So Im doing old school Verlinden method , light sand water base , wait at least 24hr, put on my oil paint dark shadow mix , then pull it off with a nice flat brush, shadows stay in dark crevices and a light film lays over the initial sand base , It looks spectacular, so I wait a week to let that oil dry nice , I goto to put on the flesh highlites and it goes gray on me , I dont know why, any advice or solutions would be appreciated
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I used Verlindens wet on wet technique when I first started seriously trying to paint figures as a teenager and I to my twenties and it was difficult at first but eventually I got the hang of it.
It might help to know exactly what colors you used and maybe some pictures. I started the same way you did with a sand colored base, at the time I used Humbrol. I’d let that dry for a day or so then use either raw or burnt umber oils to lay in the shadows. Then I’d start trying to blend in a sand- brown basic flesh tone little by little. I would go directly to the highlight colors but only on the highest raised areas of the face like the nose, cheeks and top of the chin.
Did you use any white in your highlights and black in your shadow colors? That might result in the gray tone but it’s difficult to say without seeing pictures and also your blending technique.
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I appreciate that oils are the classic medium for painting figures, but I exclusively use acrylics. If metal, or resin, I prime with white first. Do a complete coverage with a medium tone flesh color. Then build up really thin applications of lighter tones to forehead, nose, cheekbones, jawline, and chin - any raised areas. Then do increasingly darker tones for eye sockets, sides of the nose and under the nose, the area between lips and chin, and cheeks. Observe glamor, and make-up advertisements for shading. It takes a lot of practice.
This is one of my better attempts, and I’m still practicing.
BTW, that figure is 80 mm.
1/35 is a lot more simplified;
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You can’t argue with success. That figure looks far more lifelike, and much better than anthying I’ve ever seen done by Verlinden.
Examples:
I find it’s usually around the frown lines where his figures turn into caricatures. And many are just not well blended.
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Your first figure is very well done. The second one looks like a real goofy sculpting. 
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Leo that’s some excellent figure painting. And great advice. I switched to vallejos acrylics about 20 years ago and I do ok with them. I’ve since tried Life Color flesh set and love them. You are correct about building up layers of color. Many prominent figure artist are using acrylics now too.
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That top figure is very well done, bottom one just needs some work.
Unless one is into sculpting, sometimes there’s not much you can do with paint to fix a bad sculpt.
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Ah, but these are Verlinden’s figures as well. There’s no escaping it no matter how you look at it - Verlindin’s Tao was never mine.
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