Another, more practical reason...
When you're painting a mass of miniatures in large batches, you tend to stick with the one colour combination across the whole lot... including skin tone. When you're trying to get things done quickly, was the GW 'eavy Metal team have to do, you tend to just find one combination that works well and run with it.
Also, when painting skin tones, a pale skin allows for better depth of shading, and highlighting of the figure's details. That's what a lot of the darker skin tones and washes are actually used for. You can see more detail on the figure with lighter colours. I paint Cadians with very pale skin, because it stands out well from the dark greens and blacks of their uniform, and draws attention to the face and hands.
(Thinking on this, I have a bunch of old guardsmen I haven't painted yet... I might do up one fair-skinned, and another dark-skinned... see which looks better.)
With 40k, Pallid skin just emphasises the GRIMDARK. Pale skin is always seen unhealthy in humans.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
When you're painting a mass of miniatures in large batches, you tend to stick with the one colour combination across the whole lot... including skin tone. When you're trying to get things done quickly, was the GW 'eavy Metal team have to do, you tend to just find one combination that works well and run with it.
Also, when painting skin tones, a pale skin allows for better depth of shading, and highlighting of the figure's details. That's what a lot of the darker skin tones and washes are actually used for. You can see more detail on the figure with lighter colours. I paint Cadians with very pale skin, because it stands out well from the dark greens and blacks of their uniform, and draws attention to the face and hands.
(Thinking on this, I have a bunch of old guardsmen I haven't painted yet... I might do up one fair-skinned, and another dark-skinned... see which looks better.)
With 40k, Pallid skin just emphasises the GRIMDARK. Pale skin is always seen unhealthy in humans.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?