Painting a bust, cont.

The Face

Next in importance after the eyes, definitely comes the face. For the purpose of this article, I left the flesh mix as simple as possible. This was done in order to concentrate on the application of the paint itself as I did not wish that anyone trying this out, get confused with complicated mixes. The mix for the flesh is the following:

As you can see, this is extremely simple and uncomplicated, thus making things a lot easier.

After the base is applied, make sure that it is well and evenly covered. A highlight colour is mixed, of which the dilution should be about 1:5. I apply the first Highlight about twice and in all the highlight areas.
This will give me room to narrow the area when applying the second and third highlights. Dilution for these should be approximately the same. If at this stage you notice some hard edges between the colours soften it with washes of the same colours and try to get a soft colour transition. The wash should be at least 1:12.
The lowlights are applied in the same manner except that the dilution is higher. At least 1:8 and you need to apply this a few times for each lowlight step. Apply common sense and ask yourself which are the areas that catch light the less and go darker in the areas with less light.
A mix of AV994+ a touch of black and AC10 (base) is mixed. Dilute it to a stage where you need to apply several coats to see the effect; apply this in the beard area. Again, hard edges are eliminated in the same manner.
For a final step I mix some black and AV909 and add a lot of water to it. Reduce it to murky water and apply controlled washes from above the beard area (and just below the first HL). This will bond everything together and help in getting a more natural look. Keep in mind that it’s a bust we’re painting so the rather cosmetic approach that we use for smaller figures does not apply that much here (this bust is even larger so this theory applies more). At this stage the details like lips, etc. can be painted. For the lips, I mix some dark red by Vallejo to the base mix and apply it accordingly. It is then highlighted in the same manner with lighter/darker colours.

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