Hi!

Hello to the modelers here at ARMORAMA... Can anyone here tell me how they paint a model's eyes? (I'm not satisfied with my work, and I thought I needed some advice..., specially in doing anime models...)They're so darn small and I'm having trouble keeping it 'within the lines'. I've tried using a size 0 paintbrush, but it's still too big for the small area to be painted! Do you paint the conjuctiva too? Need help with facial skin tones as well... Can somebody please tell me?

HELP!

Hi lonewolf,
Welcome to the site.
If you're doing 1/35th or 54mm figures, I can't help you with painting the eyes. They're too small for me to even try . But I might be able to help you out with the fleshtones. I wrote an article for ArmoramA that lists the oil paint mixes I have used in the past for my fleshtones.
Fleshtone mixes
And if you're not using oil paints, don't worry. There are lots of friendly, helpful and very talented people on this site who I'm sure will be posting good advice here for you. Just keep checking back here. In the meantime, try using the search function for this site. You might be able to find what you're looking for that way.
Cheers,

What I do on 1:35 scale with the eyes is:
Before I paint the fleshtone on it I paint the area where the eyes are in the color white.
next thing I do is the black point in de eye. Pick a drawing-pen (I have a very thin one from Rothring) and put a small point on the place where you want it to be. make sure that they are equal to distances and directions or else you will end up with a figure that has the facial expression of a cameleon
now you paint the head in the fleshtones. Try to avoid the eyes at this point first. As you have painted the fleshtones it`s now time to do some more with the eyes. As your figure now more looks like a manga figure. Take a small amount of fleshtone and prepare that for dry brushing. Dry brush over the eyes to give a very thin layer of flesh tone over the white of the eye and Voila you have painted eyes in less then 15 minutes

hope it is of some kinda help.

For anime/1/35 eyes i find that even a size 0 brush is too big. Try tamiya s HF fine brush ( item #87048) which is specially made for painting character' s eyes.

The conventional black acrylic paint will also make the fine tip brush fat (with paint) which is most unuseful for the painting of eyes. For this i have a trick that i learnt from some anime modellers. Buy a gundam black/brown marker(fine), after which u remove the end of the marker with a small scissors. Tap the marker a few times and the ink catridge will drop out. Tap the paint brush against the ink and voila! Now you can achieve extremely fine black lines with the brush.

Normally I add a coat of matt varnish(for acrylics) once the eye white has been painted. Any mistakes you make while painting the eyes can then be removed with dishwashing liquid without spoiling the white paint underneath.
I know this sounds kindda confusing but this is the best I can explain thru words. Hope it helps.........

And just to add: Always paint your irises slightly off centre. If you try to make them looking straight ahead, more often than not they would almost always appear to be cross eyed. This applies to 1/35 or anime figures.

Hi, this technique helped me a lot so I hope you find it useful. First of all I finish the face with all the highlights and shadows; then I paint the eyeball with white acrylic paint (I prefer “tamiya acrylic” because it’s fine enough) and when it’s dry I use a permanent marker (00.5 black) to draw the eyelash and the pupil, (you can also use sepia or cyan for the pupil) and that’s it.




Juan M #:-)

Hey lonewolf, you'll get through this because your determined ! ....... right ?
....I'm NOT going to tell you how to do this, but what to do. Keep experimenting, and you will no doubt find a method that work's for you. Some other advice, is if your painting 1:35, use the finest #0000 & #000 brushes that you can find at your local art supply store, and stock up with a few of them. That's what I use. You will find your able to get right in between the eye-lids with this brush and they're also good for painting lip's and other tight spot's. Also, ....... for putiing in the pupil, I dip the VERY TIP of a " sewing needle " into my enamel paint and place a small dot where I want it. It's a pain in the ass to do with acrylic's because the miniscule amount of paint on the needle dries before you get it to the eye.
LET US KNOW HOW YOU MAKE OUT.

- ralph

I had allot of problems with eye until I did the shep method. Now it's a easy. Their is a post in here somewhere that shows how to do it.

Theres a really good link to painting heads on missing links. Painting 1/35 scale heads in 8 steps by Mark Bannerman.
Step 3 - Painting the Eyes

Drop a little spec of enamel Flesh Pink to white oil on your palette and bring the mixture to an off white-pink colour. Before you do the eyes, the sockets should be dark as a result of your umber wash. Dip your toothpick/needle in your whitish mixture and place a tiny spec in the inner and outer corners of each eye socket. Basically, you've put in the whites of the eyes, leaving the middle area with a dark residue from the original wash . Let this cure for two days. Split toothpicks in half and you will note that the halve-ends actually break into extremely thin splinters. You may need to split a dozen before you get that perfect splinter. Dab a splinter into a brown/black oil paint mix and place a dot in each of the sockets between the two specs of white. I tend to avoid straight head-on glares, and generally place irises looking slightly off centre, either looking left, right, up or down. In my experience, straight on looks can never be perfect! Let the paint dry thoroughly for three days.

See here for full article;
http://www.missing-lynx.com/articles/figures/mbheads/mbheads.htm

...... GOOD INFO Plasticbattle ! The only thing that I disagree with Bannerman is that a "straight stare " can look good if done properly. - Off-white or a very lite flesh-tone color for the eye-whites and the pupils need to be very small. If their too big and the eye-whites are painted pure white you will definitely get a "bugged eye " effect.

- ralph

Hi guys!

Thanks for the tips... I'm just new to modeling and I appreciate all your help...Well, I'm off to try all of what you said... Thank you very much!

:-) Yay!

If you're doing military eyes, you could use pins to make the pupil. For Anime models, scales like 1/35 and smaller, it would be very hard. Try to make it on an accetate paper via the computer. Print it out and put it like a sticker.

That was my idea...Ralph...And that's what I do...

Plasticbattle

Your info was superb! Bravo my friend. :-)