Painting eyes on 1/35 figures

Never paint the whites of the eyes white, if you paint the whites at all and often you wouldnt see it in that scale then you should use a pale skin colour. 1/35 scale is the same as lookin at someone 20 foot away so try this and see how much white you can see. look in the mirror and its still not white its a pale skin colour and in my opinion its why so many figures look urealistic and over painted when they paint a brilliant white colour. In my opinion you should paint the eye dark brown/black and paint the eye lits a paler shade of the face colour and it usually looks right.

Mansteins revenge wrote:

the secret is to SUGGEST eyes---not paint them...

Doug Cohen's recent "Bring Out Your Dead" in 27mm, about 1/48 scale:

And a couple 54mm pieces by Alan and Marion Ball

Note there's even a hint of white in the dog's eyes

Note how the direction of where the eyes are looking adds to the impact of th figure.

...some examples...the secret is to SUGGEST eyes---not paint them...

As others state, a brush that holds a fine tip is the start.  What I have found works for me is to use Payne's Grey artist oil.  Just get a daub on the verrrrry tip.  Make it miniscule.  Then slowly lay it into the eye crevices.  The beauty of the artist oil is that if it does not turn out to your satisfaction a litle bit of Mineral Spirits will erase your mistake completely.  You can now retry.

Also, if the eyes are too stark or you add a tad too much but don't want to start over you can use a DRY bush (no mineral spirits on it) to blend out excess.

Brian

To paint eyes, I use Model Master acrylics and a sharpened toothpick or two.  I start using a light gray or white, then once dry (10-15 min) later, I use another sharpened toothpick (to a VERY fine point) to dab on a dot of flat black.  Then I immediately clean that toothpick off and "shape" the eye as needed.   

What's nice about acylics is that if you make a mistake, you can just wipe off and start over.  I use MM enamels for the faces, so there is no mixing of skin tone and eyes, which saves a lot of problems if you make a mistake. 

Hope this helps; here are a few of my figures (1/35 scale): 

My guys are out in the sun and squint a lot...

it may sound wierd but i use my exacto knife blade and oils!! i gently dab the point of the blade into some black oil paint...(very very lightly) u dont want alot on the blade. then gently "scribe" the black in the eye socket. then repeat using white/offwhite oil paint. the nice thing about using oils is if u screw it up u can "wipe" it off and try again until its satisfactory to what u want! just my cheap

Hey Stuart,

Yeah, I think I can understand your problem. I had same problem when I start paiting figures.

Have you ever tried Windsor and Newton's series 7 brushes ? If not, you should try it as soon as possible. Especially series 7 "Minituares" 000 is the bet brushe to paint the eye. It will help your paiting strongly.

I usually use Humbrol's No10 "Gloss service brown" without thinner to draw eyes. This is VERY VERY controlable coulour.

I hope my informations will help your paintings.

 

The size (00) is only part to the brush equation. It has to have and hold a very fine point. Your best bet is Kolinsky sable, sold by many top brush makers. Check Dick Blick on-line. Note, I always use Vallejo and Andrea paints. Don't even try to paint a face with Tamiya.

What I do is paint the face the base color. I then approximate the eyeball with Valejo light flesh which is almost white, but not quite. I then add the iris in dark brown or dark blue. It helps to have the eyes looking right or left rather thah straight ahead. I then check the face in a mirror. I don't know why, but this will show offset irises better than looking at the face straight on. If need be, I rework the eye and repeat until I'm satisfied. Next, I shape the eye with the base color before adding highlights and shadows.

I paint eyes, but in the 1/72 scale, whiich is a little bit smaller....:)

For that I use a single hair of a 00000 brush. I remove all the hair, leaving just a single one, which I will also cut for not being too long.

For the eyeballs I use gloss black colour, it has a little shine which makes the figure more lively...

Here it is an example of an 1/72 face:

And the entire figure:

Good luck and I am sure that you have to paint eyes in the 1/35 scale...:)