Painting Faces--ARGH!!!

[beh]

Hi everybody. I spent the better part of this evening painting the face on my Sister Superior mini--man what a task faces can be! And I\'m not really even satisfied yet--I\'d give her face maybe a five on the scale--but I had to stop and call it good enough because it was starting to drive me CRAZY!!!

The eye I did over like five or six times, which involved scraping the paint off with my xacto knife. And then ya\' gotta\' be careful to remove the little fleks of paint without removing all the adjacent paint. And then the mouth took forever--those darn teeth are so freakin\' small. It\'s like you touch up this area, then that, and then you gotta\' go back over the area ya\' just finished touching up!

Darn it, faces are difficult. Sorry, but I wanted to rant about it to people who understand, so thanks.

 

[Itchy]

eyes suck

mine ALWAYS look cross-eyed! ALWAYS... i can never get away from it. i\'ve read tutorials online, but nothing fixes it. Any help?

 

[beh]

Here, I thought I\'d share a bad photo of her taken via web cam:

http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=9057409

PS: Does anyone know why I couldn\'t put the image right in the thread?

 

[Dragonsreach]

Painting eyes can be a bind. I\'ve developed this method which works for me. You can try it and see if it\'s any good for you.

First off I prime my figures black so I\'m at an advantage.
With a 000 brush I paint in the sockets of the eye with Skull White or Vallejo Ivory. Any over paint or slips I touch up with Black.

After having washed my 000 brush I take a tiny amount of black paint and on the eye nearest to my painting hand draw a vertical line.
Then I turn the mini upside down and do the same to the other eye.

It sounds complex but it is easier to do than to describe. In essence it\'s about reducing the amount of movement the painting hand has to do in order to paint fine detail.

Once you feel comfortable with doing this, you can change from black to using a colour for the iris. Shadow Grey looks pretty good for blue eyes.

Hope that this helps.

 

[Pirate_Wench]

greenstuff - sculpt an eyepatch - paint the remaining uncovered eye


just make a pirate themed army and you\'ll never need to worry about your muchkins looking crosseyed again, with only one eye showing they\'ll always look great!! Who could resist an army of piratical sisters of battle!

 

[Corvus]

First I paint the entire eye socket black, then white over it, leaving a small black line. And the pupil is done with a very fine marker (pen).

 

[Trevor]

It looks pretty good to me.

I\'ve been painting for years and I still find faces very hit and miss.

 

[gohkm]

Prime white, then edge outwards [from the socket] with brown ink. Don\'t need to be too careful as I\'m going over the outside with flesh tones later on, anyway.

Paint a vertical slit with the iris colour, then just touch the tip of a 000 brush into the middle of this ...

... praying hard, all the time .

 

[TAB Studio]

If you can buy the coolminiornot annual in the back are some killer articles with pictures, dilution rates for the paint and flow aid, all of it. Also see if you are using great paints it makes a huge difference. I learn visually so it helps me a lot to see the steps. Check here in the articles if you can not get the annual they also show step by step.

 

[Astonia]

Well, I\'ve found that painting with ink works when painting eyes. Because ink is so much thinner than paint it\'s easier to work with when you\'re using a very thin brush. You should then use ink straight from the bottle, and when used in a small area like the eye sockets, it\'ll look like paint but still be very fluent to work with (even though I have never ever managed to paint a decent eye at the first attempt, but I\'m slowly getting there thanks to all the information and help found here at CMON)

Hope this helps!

 

[t_haye2]

i normally paint the yes black, then white, leaving a very thin line of black around the area touching the eyelids. i then paint in the pupil with black...and no, i don\'t get it right first try....I have developed this cunning technique of being able to have my hands shake in unison! lollollollol Eyes are a pain, but also one of the most important parts of a model. The way Mike describes doing eyes is also a good way to handle them.

 

[Klute]

Paint the eyes and teeth before the flesh.There will be less to touch up.On the whole painting the mini from \"inside out\" is good practice.
I tend toward black ink for the pupils.
Right on Tammy,why is the most important part of a mini the hardest to get right?

 

[Itchy]

Thanks!

WOW! Thanks Dragonsreach so much... i swear you\'re a painting angel! i just stripped an old elf and painted REALLY NICE EYES! i swear! i\'m soooooooo happy right now.
And yeah... i normally do the eyes and mouth before the flesh (i tend to paint the deeper parts of the mini, then when they look nice move onto the higher up parts).

 

[Badaab]

Painting faces

I have a couple of step-by-step tutorials for painting faces over on my Pbase site. Just have a look in the section labelled \"Tutorials\". I\'ll include the link below for posterity.

-Joe

http://www.pbase.com/badaab

 

[beh]

Hey thanks Trevor!

And thanks everyone else for the tips and resources. There really are some fine folks \'round here!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Itchy:

WOW! Thanks Dragonsreach so much... i swear you\'re a painting angel!

Now I\'ve been called some things in my time but that\'s a first. lollollol
Usually the terms of reference applied to me are nowhere as polite! Just see Tammy\'s comments for examples.lollollol

 

[t_haye2]

don\'t worry Mike, i think you\'re a painting angel too lollollollollol

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by t_haye2
don\'t worry Mike, i think you\'re a painting angel too lollollollollol

You feeling alright?
Or, what you after?

Starts to feel worried after previous thread comments about visit from Tammy and her \"Bestest Friend Bob The Hatchet\"

 

[Aryanun]

Anne Foerster of Reaper taught me one invaluable lesson for painting in general, but especially eyes (and she uses a size 0 Kolinsky sable)...

It\'s all in the point. You\'ve got to have a good point on your brush or you will have problems in getting the eyes right.

 

[Aryanun]

The main thing Anne Foerster (of Reaper) taught me in painting eyes (and in general at all) is it\'s all in the point.

I watched her paint eyes with a Kolinsky sable size 0. Before I realized how valuable a point on my brush was, I was dotting all my pupils with toothpicks because I didn\'t have good brushes. I didn\'t even have mediocre brushes. Now I know how good of an investment a superior brush is worth.