Paint Talk! with EricJ

[dsmiles]

What brush do you use to paint eyes? I've been painting for a while, and for the life of me, I can't seem to find a even slightly durable brush that isn't bigger than the eye itself. It's infuriating. Thanks Eric!

I use anywhere from a 10/0 to a 30/0 brush, depending on the size of the eye. Large brushes and shaky hands tend to disagree with each other.

[Mako]

Wow that's tiny! I've never even seen a 30/0!

I use a size 1 or a 0, good quality kolinsky sable ones that have really nice fine tips. Anything smaller I find means having to go over the areas again and again as the paint rins out or dries on the brush

As for the shaking, I've found that resting my wrists against each other means the model and brush shake together. Hard to see what's going on but it does keep everything stationary relative to each other!

[dsmiles]

Micro-Mark.com. Same place I get my weathering powders.

[Webmonkey]

What brush do you use to paint eyes? I've been painting for a while, and for the life of me, I can't seem to find a even slightly durable brush that isn't bigger than the eye itself. It's infuriating. Thanks Eric!

I posted this in a different thread a few days ago,.. but here it is again.

eyes are actually not that hard.

1) flesh color the whole face

2) put white in the eye area (broad stokes are fine at this point)

3) put a small black dot in the middle of the white (colors can be done, but at this scale black works just as well) position each dot so as to make the eye seem to look straight forward (unless you want them looking to one side or the other for some reason) this is important, so they aren't cross-eyed or what have you.

4) (this is the real trick) Now go back to your flesh color. Now, you basically make a small "rainbow" like arc over each eye, centered on the black pupil (if looking forward) this creates the upper eyelid. Then,.. make an upside down rainbow arc underneath each eye, centered on the pupil. (some people find the lower arc harder, so turn the fig upside down for a moment and simply do the upper arc again,.. only underneath the eye)

It may take a few attempts to learn the spacing of the arcs. But the learning curve should be pretty quick.

And that's it,... eyes complete.

Essentially,.. don't try to "paint the eye into the flesh"

Instead,... "paint the flesh around the eye"

[dsmiles]

Essentially,.. don't try to "paint the eye into the flesh"

Instead,... "paint the flesh around the eye"

Unless it's a Werner Klocke sculpt. Then the eyes are more like EYES. At that point you can paint the eye into the flesh without any problems. :D

[Mako]

Essentially,.. don't try to "paint the eye into the flesh"

Instead,... "paint the flesh around the eye"

A very good tip!

I usually paint in dark flesh-brown where the eye is, then a pale grey rather than a white, then put the pupil in. That gives me a bit of eyelashes too, although the thickness depends on the model. Don't want everyone with big eyelashes!

But touching up the edges to neaten and thin the dark line is quite often easy and useful