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Can anyone tell me of an easy way to paint eyes without a ton of hassle? I dont need anything complex, Im not doing a diorama or anything, but after 45 minutes of work on this mini, I finished all the layers of his face, only to totally ruin the whole paint job with a stupid mistake on his eyes. Jesus Im mad at myself right now, an I just......I would really appreciate some help with this!

Thanks, Hayden

You can just leave them black. If you're aiming for tabletop quality (or even above that, look at Les from awesomepaintjob: he never paints the whites of the eyes) the average distance you look at the model if it were a real person would not be enough for them to show the whites of their eyes. For my own work I do leave them black unless they're glowing since putting whites on the eyes for me makes them look.... crazy.

I dont know why but these days I cant seem to get eyes right :/

what you need is a really small brush and a firm grip. it helps if you hold the head upside down as you can see the eyes better (well...I can anyway :3)

one trick would be to paint the head white then paint around the eyes

Very carefully.

Thank you Heartserenade, that actually helped alot. And I like his painting style alot. DPB, I agree holding the model upside down helps me too. Begel.....why did you even comment. -.- Anyways, thanks guys.

I took an old detail brush and trimmed a couple britsles off, then i put some paint on the end of te brush and let it dry. It sounds crazy but you get a really good brush for extremley small details. I use it for eyes on Tau faces.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat440176a&categoryId=400028§ion=&aId=3400032

Ill let the link do the talking...

Make sure you thin your paint as well. Its near impossible if you just dip the fine detail brush into the pot then try to paint it on, the paint blob on the tip is pretty much bigger than the eyeball.

Might be obvious to you already but thought I would point that out.

I use a Kolinsky Size 0 brush with a 50/50 mix of the paint and some Retarder Medium (I dont like thinning with water so use this instead), can paint eyes quite easily with that mixture.

One trick I have never tried is to paint the face white, add black dots where the pupils should be, add brown or dark purple (for females or zombies) around the edge of the eyes then add a flesh colour around that.

It follows the ancient rule of painting the recessed colours first. Do that with everything. unless you are doing something messy like drybrushing, always follow that rule.

Remember to have the pupils reaching the top and bottom of the eyes, or else your mini ends out looking surprised.

Glad if I helped.

Painting the entire face white is overkill, but I otherwise agree with the "eyes first" approach others have mentioned. Doing this also allows you to apply a simple dot for the pupil (and iris, at larger scales) while still having proper occlusion by the eyelid (since it's painted afterward, it goes on top - just like an eyelid should) - trying to paint the proper shape freehand usually results is snakelike slits for pupils, or the dreaded "crazy eye."

Usaully avoid painting eyes on humanoids. It looks like there on black tar herion. I like shading over eyes, it looks more dramatic

Sometimes it does look a bit dodgy when you do the eyes.

Motorheaded!

Personally I have an old fine detail brush that has roughly 3-5 bristles left, and use that very carefully.

Paint eye black, add white dot to either side or both sides. If both sides fix the dot with black.

Painting the entire thing white then adding the black dot can lead to them having a surprised expression, crazy eyes or being cross-eyed.

There is a fail safe way how i do eyes, do them first.

Basically add in the white, make it thin and smooth, this is easy to achieve as the area is so small.
the white will most likely get messy, that is fine, because you'll paint the skin undercoat around it, again this is easy to do
because of the raised surface.

Now just high light and paint the rest of the face. The best part is? You did the hardest and trickiest part first,
means you wont have to fix anything after you finish the beautiful face.

n0t_u wrote:Paint eye black, add white dot to either side or both sides. If both sides fix the dot with black.

Painting the entire thing white then adding the black dot can lead to them having a surprised expression, crazy eyes or being cross-eyed.

That's why you paint round them with brown. You have to touch the tops and the bottoms of the pupils and just have little dabs of white showing through to stop it from looking like the eyes are just black.

Never heard of using brown before may try it out. Would be easier than painting the iris like I've been trying lately.

Eyes are really tough, and they can lead to what's called the "uncanny valley".
The uncanny valley is the gap between something that is meant to look real and what is actually real.
Humans and all animals are trained by thousands of years of evolution to recognize faces and forms, and when something isn't right we know it instantly.

Ever see that move The Polar Express? it's a good example for the uncanny valley because the people are so real looking, yet something isn't quite right - like in a creepy and unsettling way. The characters look 99% real, but it's the 1% of the robotic, dead-eyed looks that you focus on.
Movies are getting better about this, but most CGI films in the early 2000s that contain realistic people are like this.


This comes up in miniatures because if something is just a little off, they look kind of creepy.
Which is why - as the others here have said - it's usually best not to try too hard getting the eyes to look like that of a real person, but more like that of a fictional character.

Now for non-human creatures like tyranids, orks, or animals - it's a completely different story. You might want them to look a little crazy eyed because of what they are supposed to be.
And of course characters with helmets are different too - it's important to get that right - but it's a different topic.
The link posted by MaximusPrime should be excellent help for that, should work for other helmeted characters too.

Yeah I usually just shade the area around the eyes a darker skin tone, and then the eye is black.
This makes them have a dark and brooding kind of look like that expressed in anime, comics, and other cartoons.
Yes - this is artistic cheating, but a lot of things in drawing and painting real people require cheating.
Hands, hair, and facial features all need to be a little stylized so as not to cross into the uncanny valley.


****
Check out this guy
(man I wish I could paint like this)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/306161-Astorath.html
This is an excellent model and he doesn't even go into too much detail with the eyes