painting lips

[Wayneb]

Hello guys,
I have reached a stale mate in painting the Linjo bust "Mayan Warrior" which can be seen at www.Linjomodels.com
Anyway, can someone help me with the lips.......I use mostly acrylics and sometimes oils.I think I have the skin tone right but am afraid to lay anything down on the lips for fear of screwing it up.Any help would be much appreciated.......Thanks in advance............Wayne

 

[Bailey]

I haven't had experience with a Mayan skin tone, so I can't tell you an exact mix. But I'd start with your original skin tone and mix in a hint of red. Looking at the box art, I might try a combination of your basic skin, red, and red leather. From my experience, the trick is not making the lips stand out too much. You want a natural look, not like he's wearing some ancient Mayan lipstick. I've found starting with the skin mix allows me to get the subtle effect I'm looking for.

If it were me, I'd take a piece of paper and paint a square with the skin tone, then test out various mixes for the lips and see how it looks next to the surrounding skin color. That way you can see if it's too subtle or too red or too whatever and adjust before doing anything to your figure.

Best of luck!

 

[megroot]

I paint all the lip colors with the basic skintone and a touch of red. But a very tinny amount of red. It is easy to get to much.
After drying i touch up the under lip with a small dot of white and fade that out.
After dry, i take some gloss varnis to made the lips wet.
Hope this helps.

Marc

 

[kagemusha]

Hi Wayne, I did this bust when it came out and used the base flesh mix plus a hint of Magenta and mixing white. If it helps my version is on Linjo's site in the gallery (Ron Clark) along with Tony Dawes also.

Cheers

Ron

 

[Einion]

Wayne, one of the best tips I can give is to look at reference photos of the same kind of subject as you're painting and try to replicate the colours you see (good tip generally, not just for this).

Lips are usually a little redder than the skin as is obvious, but for darker skin types the colour is hard to identify - it's usually dark and relatively dull too, so one thing to try is take your medium shadow mix or midtone and add a touch of red to it and a little dark grey (or a dot of blue), then try that. If the mix ends up too dark you can always lay it on thinly so you're just tinting the surface, much like you might glaze the cheeks, nose or ears.

Einion

 

[Wayneb]

Thanks for the help and advise guys....................Wayne