After the first tutorial, in which I tackled the painting of the horse, it’s time to move on with the second part. In this part, and all the following parts, I will skip the preparation process. This for two reasons. Firstly, I will not make this repetitive and secondly, the procedure used in the first part applies throughout. In this second part, I will show my methods of painting a face. Please note that since the photos are enlarged some brush strokes etc may be highly visible but in reality these do not show in real life 54mm.
I always start with the face in a very high percentage of the figures I paint. If I’m successful, I find it a great moral boost for the painting of the rest of the figure. In my opinion, a figure is not complete if it has a badly painted face. It’s the first thing the viewer looks at. I will go along and add the text with each photo for ease of reference. In this way one can better follow the procedure.
Photo 1: In this photo the figure has been primed and left to dry. I do this with Citadel's Skull white primer spray can. Apply this from distance. In this manner you make sure you do not fill up any detail.
Photo 2: The whites of the eyes were painted in. For this step I never use pure white. It will make the eyes look stark. I like to use AC 60 grey for this. You can notice the difference between the colour of the eyes and the primer.
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Photo 1 |
Photo 2 |
Photo 3: The pupils are painted with a light blue mix. For this particular subject I wanted an extreme look of pain so I left the whites of the eyes at the upper parts visible. The irises were painted with black and the small catch light with white added. No outlining has been done as yet.
Photo 4: The outlines for the upper and lower eyelids are painted at this stage. I use black for the upper eyelid and dark brown for the lower. At this stage these might look out of sorts but these will be further sharpened when the base colour is applied.
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Photo 3 |
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Photo 5: Base colour laid in with a ratio of 1 part paint to 2 parts water. Note that before I paint the base colour or any highlights/shadows I always undercoat the surrounding area. This will help me get a better balance between the colours.
Photo 6: Colours used to paint the eyes.
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Photo 7: Colours used to paint the face.
Photo 7
Photo 8: Now the real fun begins. The first highlight is laid in. This was a mix of the base colour with the addition of AV845. The ratio is approximately 1 part paint to 5 parts water. With this and all the following steps it's always advisable to soften the edges with washes of the previous colour. In this case it was the base.
Photo 9: The second highlihght is now applied. This is a mix of the first H/L plus some AV928 added with the same previous ratio. If you find the necessity to add some 'high spots' you may always do this with pure AV928 but be very careful. The areas concerned are minute.
Photo 10: The first Shadow is a mix of the base colour plus some AC14 and AV921. Contrary to the highlights, the shadows are laid in at a higher ratio of dilution. In fact it's not uncommon for me to have the paint thinned to 1 part paint and 8 (or even 9) parts water.
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Photo 11 (2nd shad 9/10): The mix for this step is black plus AV909. This is very dark but since the dilution rate is high you can control the intensity. This is because acrylics are translucent and need many layers to cover a particular area. Apply this colour only to areas that are in the deepest recesses where light does not reach. This colour is also used to outline some areas like face/helmet etc.
Photo 11
Photo 12: First Highlight mix
Photo 13: Second Highlight mix
Photo 14: First Shadow mix
Photo 15: Second Shadow mix
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