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Who knows a very good technique for painting wood elf eyes? Mine look pretty bad, and I could use some help.

For normal huminoid eyes, I paint the whole eye black, then go back and put alittle dot of white in each corner. Its much easier then painting the eye white and putting a black dot in the middle.

Lately, I've been painting alot of fantasy style creatures, with then I just paint the eyes a solid color, sort of as if they were glowing.

Best tip: paint the pupil as a full line, going all the way through the eye. NOT a dot in the center of the eye. Unless you want them to look terrified.

I usually do this:

1 paint the entire eye socket a darker fleshtone
2 paint the actual eye with Astronomicon Grey
3 Pant a vertical line all the way through the white
4 touch up around the eye with the darker fleshtone
(this allows you to cover up mistakes and can be used to make the eyes slitted for that glaring look)
5 Touch up the bottom of the area with your skintone or highlight color to represent the cheekbones. (for that smiling anime look).

Examples:

I generally just use a tiny pin to paint them.

dip the point of the pin in a little paint, gently press point-on into the eye (area depending on what way you want them looking)
Do this a few times in the same area as this will thicken it a little.

The do a smaller dot inside of black, again with a pin.



Thats the basics, but you can really go to hell with it and go 2 more steps.

1: paint a very tiny dot in the top of the black pupil for reflective look.

2: only looks good on certain models.
use the pin to dip slightly in blood red.
Very gently drag the very tip of the pin around the main eye ball to create bloodshot veins in the eye.



Hope that one ehlps.
Also, the last one is a real pain in the arse to get right, ive re-painted and started eyes thousands of times.

With my necromundan's I painted it white carefully, then used a 005 pen to make a small black dot on each eye.

Painting the eye black then painting the corners white does wonders. If you paint in the pupils with a brush tip or pins or something, you almost always get a very goofy staring/surprised expression, like here on this mini I painted a while ago:



Meanwhile, the aforementioned black then white method:


You get a much fuller and more pleasing eye with this method.

my elf eyes look like those first ones you did, brother srm. that's exactly what they look like. lol.

If I may give an idea, more from a style then technique standpoint, try to put some color into your wood elfe eyes, for instance use green in the middle instead of black or do just a little ring of green or blue or something around the pupil, dark eyes work well for humans who have lagrely brown or darkly colored eyes but almost any description of elves includes eyes that stand out more then that.

Thank you all for your advice. I decided to go the slightly easier route and bought an India Ink marker for the pupils.

The advice here is solid, even if some of the examples are not.

Another tip: turn your mini UPSIDE DOWN when painting eyes. The 'hood' created by the browline on a good sculpt will get in the way if you are holding the model right-side-up.