WIP War Griffon Min.s "Flower Princess", round 2

[Russ]

Hey, all - I could use some input on eyes, please.

A while back, I did the subject bust (and posted it here; first pic below for comparison). Now, I'm doing it again, but from a different perspective: I'm going for a wintery vibe, trimming off the big hair bun and the flowers (work in process, that), and will be leaving off the head ornament (second pic below). Ultimately, I'll add a Milliput cloak and hood, with fur trim (mockup is the third pic below), but for now I'm looking at the eyes.

If you look at the Winter face, you'll see that one eye (draft stage) is slightly larger than the other. Since I want the eyes to be the focal point of the piece, I want to get them a little closer to the same size, but WAIT - there's more: I'm not sure which size to pursue.

I've covered one side of her face, then the other, and frankly either size would be acceptable, but I wanted to get this forum's take on whether to make the smaller iris larger, or the larger one smaller. My observations of pictures of real eyes seems to tell me that the iris typically takes up around 1/2 of the visible eyeball, but the goal here is visual perspective.

SO - what say you all? Go big, go small, or just go home? Thanks in advance for any help!

Russ

 

[Briggsy]

Russ, personally I'd opt to go larger, especially as the eyes will.be the focus you aim to highlight. So long as there is some white in the corners it should look the business. Very nice concept for the conversion, it will be interesting to see it develop.

Cheers Simon

 

[Nap]

Russ, personally I'd opt to go larger, especially as the eyes will.be the focus you aim to highlight. So long as there is some white in the corners it should look the business. Very nice concept for the conversion, it will be interesting to see it develop.

Cheers Simon

I agree with this young fellow ....go large

Look forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime

Nap

 

[Len K.]

I use this as a guide..

 

[Len K.]

It works for me.

 

[Russ]

Hey, Len: That figure looks great! What scale is it?

 

[Len K.]

It’s 1/6 scale, part of a Four Seasons set sculpted by Roberto Von Behr. This figure is winter.

 

[Russ]

Nice!

 

[Russ]

EYE UPDATE:

Slow going at this scale, but progressing. Thanks everyone for the "go with the bigger eye" advice.

I don't know how you guys do such great work at these scales. This bust is advertised as 1/10 scale (~2 1/2" bottom to top), and the eyes seem big enough, but I have the Devil's own time getting them painted to my satisfaction.

I must admit that I really don't know how to thin the paint properly, and that is likely a significant part of my problem. I should note that all my eye work is in acrylics, mostly Mission Models Paints (MMP), Tamiya, and Vallejo. I generally use MMP Camouflage Grey for the sclera, and whatever color (or color mix) I want for the irises. I put a drop on a wet palette, and generally thin with water as I go. It doesn't seem to matter if I use a tiny brush (I'm partial to a fine fingernail art brush) or a larger, well-pointed brush.

I've spent way more time reading about painting eyes than I have actually painting them. I know that's backward, but I still don't know how to thin. Any help, tips, or experiential pointers will be most appreciated.

ALSO: I like to do my base colors in acrylics &/or Liquitex Gauche (which is, itself, acrylic). When that cures, I like to use ABT oil paints for detail and finish work, especially on any flesh surfaces. AND YET, under magnification, I always see a pebbly effect. It may be the spray primer I use; does anyone else have that problem? Or, given that these should be viewed from about one foot away, am I being too picky?

TIA,
Russ

 

[Briggsy]

Hi Russ, the eyes look great so all that study time has started to pay off. I note you use a wet palette which is good as the paint will soak up some water slowly and that will have a limited thinning effect.

Thinning the paint depends on what you are doing, so I'll stick to how I would approach an eye. First off in a confined area of detail you need to control the amount of paint on the brush, so once loaded draw it across a kitchen towel to remove the bulk of the liquid. The brush will still carry paint but your control will be greatly improved, you may need to apply the paint a few times to build up the colour so always let the first application dry, a hair drier can help on large areas. Don't be in a rush to build up the colour and saturation in as few brush strokes as possible, instead build it in alow increments, like laying layers of sellotape over a picture. It's transparent but adding strip after strip will change the visible colour of the picture until eventually you can't see it.

Applying the paint in this glaze like manner means the paint needs to be fairly well thinned to about 50% more liquid than straight from the bottle. If the paint applies smoothly you have it about right, if it is too thick it will drag and cause brush stroke in the paint surface and can lead to pebbling. If it is too thin you will probably have to draw it across a kitchen towel a couple of times to lose the extra liquid and the colour left behind will be thin and wishy washy, but it will still build up in intensity with each application.

So in many ways its not how thin the paint is as much as how you control it and how long you are prepared to take to build up the colour. Thicker paint isn't the answer, ever but you need to practice how much liquid you mix into the paint to make the paint behave as you want it to.

Watching some you tube videos on glazing will hopefully illustrate this better than I can. I learnt this lesson on here not all that long ago and it has helped improve my efforts no end. The fact is the paint will be thinned to suit the painter rather than there being an optimum level it should be thinned to. Hope you can make sense of this and hope it helps.

Cheers Simon