Eyes and skin

[BlindManBoots]

These are the two subjects that plague me so. I have found it most difficult to paint the eye balls and skin on my Inquisitor. Him and his retinue are the only characters that happen to have flesh exposed and I was wondering how any of you do it. Also the skin on all of my units is painted dwarf flesh, and that is not the greatest looking think for any unit. Any tips on how to do this?

[Cashew]

Flesh goes like this.


1.Bottom Coat Black.

2.Then Beastial Brown.

3.Then Dwarf Flesh

4. Then Highlight (or drybrush on larger areas, like arms) with elf flesh.

For faces, leave the mouth and lines in the face (around the mouth) black or beatial brown, and paint around them, makes the face looks like it has dimension.

As for eyes

paint the whole face white

Paint in the pupils. you can be as messy longs ways as you need to, just keep them thin. Then cut in with black around the whites of the eyes and proceed to paint the face as listed above.

as seen here.
http://server5.uploadit.org/files/KrixKreeper-faces.JPG

[Shockwave]

For flesh I start with a base of bronzed flesh 1:1 w/ water. Then I do a chestnut ink wash 1:1 with water. This does a good job bringing out crevices and shading eyes, cheeks etc. I lightly load a brush with bronzed flesh 1:1 with water. This should not be watery but light enough that it doesn't paint on and entirely obscure the underlying layer. I follow with some elf flesh highlights and one or two points of skull white if there is a really sharp feature in the face or on the body.

For eyes I use a 20/0 brush to paint in white then just a dot of chaos black for a pupil. For characters I use two extremes of a shade for the pupil. Midnight blue with dot of ice blue.

I dilute all my paints 1:1 with water and a little bit of dishsoap. This breaks up water tension and prevents the clumpy look you can get after 2-3 shades and 1-2 highlights.
The dish soap helps prevent tide lines. (prevents pigment from depositing preferentially on the periphery of where you painted.) Dilution also allows you to add more coats to get depth of color rather than having highlight or start over because you painted too much the first time.
Hope this helps.

Shockwave.

[Brother Walk]

For Skin .. (on humans of course) I normally start with something like bronzed flesh as a base tone, then mix that 50% 50% with snakebite leather (and water) and paint in my shadows, Back to the bronzed flesh to fix the mistakes, blend it back in . and then a 50/50 mix with elf flesh to hit the hilights (nose, cheekbones, brow) if its a character model, i have been known to take it all the way up to white in various stages.

For eyes, I paint around the sockets black (i paint on white.) then i paint the 'orb' of the eye in white. and put a line down the middle in black for the pupil. similar to what showckwave suggested.

I think it was Rick Baker who once showed me a different method : paint the entire eye black, and put 2 small white dots on either side of where the pupil should be.

I could never get it to look like he did though.

[Gabekun]

The best thing you can do is NOT use bronzed flesh by itself.

Here is what I did to get nice pink caucasion skin:

mix dark flesh and bronzed flesh until you get a dark pink (OR darken Dwarf Flesh), and coat the flesh evenly with this.
Next, add small parts of elf flesh for several highlights until you get up to pure elf flesh.
If you want a more tanned looking flesh, apply a generous glaze of snakebite leather.

Eyes are simply a matter of practice. Unlike most people, I do them last. Usually I apply a wash of dark brown to the eyesockets, and then paint the eyeballs white, leaving the brown outline.. then it is just a matter of getting the pupils straight and the correct size (too small and they look scared, too large and they look like mutants :P )

[Dante]

cashew that guide for eyes is awsome!!! :rofl:

or you can do this...

after the facie is done, paint the eye area black. Then using a fine paint brush paint a lil white on bothe sides of where the pupil would be. (thats how GW guys here do them...and its pretty easy and looks good.)

i have never seen anyone try blue eyes or green eyes and made them look real...(lik my friends psyker...with his "green eyes"...looks horrible)

[Jono]

Yeah well I do it pretty much like Shockwave discribed but I have never tried the dish soap idea, will have to give it a go.

As for eyes, I have pretty unsteady hands but I can still place a black dot in the eye with a fine detail brush. The idea of putting a dot of white on either side sounds much more difficult.

Alternativly you can use a very fine black fiber tip pen to do the black dot, but I still find it easier to use a brush.

[Sir_DannO]

hardest part of eyes is getting them to line up evenly with even dots, otherwise it looks like your model needs some serious milk bottle glasses. (o ) . ( O)

edit: oh n if u got an unsterdy hand, get sum blue tack n squish your model to the top of a unused colour pot with it, always helps.

[gigadook]

I always sucked at eyes, more often then no I cheated and used a super-fine tip ink pen to make the pupils.