Painting female minis and faces

[Furyhound]

One of the things that bother me most while painting female figures, drawing etc is the lips. It makes me mad, you add a tinee winee red\\pink to the flesh mix and its already a cheap Wh@#$.
Look at the best miniatures at CMON, I think that the elven princess is one of the best - besides the face! Why? Red strong lips.

How do you paint female lips so they wont become slotty and more simple normal human lips?

Also about the face:
When a female model has an open mouth so that there are two lines in the cheeks, if theyre painted, the model gets a crazy old look. how do you treat those lines?

Body: Female are more elegant, and as I understand to create this on a model, there should be less contrast on the body? Am I right? Correct me if I\'m wrong and please show examples.
Perhaps I am mistaken only by the sculpting which creates less shading on a female body rather then on a male body.

Thanks ahead

 

[DaN]

If you\'ve ever painted portraits this is also a great pain in the... Face :/

Especially if you are painting males - you don\'t want them to look like they are wearing lipstick...!!

Have you tried adding the lightest of red washes/glazes instead of adding red to a flesh paint...?

 

[generulpoleaxe]

at the end of the month check out the cmon6 comp enteries.

there will be some realy good examples of female faces and skin tones.

all helped by the fact steve did a wonderfull job on this sculpt.

 

[Ritual]

I usually add a dark red brown to the flesh colour for the lips. That works fine, IMO.

An example:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/116759

The lines in the face looks good if you shade them moderately and don\'t pronounce them too much.

As for shading the body, if you have deep crevices some places shade them deeply, and if you\'re only having softer shapes shade them more moderately.

 

[Avelorn]

Well be subtle and gentle. I have done a few female faces.. here and here but I painted make-up on both of these ones. If you want any pointers to how I did them, just let me know. The lips need to be neat, or else it will look like messed up lipstick. I see the problem with the lines around the mouth, but just don\'t define them so much. I deliberately painted aging lines on my natali to make her look a bit older and give her a smirk (there were none on the sculpt).

As for shading there are less defining lines, but not less shading, if you get what I mean. The deepest shadow is dependant on which kind of lighting you choose to set for the mini.

 

[DaN]

Remember, when it comes to flesh tones - almost all colours can be used...

If you look at certain areas of your own skin (if you are white - I don\'t know about other races)

You can see darker red areas where the blood is near the surface, the blues of veins and capillaries, and the brown pigmentation of melanin...

And if you are bruised, you can see yellows, blues, purples, browns...

Try doing a few sketches of lips of a bit of paper and using different colours to show lipstick or natural skin tones

 

[Ritual]

Another important thing... DON\'T DO ANYTHING WITH THE UPPER LIP! That would only make the mouth look strange. Just paint the upper lip in the ordinary skin colour.

 

[Furyhound]

Which basecoat do you use for females?
I thought it might be different from the ever usual black with all the gentleness and that

 

[penguin]

Codex grey + Blood Red makes a nice subtle red colour, matches up exactly to lips

 

[vincegamer]

I never use black to basecoat flesh anyway. I might if I were doing african-type skin, but haven’t done that in a long time. I basecoat at most with a warm brown at most, as used
here
and
here