One of the most common colors to use in makeup effects are flesh tone colors. My guess is they’re the ones we’ll need to mix most often.
You can make any color using the primary colors and white, but I found some recipes that may get you flesh tones faster. They use a few pre-mixed hues to complete each recipe.
How it Works
Each recipe is for a tone from light natural to extra dark natural, and several shades in-between. You can lighten the value of each flesh tone by adding white, so it may be a good idea to start with a tone slightly darker than what you need.
I found this list of recipes on The Effects Lab forum given by one of the generous posters there. It was originally given in grams, but I converted that into percentages for you. Hopefully, the percents will help you to get an idea of how much you need of each color. I also left in the grams.
PAX Paint uses acrylic paints in its mixture, so that’s the type of paint we’ll use here.
On using acrylic paints on skin…
There’s some debate on whether or not this is safe. I’ve painted with acrylic paints and have had it on my skin many a day. I mean they’re non-toxic, and I’ve never had any problems. Still, that isn’t to say you won’t. Make sure you test the skin first and research to ensure you’re doing what’s safest.
These recipes use a brand of acrylic paint called Liquitex.
On to the recipes!
You can view Liquitex’s color chart online here.
For the first set of recipes you need the following colors (affiliate links, see my disclaimer):
Light Natural: 70% (40 g) White, 20% (11 g) Raw Sienna, 7% (4 g) Burnt Umber, 3% (2 g) Red Oxide
Deep Natural: 54% (20 g) White, 24% (9 g) Raw Sienna, 16% (6 g) Burnt Umber, 6% (2 g) Red Oxide
Dark Natural: 37% (10 g) White, 30% (8 g) Raw Sienna, 26% (7 g) Burnt Umber, 7% (2 g) Red Oxide
Extra Dark Natural: 0 White, 41% (14 g) Raw Sienna, 47% (16 g) Burnt Umber, 12% (4 g) Red Oxide
Light Olive: 68% (35 g) White, 20% (10 g) Raw Sienna, 10% (5 g) Burnt Umber, 2% (1 g) Red Oxide
Medium Pinkish: 67% (40 g) White, 16% (9 g) Raw Sienna, 9% (5.5 g) Burnt Umber, 8% (4.5 g) Red Oxide
Ruddy: 54% (40 g) White, 27% (20 g) Raw Sienna, 11% (8 g) Burnt Umber, 8% (6 g) Red Oxide
More Color Recipes
Roma/Grey-Green: 55% (20 g) Hue-Neutral Grey, 5% (2 g) Chromium Oxide Green, 17% (6 g) Yellow Oxide, 20% (7 g) Titanium White, 3% (1 g) Red Oxide
Medium Olive Green: 33% (7 g) Burnt Umber, 31% (6.5 g) Yellow Oxide, 21% (4.5 g) Payne’s Grey, 15% (3 g) Parchment
Dark Olive Green: 74% (25 g) Raw Sienna, 12% (4 g) Burnt Umber, 9% (3 g) Pthalocyanine Blue, 5% (2 g) Red Iron Oxide
Do you know any other paint recipes? Leave them in the comments.
I wrote this post thanks to these sites:
TheEffectsLab.com – Flesh Tone Formulas
Introduction to Percentages (Yeah. I can be math challenged.)
Image courtesy of paint-sculpt.com.
2 Responses
Using a cheap gram scale, I halved the gram by weight. Then added Pros-Aide (no tack) for PAX paint. Must say that the colors all turned out well. For the Extra Dark Natural I did add about 1 gram of White. I also used Liquitex Hard Body brand.
Thanks for sharing, Mike! I’m glad they worked out for you. I wonder what the different brands of acrylics do to the end result, if any one brand is better than another.