Step-by-step for beginners "Goblin with a spear". Part 1. Skin and face

Thanks to Mr.X for the translation.

For this work I chose  a goblin with a spear miniature from "The Battle for Skull Pass", a starter set for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

The miniature is made of plastic and is quite simple in preparation for painting. It is also quite small and, at the same time has enough details to demonstrate different textures.

Before painting I removed moulds, installed metal pins and fixed the mini on a piece of cork in order to make it more convenient to work with. Then I degreased plastic surface with alcohol (vodka) and put the layer of black primer from a spray can.

Now we can move on to painting itself.

I decided to start with the goblin's skin. 

In most cases my painting scheme is to go from the darkest shades to light ones.

The first base layer is made with Catachan Green (GW). It serves mostly as an underlay for the following colours, by covering the black primer and thus makking it simplier to work with the following layers. 

The second layer is a mix of Catachan Green (GW) + Camo Green (GW) 

The third layer is the previous stage + Camo Green (GW) 

The fourth layer is pure Camo Green (GW) 

The final stage of work with skin is to create deeper shadows (i.e. under the hood, between fingers, under brows and near mouth) with a semi-transparent mix of Catachan Green (GW) + Liche Purple (GW). I used a brush with a sharp tip to paint it in cavities and over details. So, technically it is close to lining technique, but not a "wash".

I used Bubonic Brown (GW) to paint eyes and added a very small amount of white in the middle of each eye. Pupils were painted with black. Yellow eyes are in good contrast with purple hood and deep purple shadows, and thus are quite easy to distinguish.

For such a precise work it is not necessary to use a brush of five or ten "0" thickness. It is better to use a common "0" or "1" brush with a thin and flexible tip.

Teeth were painted in three stages. First I used Steel Legion Drab (GW). Next stage was to add some white to it. And for final highlight I added another portion of white in the mix.

At this stage I also painted claws on his fingers. Firstly, with a mix of Liche Purple (GW) + Steel Legion Drab (GW) I have drawn a draft of claws, to fix their location and, at the same time, put a shadow between claws and skin. For the claws themselves I used pure Steel Legion Drab (GW). The highlight was made with - Steel Legion Drab (GW) + white.

One more thing to attract observer's attention to goblin's face will be its crimson nose.

I used a mix of Liche Purple (GW) + Matt Medium (Vallejo) to put multiple layers of glaze on the nose, increasing amount of brush strokes towards the tip of the nose. When applying glaze layers it is important to remove excess paint with a paper towel, so that the paint mixed with water and medium do not leak into places where it should not be.

That's all with the goblin's skin.