Eye Lashes Question

[Brent Fordham]

When you paint the eyelashes, do you use oils as per rest of the face? I was thinking about this as I get ready to put this last detail on my 54mm face, and was thinking of using an acrylic like Vallejo. The face is almost completely done, and the thought of trying to place such a fine, accurate line using such a strong dark oil pigment keeps me awake at night. With Vallejo, if I mess it up, I can clean it off and try again without messing up the rest of the eye area.

Any thoughts?

 

[megroot]

Brent,

I also paint in oils. I never paint eyelashes on a 54 mm. Must admit that i never looked so good at a face done by the masters. i thought they also didn't do it.
But if you like it why shouldn't you do it?? And indeed, if you do it with acrylic above the oil you can wipe it off when it goes wrong.
Goodluck.

marc

 

[vergilius]

I use oils too but I don't paint eye lashes too dark. When it's possible off course. If it's a figurine with a helmet I sometimes don't.

 

[Lancer]

Hey Brent
When I do eyelashes its before I've done the fleshtones. I do a thin line of Paynes Gray at the edge of the eye lid, if its too wide its not a problem because as I apply skin tones to the face and eyelids I can push the flesh colors down to the edge of eye lid, reducing the size of the lash until I get the effect I was looking for. Now that your flesh is done your stuck trying a super fine line on a finished face. My only recommendation is don't drink too much coffee before you try and see if you have an old brush with a single hair left !!
Cheers
Mark

 

[bonehead]

Hello Brent,

Adding the eyes as the last step is definitely doing it the hard way! I learned early on to do them first, even before shading the face. There are several reasons for doing this:

1). By doing the eyes first, you can "cut" them down to the final shape by going over "sloppy" areas with your basic fleshtone. I find the eyelash to be the most difficult bit to get right. As you said, trying to get a perfect thin line with just the right curvature is difficult, sometimes impossible. So I only worry about the lower edge of the lash where it touches the eyeball and iris itself. If I screw it up and slop paint all over the figure's forehead, who cares! I can just go back over the sloppy area and cut the top edge of the eye lash in to achieve perfection. The truth is, I cannot do decent eyes WITHOUT going back and retouching them with flesh tone! Waiting until last is counter-productive.

2). As stated above, by doing the eyes BEFORE shading the face, I can go back and perfect them with the basic fleshtone without concern about obliterating my careful shading on the face. This saves you a lot of work and heartache in the long run.

3). There is also the psychological element. Personally, I like to know "who" I am painting before I start in to do any other painting. The eyes are the focal point of the figure. What if you spent hours and hours perfecting a figure and then discovered you just could not get the eyes right to save your life? Then you have wasted a lot of effort on a figure that will never be any good! The eyes have it! If your figure does not have good eyes, then you can always pitch it into the scrap box and the only time wasted was doing those hideous eyes!

There are a million ways to paint a figure. But it is always the best idea to use techniques which make the job easier. Techniques which complicate the process should be rejected. With eyes doing them first has always been the best, and by far the easiest, way to go for me......

By the way, I would avoid oil paint for eyelashes. The paint is too "sloppy" for this kind of precision. I use Humbrol flat black. It is good and dark and can be thinned to get razor sharpness without it going transluscent on you. If you prefer acrylics then use those.

Cheers!!

Mike

 

[Brent Fordham]

Thanks for the help guys! My post was a little misleading - I actually do paint the eyes first and then do the face shading. But I didn't think to do the lashes right after the eyes were finished - I decided to leave them as the last facial detail. In hindsight it was an odd decision since I knew about the trick of trimming the eye down with flesh. Eye'll definately do it differently next time. :lol:

Again, thanks for the help and taking the time for such comprehensive replies!

 

[Brent Fordham]

I put in the eye lashes tonight and tried using both acrylics and Humbrol (too nervous to use oil - figured the potential for a mess was too great). The acrylic, while forgiving, dried too quickly and I found it very difficult to put in the detail with it. The Humbrol definitely did the trick, since it stayed wet long enough to work with. I'm fairly happy with the results.

I found that on the 54mm figure, I preferred not to put the bottom eyelash on (the acrylic allowed me to make several trial runs). It just ended up looking like mascara. The top line however helped to add some good definition.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[PJ Deluhery]

For what it's worth, I generally like to do the eyes in oils because a line is very easy to "erase" or "trim" with a brush that is damp with thinner. Adjustments are much easier in oils - or Humbrols - than with acrylics. I use the tehcnique mentioned above by Mike when doing eyes, and it works very well.

 

[ghamilt1]

Hmmmm...after reading these suggestions, I can understand why many of my figures have that Tammy Faye Baker look about them :lol: .

 

[billyturnip]

I just had to do a Google image search to find out who Tammy Faye Baker was. My word you don't want your figures eyes looking like that

Roger

 

[Brent Fordham]

:lol: Tammy Faye Baker... this took 3 hours with a brush, but only 5 minutes with the Wagner Power Painter™.

(North American joke - you have to remember the Wagner power painter commercials from the 80's/90's to get that one)