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First, for rank and file, don't bother with they eyes, you'll never see them.

For heroes and whatnot, paint the eye white or bonewhite and then using a .005 Micron Pigma Pen, draw a vertical line from the top of the white to the bottom. Done. You can flesh wash the socket if you like.

The biggest mistake that leads to the bug eyed look is trying to paint the iris as a circle. Unless someone is shocked or surprised you never see the top and bottom of the iris.

 Findarfin wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Just to show you I'm not full of turd. You can see on zhufor how small the eye detail needs to be. Same on canoness veridyan. The eyes on abaddon were even harder due to the higher detail on the forge world resin sculpt.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, you can see that even in zoomed in photos it should be hard to see the eye detail. It needs to be that subtle.

For your boots issue, I use a liquid super glue, allow it to flow around the boots then apply your sand. Use a precision scalpel blade to flick off any wayward sand granules that may stick to the top of the boots.

Thanks for the tips and the examples! Stunning stuff!

I actually like the painting aspect of warhammrr quite a lot, I'll give it a shot, worse case scenario it's practice for the heroes, best case scenario they advance +1 and have +1 attacks due to stimulants (-1 BS because they can't aim straight though)

I'm all about the painting. I don't game. I've been painting for 4 years, and its only in the past year that I've really got my faces down and eyes done properly. its really only worth doing eyes on hero type miniatures. as a way to practice, maybe pick up a batch of bare heads from ebay or something. drill holes in the bottom and mount them on paperclip wire with the other end mounted on a bit of plastic. that will give you a nice platform to practice on them with. when I paint I always paint the heads first, and separate from the rest of the mini.

I'm going to second the use of 005 micron pens, they come in a variety of colors similar to most eyes...unless you're painting bareheaded Salamander characters.
(hmm, even then I suppose one could base coat the eye white then pen in the details with red and black microns)

One player I used to game with used to 'poke the eyes in'.
Which takes a bit of fine dexterity is to use the tip of a hobby knife or needle and indent/scratch the eye surface. Then when painting the face did flesh color, an off-white for the sclera of the eye, and then watered down flesh wash. The ink would fill the pupil cavity.

A good point brush is in every way superior to using a micron pen. The reason we use brushes and not pens is for control - you get control of flow, line width and opacity. You don't get this with a pen - it's either coming out of the nib, or it isn't.

Eyes are one of the places where you will learn brush control - essential to many other techniques - edge and spot highlighting, blending and so on.

This doesn't necessarily mean an expensive brush, nor does it mean lots of 0's - a brush with too small a reservoir can actually be a disadvantage as your paint will dry on it much faster. You need thin paint, and to not overload the brush - you're aiming for easy flow, not flooding, and not putting on a blob of paint.

When brush shopping look for a nice cone shape, without extra long bristles in the middle. It should come to a needle point and overall have an elongated slightly tear-drop shape.

I do eyes entirely with a size 1 Broken Toad brush. Actually, that's been my workhorse brush for a couple of years now, far outlasting winsor & newton brushes used for the same tasks.

Edit: In terms of speed, I generally crank out a face in about 5-10 minutes work (after the basecoat/wash stage) or less, with all the blended tones etc. I've had a lot of practice, but that's all it really takes. Do avoid things that give you the shakes though (too much caffeine is a big one for me).

Agreed. I need to invest in some larger brushes. I've painted 2 golden demon entries using just 4/0s after base layers. Spent 3 hours on abaddons head and hair.

One Way paint a strip of black or dark brown in the eyeball. Stab a very tiny amount of white into each corner of the eyeball. This works nice, and is very organic.

Another way paint a strip of white in the eyeball. Paint a vertical strip of black or very dark brown down the middle.

You will need a fine detail brush and a good mix. Do not attempt without magnifying visor or any type of magnification.

 Findarfin wrote:
Hello,

after months of silence, I'm at some scout ultramarines and I've used all your suggestions, so I'm posting it to see how it's faring so far:



I think it's getting there, probably the eyes should be a little smaller and with darker contour..

The technique I used:

buy brush for eyes only

skin tone, wash,

white (but not pure white, I used pallid witch flesh) eye with dark dot/stripe closer to the center

contour with skin tone

add some more wash with eye brush to mark contour

thanks for all the tips!

Findarfin,

To make your eye's have less of a staring look, you can increase your pupil size so that it touches the top and bottom of the white. I do eyes on all my models and use a fairly simple method. A little black over the eyes, then pure white inside that in a thin line, then a dot of black (or blue for your Fremen look) for the pupil in the center of the white (make certain it reaches the black above and below so you just have the white on each side) and you are done. You can see that in any of my human or Eldar logs.

Hope that helps,

CB

This is the closest thing to plastic surgery I ever did in my life. (<-- plastic surgeon face)

Thanks everyone for the additional suggestions! I think I'm getting closer, probably the eye on the right has too much white in the upper external side



I've done:
-bigger pupils
-retouched the over and under eye with skin stone and wash to make the eye thinner

there are 14 more of them, so probably it's time to move on to the others..

I'm a little late to the party here...but looks like you're doing great! I'm not s a superstar painter but it brings me a bit of joy and nothing feels better than putting a painted army out there. This scout above is a really nice trooper! He looks like a soldier, uniform taken care of but worn from use and battle. And never forget, a well painted model does roll better...I think science has proven that...
Hope you keep sharing, Always inspirational.
I go with the wash for rank and file for faces (darkens the eye area so they are squinting) and only do eyes on good open type faces, characters and such. I'm a white base and black line touching both eyelids kind of guy. I will confess doing lashes and make-up on some of my sisters and my female character for my Imperial guard. Examples for what it's worth; (first one is a cheat...its an Ogrynn putting make up on for the unit pic...)



Links to pics on my other site (guess i never put these on dakka trying to link directly to pages with best eyes)
https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/sisters-cannoness.html

https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/sculpts-wood-elves-bluefeather.html

https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/the-empire-main-page.html

edwardmyst wrote:
I'm a little late to the party here...but looks like you're doing great! I'm not s a superstar painter but it brings me a bit of joy and nothing feels better than putting a painted army out there. This scout above is a really nice trooper! He looks like a soldier, uniform taken care of but worn from use and battle. And never forget, a well painted model does roll better...I think science has proven that...
Hope you keep sharing, Always inspirational.
I go with the wash for rank and file for faces (darkens the eye area so they are squinting) and only do eyes on good open type faces, characters and such. I'm a white base and black line touching both eyelids kind of guy. I will confess doing lashes and make-up on some of my sisters and my female character for my Imperial guard. Examples for what it's worth; (first one is a cheat...its an Ogrynn putting make up on for the unit pic...)



Links to pics on my other site (guess i never put these on dakka trying to link directly to pages with best eyes)
https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/sisters-cannoness.html

https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/sculpts-wood-elves-bluefeather.html

https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/the-empire-main-page.html

WOW, those eyes look amazing!!

OP, Your eyes are getting good! I also just started doing eyes, right about the same time you asked about them. It looks like your improving faster than I am. I've got a pic below of my most recent batch of minis.

Edit: yeah, looking again, it's not my best paint job, I'm including pics of the batch before as well, including one that unintentionally looks like a Hollywood star.

Thanks to all the inputs, I've finished the squads, here are some closeups! I'm getting there, I think I have to make them eyes just a bit thinner.. but looking at my original work I see the improvement, so thanks again!






I'm moving onto devastators and the command characters, some sweet forgeworld models are waiting and for those the new tricks will come handy..