Freckles?

[DVS Design]

Hello all I'm currently painting a bust and she is a ginger. So I was wondering if anyone out there has a good way to do Freckles. She just does not look right without them but right now I like how her skin turned out to much to just start blindly dabbing away at it lol.

 

[DVS Design]

Here is what she looks like so far.

 

[Chrome]

Looking at how varied the pattern and colour intensity in the freckles is from person to person I think I'd try using perhaps a toothbrush and a very, very diluted light brown, then make sure there's just about enough colour on the toothbrush for it to "spray" when you drag your finger along the bristles. depending on how far from the face you are and how you use it I'm pretty sure you can get enough control to make it look awesome.

 

[freakinacage]

yeah, i'd try that. but practice on a piece of paper first. then once you have the pattern, enhance it with a fine brush. but i would lighten her skin tone first as she seems to have too much of a tan for a ginge!

 

[supervike]

I think you should just google freckles and stare at all the pretty gals for a bit.

I think, although time consuming, the best way would be to use relatively thin paint, and dab them on one at a time.

Maybe once all finished, then use thin wash of your base flesh color to help blend them in a bit more.

 

[Einion]

In some respects the one-at-a-time method is the way to go, but if you do this I would strongly recommend working from references and trying to match actual freckle patterns - you'll be surprised how difficult it is to do truly random dots if you haven't had any practice.

Spattering from a stiff paintbrush or old toothbrush is a very good method for achieving true random patterns, but it's extremely difficult to control the spatter from one go to the next. Well worth experimenting with, but do keep a wet brush on hand in case you don't get what you want so you can quickly wipe off the wet paint! Oh and of course you'll need to mask off any areas that you don't want freckled.

As for colour, definitely experiment before you apply paint to the model. I'm sure you'll find that a brown that looks like it'll work just fine on the palette will look completely wrong on the paintjob; I would recommend taking that brown and mixing it about halfway with your flesh colour and then trying that - it'll look odd on the palette but could work very well on the model.

Einion

 

[Shawn R. L.]

IMO less is definately more - Keep them light. Too dark and they will look like DOTS painted on instead of being the subtile tone freckles really are.

 

[GreenOne]

I tried the splatter technique for that once, I wouldn't recommend in this instance, the placement will be random so will the size, you're bound to get a couple that are too big and it can get pretty messy, dabbing seems the way to go. Like Shawn said just a bit, on the cheeks maybe, the viewer's eye will take care or the rest.

 

[DVS Design]

Thanks for all the ideas I thinbk for now she will stay as is. I really like how the face came out and I will play with some of these ideas on some other faces. ^_^