I need to know what colors to mix to get a dead flesh look. I am doing some LOTR figures and the faces need to be dead flesh. The company that they say to get the paint from charges an arm and a leg for there paint, so I want to mix my own. Thanks for any help you can give me.

I once saw a guy that had died through massive trauma and his skin colour was the wierdest thing I've ever seen. It was the same colour as a "black eye" but with a yellow/tan hue to it. I guess the cause of death as well as the time the body had been left would have a big impact on the resulting skin colour.

my local hobbytown carries a line of warhammer paints. thay have colors such as pallid flesh and I think dead flesh.......and several other skin tones suitable for fantasy figures.

I would go with the blackish color, it makes sense since the dead VC at the beginning of Platoon had blackish rotted skin.

~Chip

In my job I get to see loads of dead people on a regular basis. Most of which have had serious trauma. The skin takes on a rather grey pallour and the areas closest to the floor turn cyanose (blueish hues) as the blood sinks with gravity...no heart pump now!
The longer the person is dead, the more distinct the blue pallour becomes.
Don't forget the lips, nose, ears and other extremities go blue too.

If you want a good representation of a fresh corpse, then look no further than a cold and defrosted chicken (plucked of course and fed on corn). The skin on a chicken is slightly damp and cold and has a very slight yellow tint to it. Human skin has the exact same feel and colour when freshly and cleanly killed.

Trauma victims almost always have an agonised look on their face. If you want to see pictures then I suggest you do a search on the internet for pictures, but if I were you I wouldn't bother...they are sick.

Rotten skin takes on a very pale green colour and research is required.
VERY rotten skin takes on a very dark crusty colour, akin to dark brown almost black.

HTH

Thanks for the replies guys.
Desert-fox -- What is it that you do for a living? Are you a cop or a medical examiner?

Dead flesh... the real questions are : Dead how long, and dead how?

Having been a navy diver, I've seen more than my share of people plucked from the depths... almost a lavendar skin tone... deep bluish pink caused by the cold water. Stay in the water too long, and the flesh begins to get pulled at by the locals, and all the blood eventually washes out... leaving you with a whitish-yellow pulp.

Ohhhh -yummy!

Matrix - The former profession applies

As a paramedic, I too have seen more bodies than I care to remember. Like the others have said, the appearance of flesh after death really depends on two factors. Time post mortem and method of death. If you just must, check out rotten.com and you can see all types of bodies. Beware, that site is truly rotten.

Patrick