painting 1/35 scale eyes

I have never seen any attempts in 1/35 that realistically recreate eyes via detail painting. Even when beautifully done, I'm never convinced. Too much of a bug-eyed, cartoony-look. In my opinion, the most convincing approach is to darken the eye area with washes and let them be in the shadows. As most dioramas are depictions of daytime activities, that's really all you'd see anyway. Look at reference pictures. You see any white in those eyes? I don't think so!

I used to think I used the wash technique to create convincing eyes just because I was lazy, but when I started to think about it, at this scale (and certainly in smaller scales) it just doesn't look "human" when we attempt to paint eyes complete with the sclera, cornea, pupils, etc. I always think, "bo-yooiiing!" when I see such figures. Then you have Marty Feldman Syndrome to worry about, too...

I apologize in advance to those of you out there who painstakingly and lovingly paint all the details in each eye!

And if anyone has some pix of some truly realistic representations of eyes in 1/35, please post 'em!

Try the topic linked below. You might find some useful information there.

how can i paint eyes???

thanks for the help guys . and j-hulk thats why i gave up trying to paint them the cartoony look just ruined the effort i put into the rest of the figure. i will try your suggestions and keep working at it till i achieve something i like. thanks again.

I'm with J-Hulk on this one, with one exception. I put a very small dot in the center. I like to use different colors, dark colors, green, blue, brown. It adds a little to each face I paint.

look at someone from about 20 feet away, and that will give you an indication of the detail you are painting to in 1/35th.

Mike

Actually...try 35 feet

use shep pains methond of painting a colored stripe from forehead to cheek, then small black stripe same lenght, paint it to the shape of the eye, then add a wash to darken the edge of the eye, then paint the skin tones in the face, very believable. also dont forget to add shadows. if you have the book how to build dioramas 2nd edition, a great example is on pg 45 pictures 3 and 5

I paint eyes using a sharpened toothpick. Dab the toothpick with a small amount of paint and apply it on the eyes. Paint the white first. Takes some getting used to but it works for me.

As a rule I never paint blue eyes; they give out a sort of redeye effect. Only black or dark brown. Hope this helps.