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Hi guys,

I have always had trouble painting eyes on my helmet less miniatures. Does anyone have a particular technique for accomplishing this?

Cheers.

For me, I always paint miniatures inside-out - so tend to start with flesh and eyes before doing clothing although just to be awkward, I do flesh before eyes and then touch up after which is probably illogical but works for me.

I fairly roughly put black (I've heard of others using a very dark brown) into the eye socket, then put 2 little dots of black in the corners of each eye, with the intention of leaving a central black iris/ pupil, and a very thin black line all around the eye. The odds are at this stage that there is too much black around the eye on the face. I then tidy this up with a dark shade of the flesh colour.

If you are doing female figures, you may want to play around with trying lighter colours for eyeshadow etc.

Example:

Make glowing eyes. Like night elves

An easy trick if you're having trouble getting the pupils to sit center and are giving your model googly eyes is to paint the model so it is looking to one side or the other.

This gemstone painting tutorial can be used for eyes I believe. http://www.necrotales.com/necroTutorials/tut_gemstonesf.php

I always do them last and use the finest brush I have. Thin your paint down so it wells in the sockets that way you don't have to make contact with every part of the eye. Take your time and don't rush! If it gets to the point where you just cant get them right I use a bit of wash to fill in the edges and neaten them up.

Eyes are very easy, actually. Especially with generic human faces.



To do this badboy, I found the little pads where the eyes would be seated. They're usually flat and, depending on the quality of the sculpt, defined on the faces.

First, paint the skin. Wash and highlight it to taste. Then, find the eyepads and paint them white. It is okay if they are already a little bit skin-coloured. The difference will be negligible - start from a black bace for best results!
Once you've painted the eyepads, clean up and make sure there is only white where the eyes are.

After this stage, take a small brush with undiluted black paint, and stroke down twice - the first time in the middle of the eye, and the second time off to the left or right depending on which way you want the model to be looking. (if it's straight, just make the centre strokes thicker.)

I use the "inside out" method, painting the eyes before the rest of the face. Start by hitting the whole socket area with a very dark flesh tone (almost brown-black, possibly with a touch of red or purple). Hit the corners of the eye with an off-white (less stark than pure white), making one dot larger if the model's view is angled, leaving a dark strip for the exaggerated pupil. Clean up with the original dark paint, then begin work on the rest of the face, simply taking care not to run over into the eyes. If you like using dark washes, you can do your cleanup with a lighter color (basecoat for rest of face) and carefully run a pin wash around the eyes to achieve the same darkening of the socket.