Chris S
Its a bit like being handcuffed to a lunatic !
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2011
- Messages
- 4,573
Hi chaps ,
Ok ,so I was talking with Scott a bit last week about painting 1/35 scale faces and he asked if I would do an SBS on how its done with oils.......so I agreed . I must admit Im not a big fan of acrylics for face painting ,nothing wrong with them and some people produce fantastic results with them ,But me ...I just cant get on with them so I stick with the smellys .
Now Im not going to get into colours & palette here as I have already explained that in my other face painting tutorial which can be found here .......
http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/forum/index.php/topic,2806.0.html
I will be using exactly the same palette for these heads ,but just using smaller amounts . Please bear in mind this is 1/35 scale so you only need tiny amounts of paint ,dont squeeze out more than half a pea size from the tube otherwise there will be a lot of waste .
Apart from some paint you need some fine brushes ,a soft flat brush and a good pair of magnifiers is a must ,they make life soooo much easier .
Alrighty ...on with the show .
Please remember that these heads are being viewed well over size in these pics ,so the paint will probably appear a bit grainy ,also as Im doing this 'live' so to speak ,the paint is wet and will look very greasy .
So to start with I picked two different heads ,purely to show some different expressions ,these heads are from one of Historex sets and are really for Napoleonic period ,but could be used for other things . I've already basecoated them in preperation for the oils . The basecoat was done using Vallejo Tan Yellow with a drop of white to lighten it .
Step one ........Wash.
Instead of painting in all the shadows like I would on bigger scales ,its far simpler to use a wash for these .Make up a wash of Burnt Umber ,the wash should really be coloured thinners rather than thinned paint .Brush the wash over the entire face ,not forgetting the ears & neck .Dont lay the wash on too heavy otherwise you will lose some detail especially around the eyes .Now let this dry of for an hour or so ,then take a soft flat brush (dry) and gently flick it across the high spots of the face ,places like the nose ,cheeks & chin .This will remove most of the wash from those areas leaving the dark colour in the shadow areas .It may look a little messy ,but dont let that worry you it will come good once the paint start going on .
Step two......Skintone.
The next thing to do is start adding the flesh tone ,again its mixed as I have already mentioned before . Paint the flesh tone all over the face ,avoiding the shadow areas and try not to paint the eye sockets too ,again dont forget the ears & neck .Once the paint is on you need to blend it in with the dark colour .This is simply done by stippling or poking at the paint with a clean dry brush ,go very gently around the whole face doing this and you start to see the two colours merging .
In this pic ,the face on the left is blended ,the one on the right isnt so you can see where to put the paint .......
Step three ...Highlighting.
With the colour on we need to start adding more depth ,this is done by highlighting . To add highlights I use two stages ,first I take some of the fleshtone and add some white .This is applied to areas of the face that catch the light ,places like the nose ,forehead,cheekbones and chin ,also around the ears and maybe the sides of the neck (depending on the figure). Again once the paint is on ,it is blened in the same way but working it only in the areas its applied too and not spread around the face .
Left blended .....right not .
The same thing is done again ,only this time using pure White and again in smaller areas at the highest points .
Left blended ....right not .
Step four ...adding colour to the face .
The skin at this point will probably look a bit pale because we still need to add some 'life' to the face .The first thing I do is add some red into the cheeks and the tip of the nose / nostrils .For this I use tiny amounts of crimson ....be very careful with this colour as it is very strong ,so only apply tiny specks were shown in the pic ,and blend these specks in ,try not to push the colour up the face while blending ,but keep it in the cheeks and the bottom of the nose .
Left blended ...right not .
You will notice I have painted in the eyeballs too .For this I dont use a paint brush ,but rather a toothpick splinter ....this gives more control .Carefully using some white with a speck of flesh tone mixed in I spotted in the eyeballs .Im left handed so I find the left eye easier to paint ,you can see I need to fix the right eye on the chubby chap ,but thats easy to remove some of the white with the toothpick .
Step five ....facial hair .
This is the last step for now ,Once the stubble is on the face will need to dry for a day or so befor finishing off . To do the stubble I use Paynes grey , Once again use only tiny flecks of the colour and keep the blending in the appropriate area ....ie lower cheeks ,below the nose and along the jaw line / chin .
Left blended ..right not
Both faces done for now . Oils need to dry before you can see the full effect ,and usually I will do a second sitting ,maybe just to add some extra highlights if I feel its needed ,also the eyes still need finished and the mouths and hair need done . This may sound like a long proccess ,but in reality I can paint a 1/35 head to this stage in about 20mins which isnt really that long ,it takes much longer to explain it ! So tune in for the second and last section ,which should be up in the next few days .
In the meantime .please feel free to ask questions .
Thanks for looking.
Chris.
Ok ,so I was talking with Scott a bit last week about painting 1/35 scale faces and he asked if I would do an SBS on how its done with oils.......so I agreed . I must admit Im not a big fan of acrylics for face painting ,nothing wrong with them and some people produce fantastic results with them ,But me ...I just cant get on with them so I stick with the smellys .
Now Im not going to get into colours & palette here as I have already explained that in my other face painting tutorial which can be found here .......
http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/forum/index.php/topic,2806.0.html
I will be using exactly the same palette for these heads ,but just using smaller amounts . Please bear in mind this is 1/35 scale so you only need tiny amounts of paint ,dont squeeze out more than half a pea size from the tube otherwise there will be a lot of waste .
Apart from some paint you need some fine brushes ,a soft flat brush and a good pair of magnifiers is a must ,they make life soooo much easier .
Alrighty ...on with the show .
Please remember that these heads are being viewed well over size in these pics ,so the paint will probably appear a bit grainy ,also as Im doing this 'live' so to speak ,the paint is wet and will look very greasy .
So to start with I picked two different heads ,purely to show some different expressions ,these heads are from one of Historex sets and are really for Napoleonic period ,but could be used for other things . I've already basecoated them in preperation for the oils . The basecoat was done using Vallejo Tan Yellow with a drop of white to lighten it .
Step one ........Wash.
Instead of painting in all the shadows like I would on bigger scales ,its far simpler to use a wash for these .Make up a wash of Burnt Umber ,the wash should really be coloured thinners rather than thinned paint .Brush the wash over the entire face ,not forgetting the ears & neck .Dont lay the wash on too heavy otherwise you will lose some detail especially around the eyes .Now let this dry of for an hour or so ,then take a soft flat brush (dry) and gently flick it across the high spots of the face ,places like the nose ,cheeks & chin .This will remove most of the wash from those areas leaving the dark colour in the shadow areas .It may look a little messy ,but dont let that worry you it will come good once the paint start going on .
Step two......Skintone.
The next thing to do is start adding the flesh tone ,again its mixed as I have already mentioned before . Paint the flesh tone all over the face ,avoiding the shadow areas and try not to paint the eye sockets too ,again dont forget the ears & neck .Once the paint is on you need to blend it in with the dark colour .This is simply done by stippling or poking at the paint with a clean dry brush ,go very gently around the whole face doing this and you start to see the two colours merging .
In this pic ,the face on the left is blended ,the one on the right isnt so you can see where to put the paint .......
Step three ...Highlighting.
With the colour on we need to start adding more depth ,this is done by highlighting . To add highlights I use two stages ,first I take some of the fleshtone and add some white .This is applied to areas of the face that catch the light ,places like the nose ,forehead,cheekbones and chin ,also around the ears and maybe the sides of the neck (depending on the figure). Again once the paint is on ,it is blened in the same way but working it only in the areas its applied too and not spread around the face .
Left blended .....right not .
The same thing is done again ,only this time using pure White and again in smaller areas at the highest points .
Left blended ....right not .
Step four ...adding colour to the face .
The skin at this point will probably look a bit pale because we still need to add some 'life' to the face .The first thing I do is add some red into the cheeks and the tip of the nose / nostrils .For this I use tiny amounts of crimson ....be very careful with this colour as it is very strong ,so only apply tiny specks were shown in the pic ,and blend these specks in ,try not to push the colour up the face while blending ,but keep it in the cheeks and the bottom of the nose .
Left blended ...right not .
You will notice I have painted in the eyeballs too .For this I dont use a paint brush ,but rather a toothpick splinter ....this gives more control .Carefully using some white with a speck of flesh tone mixed in I spotted in the eyeballs .Im left handed so I find the left eye easier to paint ,you can see I need to fix the right eye on the chubby chap ,but thats easy to remove some of the white with the toothpick .
Step five ....facial hair .
This is the last step for now ,Once the stubble is on the face will need to dry for a day or so befor finishing off . To do the stubble I use Paynes grey , Once again use only tiny flecks of the colour and keep the blending in the appropriate area ....ie lower cheeks ,below the nose and along the jaw line / chin .
Left blended ..right not
Both faces done for now . Oils need to dry before you can see the full effect ,and usually I will do a second sitting ,maybe just to add some extra highlights if I feel its needed ,also the eyes still need finished and the mouths and hair need done . This may sound like a long proccess ,but in reality I can paint a 1/35 head to this stage in about 20mins which isnt really that long ,it takes much longer to explain it ! So tune in for the second and last section ,which should be up in the next few days .
In the meantime .please feel free to ask questions .
Thanks for looking.
Chris.