Some people asked me how I paint faces on my 28mm figures. I bring you small tutorial how I do it. I'm sorry I was too lazy to set colors to look more realistic but I think you will get it. With good brush and some patience you can use this technique on 1/72 figures as well.
Firstly (after priming of course) I paint base color. Vallejo Model Color (VMC) Flat Flesh (70.955).
You would need at least two coats (depends on primer color). Paint should be thick enough because it is base color but not to thick so details remain visible and brush strokes not visible
After that I give generous coat of Games Workshop Reikland Fleshshade. I'm much more happy with this one than Vallejo flesh wash. Be careful with pooling but some pooling where eyes are supposed to be is desirable - I don't paint eyes in this scale in most of cases.
In 3rd step I take VMC Flat Flesh again but a bit thinned down this time. Let's say 2 drops of paint, 1 drop of water and 1 drop of matt medium. Then I paint 1st highlights as shown bellow:
2h higlight is mix of VMC Flat Flesh and VMC Light Flesh (70.928) in 50/50 ratio. I add water and mat meduim to the mixture. 2nd highlights are placed over 1st highlights but cover smaller area.
Then I use VMC Flat Flesh with a dash of red (be careful when adding red) and I thin it down more than paint for highlights with water and mat medium. You don't need paint that is too thin, you need paint that is very transparent. You can control thicker paint more easily. That's why I use mat medium.
With that paint (midtone) make glaze under the cheeks. Between highlights and shadows.
Finally. Use your base paint (Flat Flesh) with a dash of blue (use even less blue than you use red in previous step) and make it very transparent. Then paint lowest part of the face (5 o'clock shadow).
Remember that it is better to paint many thinner layers of glazes than one thick - this is about last two steps which aren't that important but add very much to overall impression.
And when I apply this technique to figures it looks like this: