# Mr. Spocks Skin Color



## Solium (Apr 24, 2005)

Ive seen 5 or so wonderful build ups of the reissued Mr. Spock kit. Stunning work by all. They look so amazing I often want to dig mine out and build it. 

But one thing that sticks out for me are the builders choice for the skin tone. Every build up I have seen, Spock has a very pinkish hue. 

As we know Spock had green blood and had a greenish tint to his skin. So I was wondering if this is just an over sight by the modelers. (Perhaps younger modelers are building the re-pops?) or if it was a creative choice not to tint his flesh tone more towards the greens?

This is meant as an observation and not a criticism. I was just curious :wave:.


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

Solium said:


> Ive seen 5 or so wonderful build ups of the reissued Mr. Spock kit. Stunning work by all. They look so amazing I often want to dig mine out and build it.
> 
> But one thing that sticks out for me are the builders choice for the skin tone. Every build up I have seen, Spock has a very pinkish hue.
> 
> ...


Even though the make-up was done in a greenish hue, it still came across on screen as pale flesh. By the time the movies were done, the green was dropped all together. If you were painting a command shirt, would you paint it green, as that is what it's true color was, or yellow as it appeared on screen. Personal choice, that is all!


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## Lou Dalmaso (Jul 13, 2004)

There is a good still from "Patterns of Force" that shows what Spock's Skin color should be (it has more of a yellow/green tinge)

but I agree, it was dropped for the films. (along with most of his "eye shadow")


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

Lou Dalmaso said:


> There is a good still from "Patterns of Force" that shows what Spock's Skin color should be (it has more of a yellow/green tinge)
> 
> but I agree, it was dropped for the films. (along with most of his "eye shadow")


As you watch the episodes, you can see the difference in his skin color, but it never really came across as greenish, just pale. I tried a green look once and I didn't like it, as I said personal choice. If you can get the right tint, it would make the figure look great, I just couldn't come upon it!


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## mach7 (Mar 25, 2002)

In the enhanced TOS episodes he has a greenish tinge. I used a green wash over skin tones, but it really does not show up much.


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## Solium (Apr 24, 2005)

I'm pretty sure Spock had a green tint in his make up for the Motion Picture. But I agree they seemed to drop it after that. I also remember him having a green tint on TOS. But it might have been for a specific episode where McCoy commented on the color of his blood. 

I imagine it would be difficult to produce that color on a model kit where it didn't look "Alien" green.


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

Solium said:


> I'm pretty sure Spock had a green tint in his make up for the Motion Picture. But I agree they seemed to drop it after that. I also remember him having a green tint on TOS. But it might have been for a specific episode where McCoy commented on the color of his blood.
> 
> I imagine it would be difficult to produce that color on a model kit where it didn't look "Alien" green.


It is definitely a fine line between a green tint to flesh color, remember he is half human, and looking like an Orion Slave Girl! As I said, if you try it, good luck, I failed and went with more of a Star Trek II look!


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## JGG1701 (Nov 9, 2004)

Lou Dalmaso said:


> There is a good still from "Patterns of Force" that shows what Spock's Skin color should be (it has more of a yellow/green tinge)
> 
> but I agree, it was dropped for the films. (along with most of his "eye shadow")


Not sure 'bout that.
-Jim


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

I just skimmed through the book "Star Trek 365". That is a great source for reference with many pictures from each episode. Some are pulled from 35mm frames, others are high quality promotional stills. NONE of them show much, if any "green" in Spock's skin tone. They all seem to have good color quality, in many you can see Kirk's shirt is green rather than yellow. Take it for what it is.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

If you have access to Dillard's book, Star Trek, Where No Man Has Gone Before, there are some good color shots of Nimoy in makeup. In most of them his skin color is definitely not Kirk or McCoy's. In one shot of the whole cast, it's much closer to Sulu's than theirs but paler. Lou's description of a kind of yellow-green is the best description. I'm not going to try to scan and post any of the pictures as between the scanner, Photoshop, and any monitor the color is just not going to end up being accurately reproduced. Just think: one of your in-laws, after a bucket of bad clams.
As for on screen, what color was the Enterprise or the Jupiter 2? Not a whole like the miniatures'. The green interior of the Jupiter 2 was mostly grey by the time it ended up on our retinas. As for the capure above, I don't think they bothered with the full body makeup that he would have required and just left him actor color overall. 
Just remember, Spock was green-skinned. If he wasn't, why all the nasty comments from everyone around him?


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## Lou Dalmaso (Jul 13, 2004)

JGG,

just like the color of the ship, or Kirk's tunic, colors vary from reproduction to reproduction.

I'm not claiming to know anything definitive, but the still I'm referring to (I seem to remember it being in one of the calendars..) was Spock and Kirk standing side by side shirtless, in handcuffs, with the whip marks (dear Lord ...did I just type that?) and Spock's chest - in addition to having much more hair on it then Kirk's - was a lighter yellow green. Now I'm sure he was made up even more than usual to accentuate his "alien" nature for story purposes, but he was not as pink as the photo you posted.

I really need to go wash that thought off of me...


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

Being a BIG fan of the original series and the movies that came from them, I am a bit disappointed that continuity was not followed in any of the spin-off series. Clearly the green tint to the skin was dropped in ALL the full blooded Vulcans that were seen in them. In TNG and DS9 there was no indication of green tint, Tuvok surely didn't have any in Voyager nor did T-Pol or any of the other Vulcans seen in Enterprise. A big part of me was glad to see J.J. Abrams just chuck out the existing Star Trek universe and start a new one from scratch!


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## JGG1701 (Nov 9, 2004)

Lou Dalmaso said:


> I really need to go wash that thought off of me...


:roll:
-Jim


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## Lou Dalmaso (Jul 13, 2004)

AAAAAhHHHHG

here it is!


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

Lou Dalmaso said:


> AAAAAhHHHHG
> 
> here it is!


Great pic, but there is still nothing to tell anyone not "in the know" that Spck's skin was green. He just looks pale. Oh well, no big deal, we know the truth!!


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Lou, as a Canadian in the middle of the winter, I resemble that remark. Or at least I resemble Spock in that picture. 
It is a very annoying skin tone to pin down. The color photos in the WNMHGB Photonovel have Spock almost the same green as the green tunics, where Kirk is definitely recognizable as tanned California, tho' still way shifted. The photos in Dillard's book show someone who is definitely paler than the caucasians around him. In ST The True Story by Justman and Solow they say that for the first pilot at least, Spock's ears were cast to be the same "yellowish" tone as his skin. (I didn't know that for the rest of the series they were stuck to the side of his head with double-sided carpet tape. And is that something I wanted to know?) But your picture above seems to capture the color I'm seeing everywhere else.


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## Lou Dalmaso (Jul 13, 2004)

Meanwhile...at the other end of the spectrum...

here's how the color was handled by illustrators


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## deadmanincfan (Mar 11, 2008)

The color I've used to paint Spock has been close to ST:TAS' Spock, although not quite as much yellow...


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

Spock's complexion was always slightly yellowish. It was always a very subtle, somewhat jaundiced look. While his blood was always stated to be green, it was really only shown once (as Lou indicated above), in the episode "Patterns of Force", when he and Kirk were both whipped, Spock's back revealing green lash marks.

So, of course, since Spock was portrayed by a very human Leonard Nimoy, his lips, inside of mouth, and edges of eye sockets all were all reddish pink.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

Coincidentally, there’s a thread on this very subject running concurrently on Trek BBS.

Spock’s skin tone was, indeed, slightly yellowish. Nimoy’s makeup was a custom-mixed formula dubbed “LN-1” after his initials. It was a blend of two stock Max Factor colors that were called, in a somewhat un-P.C. manner by today’s standards, “Chinese Yellow” and “Flesh” (meaning Caucasian flesh).


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## RSN (Jul 29, 2008)

Let’s not forget that in many episodes, Spock "blended" in with locals who had Caucasian skin color, without calling attention to himself, in "City on the Edge of Forever" he was passed off as Asian, so his coloring must have been VERY subtle, and not very green! As I said, this was dropped by future series for just this reason I suppose. T-Pol and her fellow Vulcan's had no trouble blending in in Earth's past, and they were full Vulcans!


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## jlwshere (Mar 30, 2007)

If anyone has seen TOS on Blu Ray, you can definitely see the yellowish greenish complexion of Spock. The reason the Vulcan's skin color changed in the movies and spinoff series is because of genetic mutation, but they don't like to talk about it.... NO! Wait! That's the Klingons....

Spock's blood was also seen in Journey to Babel, during the transfusion.


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## jheilman (Aug 30, 2001)

Yeah, I remember reading that Spock's makeup was labeled Chinese, meaning yellowish. Don't know that there was ever any green in it at all.


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## Solium (Apr 24, 2005)

I really like the hue they used for the animated series. Interesting they got it "right" to my eye at least.


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