Do You paint on eyes?

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**Barrington**

I struggle with painting on eyes on my Space Marines, its so fiddly.
I came across a tutorial where the guy didn't paint on eyes as he didn't think it looked good and it got me thinking.

**AustonT**

It makes them look crazy.

**IK-Painter**

Eyes can give your mini a lot of character - just practice, it will be worth it in the end!

**Lord Skulk**

That's one of the reasons I don't like painting people, daemon's are easy as you don't need to worry about pupils. My very first army was dwarves and I painted the eyes. Let's just say the entire army looked perpetually surprised with over half of them having at least one lazy eye.

**poda_t**

I paint lenses, but I do not paint eyes. I will only do eyes on psychic units, or on hero/command models. At times I feel inclined to put a dab of white on, and wash it with brown (along with the rest of the face) just so it doesn't look like a statue, but thats about it.

hahaha, and Lord Skulk nails it on the head.

PS. most people "cheat" by using art pens. both for eyes and for decals. I would do the same, except I don't have enough needs painting to warrant its purchase.

**Kyvik**

Typically I shade the area. Most of the time from table height you can't see anyway.

**Red_Starrise**

I usually use a light grey rather than a white to cut back on the wide eyed spun-out look & then use a dark brown rather than than black as the pupil because it's a little less severe. I then usually hit the eyes w/ a gloss after I varnish the rest of the model w/ satin or matte.

**insaniak**

Red_Starrise wrote:I usually use a light grey rather than a white to cut back on the wide eyed spun-out look

Just making the coloured part of the eye (or the black part, if you just do the 'white and pupil' method) larger has the same effect.

Unless you actually want them to look wide eyed, there really shouldn't be white showing anywhere other than the corners of the eyes.

For the actual question, always paint eyes. I've never quite understood the 'can't see them at that scale' argument for not painting them. Clearly, you can see them, otherwise painting them in would be a little problematic.

For anyone not confident enough in the brush skills, I would heartily recommend a micro-pen for doing eyes. Makes the job much easier.

**chaos0xomega**

Out of principal, I don't paint human eyes (and near human (I.E. Tau, Eldar, etc.). I'm not going to give my little soldiers the dignity of being seen as real people when they're purpose in their insignificant plastic lives is to be a faceless legion with which I shall conquer my friends army's of little plastic soldiers.

Instead, what I do is one of two things: I shade the area dark grey/black similar to old ww1/2 German and Russian propaganda/anime. The alternative is that (often in conjunction with the above) I paint the eyes pure white, without the pupil. Its a stylistic choice and dependent on the army.

**killykavekommando**

I paint the eyes on my O&G, as well as my rebel grots, however I leave my Tau eyes blank (

)

**Chi3f**

There was no "sometimes" option so I voted yes.

**Thatguy91**

I dont. I leave them a shade darker than the rest of the face. On helmets and special characters etc I might try to paint eyes but I find that most of the time they end up not looking very good. Atleast in my case.

**SagesStone**

I always do, lately I've been shading them as well so they look like they probably would if they were just shaded from a distance but up close enough the eyes are clearly visible.

Next challenge is to do all that, but also paint the irides.

**Sparks_Havelock**

For Marines in particular, yes I do paint the lenses. If you're finding it a bit tricky it might be best to keep it simple - dash of colour upon the lense and then apply a concentrated wash of a relevant colour, to add some basic shading about the edges. It's not the most incredible way to do it, obviously, but I have trouble with tiny details like that myself at times and Citadel washes go a long way to help me do these sorts of bits. On human faces I tend to use a concentrated brown wash to hint that the brow is shadowing the eyes. Best example I have is of my Boromir model, which I painted a long time ago;

Spoiler:

Think the only models I ever painted eyes on were Inquisitor scale bits...

**Brother SRM**

AustonT wrote:It makes them look crazy.

Only if you do it wrong. Here are examples of doing it wrong and doing it right that I've done.

DOING IT WRONG:

Painted the eye area white, then did a black dot. This almost always gives a "stare" effect that looks really, really goofy.

DOING IT RIGHT:

Painted the eye area BLACK, then did white dots on the side. This gives it an outline that makes it stand out better, and gives you significantly better control over painting the eye area.

**SagesStone**

Even easier if you make them look to one side rather than straight ahead. Avoids the stare and the lazy eye problems.

**LadyCassandra**

All my daemon army's eyes are blue, pupil-less and glowing. So like Space Marines I guess. It is difficult to paint them, but I find a good light source (so I can SEE the delimiter clearly), properly thinned paint and a step-by-step guide helps a lot.

**JohnnoM**

Well I paint the eyes on the helmets, but not on faces.

**notprop**

Generally I try to do eyes but find it takes an awful long time to get it (close to) right.

Traditionally I have been in the habit of doing a horizontal strip of white with a vertical black stroke for the pupil. Even then I often have to redo it. As others have pointed out I think that pure white is part of the problem and will definitley be trying some of the alternative methods here and looking into micropens.

My last effort benefitted from crazy eye I think; only approprite for a crazy ole bastard Priest!

**Brother-Captain Scotti**

I'll quite happily attempt both eyes and lenses, though attempt is the key word here

**MrWind0W**

Paint out, is my rule for all tiny, fiddly jobs.
start with the smallest feature, then work your way out, for the eyes, paint the eye black, then paint little white dots on the sides , then paint the face, it's amazing how this little tip can change you from crap to really good.

**Sparks_Havelock**

MrWind0W wrote:...little tip can change you from crap to really good.

It's surprising how this sentence could be replicated across the miniature painting. Small tips from others and minor changes in technique can make a world of difference. I shall have to attempt the suggestion that has been posted for eyes (black then paint the whites) in the future, however soon that will be. Not many eyes to do on Krieg...

**Amphsix**

just twirl the brush around on a piece of paper before painting the eyes, sharpens the tip. The more often you do it, the steadier your hand gets

**ergotoxin**

If you are afraid of painting eyes, wash colors are your friend.

Also, painting lenses on space marines isn't that hard, so start practicing with that! Just paint the area black at first.

When it comes to faces, I advise to paint a small metallic (eg. mithril silver) dot in the middle of the eye and then wash the area (Gryphonne Sepia is my choice for this). This avoids the crazy look yet gives the model some sort of face and look.

Think of the model as if it is a person standing far away. Can you really see someone's eyes if he is 50 meters away from you?

**Tjolle79**

Im like some other guys here. I paint eyes very carefully on stand-out models like characters etc. I play SW though, which means there's plenty of models without their helmets on. I do plan to go over the army once its "done" and do eyes on them all though. Practice makes perfect. A steady hand and a small brush helps too

**Howard A Treesong**

I always try to paint the eyes but find the most difficult thing is making them look the same size. This is particularly difficult when the casting isn't so great or the eyes are not well defined.

**Skippy**

Just some thinned (single cream consistency) dark angels green would work for basic marine helmet lenses, Dab off the excess on your brush on some kitchen roll before applying it to the eyes and try and let the paint do the work for you by flowing into the edges. The important thing is to not get too much paint in there so that it overflows.

**latch66**

I paint the eyes, SM's get just the lense.

In the case of actual faces, I have found that in 90% of the cases with miniatures the size of our wargamming models and smaller, painting more than an appropriate dark shape for the eye tends to produce the "bug-eyed" effect. I use a very dark brown, or something similar as straight black can look unnatural. And I also paint the eye an "diamond/oval shape". Round eyes in any color just don't look good to me. Painting the eye a dark shape, and then shading appropriately around it produces a satisfactory "eye" for me without the worry of "bug-eye".

**scarletsquig**

I do the same as SRM's better examples.

2 white bits on each side of the black.

It really does make a difference.