Painting mixed colours? (semi transparent over solid)

ManicMan

ManicMan

Lord
okay.. Just wondering about ideas cause.. personally, what I have tried I'm not 100% happy with but might just need to figure out better mixes.. anyway

I'm painting a figure as a gift for someone and the figure wears fishnet like tights (there are also some other figures which this kinda thing would work but stick with this).. problem is, the tights really should be semi transparent colour, over top of her leg colour. I've kinda found 2 ways I can think of doing this..
1) find a paint colour which is kinda a mixture between the colour of the tights and the colour of the flesh.. this is a bit tricky (also include trying to mix up a paint which is some percentage mix of the two colours)
2) paint the flesh, and then go over with a wash which is the colour of the tights.. this seams the easiest but doesn't always seam to give the best results

I'm not sure I'm that happy with either though I guess there isn't much choice other then the two methods. I think the best is the second in that you paint the flesh, do the shading and highlighting then do a wash (ugh.. wash before highlighting.. guess it makes sense but..) which kinda darkens it or whatever the colour is but I'm not quite sure.. really, when you think, that's all what colours are.. RGB mixed and what you think is a transparent colour is just showing you the colour behind mixed with the colour in front making a different flat colour.. Just wondering about how people go about the method in different ways.. It's always good to learn about how different people in different styles try to approach different subjects.
 
Personally, I’d go for option 2 but then I’m a lazy painter. Most pros would use 1, I reckon.

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I would go with glazing as my first approach to this sort of thing; paint the skin in fully and then work with thinned down paint in the stocking colour (or perhaps initially a mixture of the skin tone and stocking colour) to go over it in numerous layers to build up the appearance of sheer fabric. The biggest problem I have with this sort of thing is patience and waiting for the previous layer to properly dry before adding the next one and thus avoiding annoying lumps.

I don't have many great examples from my own work with tights (not many Space Marines wearing them) but it's how I approach stubble on faces, like this guy (link) - I painted his face and then went back over it with a light grey to slowly build up the effect of having stubble.

I have found that using flow improver rather than water helped the paint stay usable at thin consistencies which makes glazing and wet blending easier, though the somewhat slower drying time is both a good and bad thing (good for increasing working time, bad for requiring more patience for multiple layers)!

There will be lots of good tutorials on glazing out there!
 
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