Painting eyes

[takai]

I'm slowly easing back into mini painting and am quite happy with my results so far. One thing that really eludes me however, is painting the eyes. I had a close look at a lot of examples that look great, however I cannot imagine how to achieve this minute details with my huge brush. Is there a good tutorial or advice out there on how to paint eyes?

Thanks!

 

[Sicks]

having the right tools for the job helps a ton imo, i was using the GW fine detail brush to try eyes (which seems like the painting equivalent of using a mallet to push a thumb tack in) ive since started using army painter brushes (the insane and psycho detail ones, the psycho being the smaller of the 2) which are much easier to tackle eyes with due to their much smaller size. Others might recommend other tiny brushes but i can only speak from my personal experience

secondly (and this may sound weird) for me was confidence, for the longest time i was so nervous about messing the eyes up that i would get quite shaky hands which pretty much ensured i messed the eyes up completely, after i changed my process slightly (so that eyes are one of the first parts i do of a face) its not such a big deal if you mess up that early on, not as bad as if you have left the eyes until last and messing them up means having to carefully repaint the face.

aaand thirdly: http://www.reapermini.com/TheCraft/12 found this link in the sticky on this forum, helped me alot

i am still trying to improve, still find it hard to put in iris colour as well as the pupil which looks awesome but is difficult to do (at least for me it is)

 

[takai]

Perfect - the link to the reaper website did it. Nice touch with the hand position advice, very useful. I'm now dotting away as I type...

 

[Webmonkey]

My best advice for painting eyes on minis,...

Flesh color the whole face then get white in the general eye area (doesn't have to be perfect)

Put a black dot at the center of each eye. Placement is key, so the model isn't crosseyed or googlyeyed. Colors can be done, but at the smaller scale, black works just as good.

Now, go back to your flesh color and use it to shape the upper and lower eyelids. Effectively "trimming the eye into existance"

And you're done!!

Basically,... don't try to "paint the eye into the flesh",.... instead,... "paint the flesh around the eye"

Hope this helped

 

[carkel]

I start to use myself this tuto from reaper and I have to say that it helps a lot if you're not confident with this part of painting.
The simple fact to start the mini by the eyes with the possibility to easily correct your mistake make you less nervous. Following this technique, you don't need super fine detail brush, the most important is to have a brush with a good and well defined point.
.