Bah, I decided to go ahead and paint the eyes and made a bit of a mess of it... like I normally do.
I was wondering if anyone here would be willing to impart a little advice. I'm fairly familiar with the principles but have serious problems with the mechanics, particularly with the dot. I find that I can put the brush down accurately enough but struggle to get the paint to actually come off it where I want it. The issue seems to be that with something so small I don't have any room to draw the brush and am trying to paint with the tip... which clearly doesn't work for me.
I have tried a variety of brushes, thick paint, thin paint, etc. but just can't get it right.
So what am I missing? How does one actually go about putting a tiny dot of paint exactly where you want it?
p.s. I have tried to paint the eyes before the face but didn't have much success... perhaps it's time to try that again.
From an old and practised hand let me say now that there is no "Perfect" way to paint eyes without practise and control.
First off start with controlling your breathing, in the same way as when I was shooting releasing part of your breath before compleating the brush movement is essential.
Keep a steady position with both arms and hands supported, paint the eye closest to your dominant hand first, then move the figure to place the other eye closest to your dominant hand, not your hand to the figure. (Turning the figure upside down for this can help)
Things to remember about eyes:-
The pupil takes up approximately one third of the visible eye, but not all of you pupil is visible all the time, your upper eyelid will cover a small portion of the pupil. Leaving a thin white line under the pupil colour gives a realistic effect.
For tabletop mini's a black dot is more than enough, for competition colour is essential.
The Sclera (white) on a 28mm pupil painted white is too stark, use either an off white (VM Ivory or Pale Flesh).
In life the Sclera isn't always white, Race, Diet, health and geographical location can alter the Sclera from White through to a Yellowed tonality. This is most important while painting Busts as I've seen a beautiful Nubian face spoiled with pure white Sclera.
Align the eyes correctly, if a figure is pointing and facing down a weapon, paint the eyes looking at the direction the weapon is pointing.
(You'd be amazed at how simple a thing like that makes or brakes a paint job.)
Cats eyes as a vertical slit are not 100% vertical, they angle slightly so that the top is minutely closer together, than the bottom.
(The cat that has adopted us is staring at me as I type this, hence how I noticed.)
Dogs, Horses etc rarely show any white around the eyes except in fear or distress.
