting. Its something everyone can learn a bit more about as well. There aren’t many resources dedicated to this topic exclusively and unfortunately, Flesh & Skin is only useful to painters with a specific interest. It is also not very comprehensive on the subject despite the fact that it is designed for people wanting to learn the basics of the hobby.
Personally, I don’t think this is a book I will reference very much and it might leave my collection in the future because it doesn’t offer as much value as I would have hoped. If you’re looking for a book on painting skin, I think you’d be better off getting either Figure Painting Techniques F.A.Q. Granted they are expensive, but they cover a lot of subjects and in excellent detail. If you’re interested in Figure Painting Techniques F.A.Q. by Kirill Kanaev, you can see my thoughts on it here.
Kuribo's Painting 
Wow, that is pretty disappointing, especially given the title of the book. You’d think they cover a lot more skin types, in depth. Also, it sounds like the few tutorial books I’ve seen. Not very straightforward and skipping important elements. I’m also pretty surprised they didn’t use the opportunity to mention which paints they used. That’s like money in the bank! Is the book written in English? I noticed the text in one of your photos was German.
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Yeah, I wanted to review this book so people know what they’re getting. I doubt it was intentional but the title feels a little inaccurate to me. Its a shame because I have another book from them that I’ll review eventually that I have almost only nice things to say about so the Learning Series books are a little hit or miss, it seems like.
AK Interactive are surprisingly unaggressive in flogging their merchandise in their own books. On one hand, its impressive and on the other, it feels like they’re missing sales opportunities!
The book is solely in English (assuming you buy the English version, of course). I just took pictures from the internet so that I could show what it looks like inside without having to take pictures myself (which would be inferior than these).
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Good to hear there’s another book with a more promising review coming along! 😃
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If I can find the time to ever review it. I’ve started to and gotten distracted by other things a couple times now. Shame on me!
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No worries, it’s not like I really need to buy more books before I move!! 😂
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Sounds a bit lackluster! And the lack of green orc skin is very disappointing ;). I see what you mean in terms of usefulness, it’s clearly aimed at the bust painters but not really marketed that way which is quite strange in my mind.
I haven’t really been tempted by the AK books so far and this isn’t pushing me particularly hard towards them!
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I think a book on painting skin for fantasy figures is a great idea that somebody should make! Orcs, elves, and dwarves all have different skin tones, for example. But yes, this book was the most disappointing one I bought from them. AK Interactive’s core audience is scale modelers, especially the military (and WWII) crowd so it isn’t a total shock that it leans towards those subjects. At the same time, I think with a better title, this book would find its target audience much better. Because I know a lot of hobbyists don’t fit into the narrow slice of painting WWII busts, I felt compelled to write a review! And finally, I’m scared to even contemplate how much AK Interactive books cost in Australia…
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Especially since Elves and Dwarves can be of any skin color matching humans! A somewhat recent modification in movies/tv and games like D&D. 😉
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Its true that you can paint everything the same way but pale elves and rosey looking dwarves just looks right to me anyway 🙂
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It’s what I grew up with, but I understand the need for some diversity.
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Great review Jeff, the book does sound of very limited interest within the hobby, and not something I would be likely to buy after this review, especially as I rarely paint busts ! LOL
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Thank you for giving it a read, Dave!
Unfortunately, this was a review written from the perspective of buyer beware. I asked for this as a Christmas gift and once I finally read it last week, I was certainly in for a surprise! Its not coal in your stocking or a visit from Krampus. More like a gift from that distant aunt who doesn’t know you very well haha!
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A useful review, Jeff! 🙂 I read your first paragraph and realised I didn’t need to read any further (I did read it all though)! 🙂
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Haha, that’s why you never tell people what your conclusion is at the beginning! 🙂 A good tease in writing goes a long way. Thank you for giving it a read, John!
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A great review, it’s not the kind of book I would be going for normally, but I have a sort of interest in printing some busts… to be honest, 99 % of my paints are Speedpaint type so the interest might just stay as that. The really odd bit is the lack of paint colours. Overall (apart from not mentioning their own products) reminds me of a couple of books I have bought over the years. I am wondering if the book is a compilation of a number of artists, hence the different paints?
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Thank you for giving it a read! I can’t say for sure, but it feels like AK Interactive are either recycling tutorials from other publications or they just tell artists to go write a tutorial on a topic and they don’t ask them to cover different aspects of the topic. A good editor would do that, I think. Regardless, once I finished reading this, I realized that it appeals to such a small number of people that it sadly misses the mark. Its a shame as the topic is a great one and something most painters want to learn more about.
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Seems like like a very limited audience for this book and the cover doesn’t convey that. I think they are missing the market for painting smaller miniatures of asian and native/Latin american background.
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Indeed! You and I have talked about our desire to improve at painting those type of skin tones and unfortunately, the only tutorial that might help is the Native American one. That is one of the shorter tutorials and its with oil paints so its fair to say that this book was a surprise and a bit of a disappointment compared to what I expected. That compelled me write up a review so that people thinking of buying it will know what they’re getting into.
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Good review mate.
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Thanks for giving it a look, mate! 🙂
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I have a terrain making book I bought online years ago. It was the same, it was aimed at Diorama makers. It was obvious it was done by different artists. The styles for each ‘model’ were so different. I think it went to the charity shop a good while ago.
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If its by AK, I think I know the one. I used to own it myself and it was good for the subject of military dioramas but terrible for terrain. Terrain is something that is hard to learn because there are way fewer resources on it than other things, unfortunately.
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nice review. Too bad it wasn’t what you were thinking but as you’re slowly getting into painting large busts anyway, maybe it will be more relevant for you later on?
😀
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I’m going to hang onto it for a while yet and see if it grows on me. There’s a chance it may come good for me in the end. Having said that, there’s literally nobody who comments on this blog regularly that I would recommend it to, unless their taste in mini painting subjects change so I felt compelled to review it! 🙂
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