Greetings one n all!
Everyone has their own kryptonite and mine happens to be figure painting.
I’ve doing some digging and found some “how to” vids and books varying from beginner to professional and the the price varies as well.
I see that FSM has a pre order for Modeling Military Figures by Joe Hudson.
With that being said, does anyone recommend a particular book? Steps, process, techniques?
I am looking for a book thats right in the middle… The result(yes i know practice) looks realistic and not where the figure looks like they just got poked and their eyes are about to pop out lol
TIA and Happy Modeling!
Shep Paine’s “Building and Painting Scale Figures”. It was written about 40 years ago, but Shep wrote it exactly for someone like you, who is just starting out. He outlines a process that is in everyone’s reach.
As far as a process goes, my own follows this sequence:
- Clean the figure. Wash it in warm water and a degreaser (eg, dishwashing detergent; I use SuperClean) as desired. This removes any mold release compounds, especially with resin figures.
- Inspect the figure and clean up any seams, surface flaws (eg, bubbles in a resin casting).
- Assemble the figure, keeping in mind whether you’ll be able to reach every place you need to when painting. Pin any joints as desired, to strengthen them. Mount the figure on pins, toothpicks, or similar, to give you something to hold as you paint. If you use pins, you can stick the figure on a wine cork, or a little piece of wood. Some modelers use white glue and glue the figure to a soda bottle cap, especially for smaller figures, like 1/72 or smaller.
- Paint the figure. Shep’s tip, which I follow, is to paint the figure like dressing someone. Start with the skin and work your way outward. Generally this means I paint the basic flesh colors on the face, then apply my basic uniform colors, then equipment. I’ll cycle back and finish the face.
- Painting a face, especially eyes. Shep pointed out, and you mention it, too, to be careful with eyes and avoid the “pop-eyed” look. This is probably the most common area that we mess up. He notes that people outside tend to squint, so it’s best to paint the eyes as relatively narrow slits.
- If you have to show the whites, avoid white, it’s too bright. Use a light grey, or even your light flesh color. Scale will also drive how you do this, because the bigger the figure, the more you can see, even taking “scale distance” into account. On 1/48 scale figures, I paint a dark line for the upper eyelash line, not worrying about how far above that line I get paint. I use black to place the pupil, after deciding which way my figure is looking. Then I add the lower lash line. Depending on your handedness, you’ll find that the figure’s nose is in the way for your opposite hand. A way to overcome this is to hold the figure upside down, which will remove the nose from your way. Be careful that the pupils line up or your figure will look cross-eyed or cock-eyed.
- On 54mm or larger, you can see the iris as well as the pupil. I use the old vertical bar method. I decide which way the figure will look. Then I paint a vertical bar of the iris color perpendicularly on the eye. If I go past the lash lines, that’s OK, we’ll fix that. Then I add a thin black bar down the middle of this. Again, extending above and below is OK. We’ll fix that next
- I’ll fix the lash lines as necessary, then I will add the eyelids with my flesh colors, taking into account my highlight and shadows as appropriate. This is why I don’t worry about coloring inside the lines in the previous steps-this step results in the clean look, without looking boggle-eyed.
- If the scale is larger, I might add a light to each eye, a little dot of white or light grey, to indicate where the light is coming from.
- Through the whole sequence to paint a face, look at your own face in a mirror for reference.
- Once you have the eyes finished, you can finish the face by adding shadow lines (eg, below the lower eyelids, under the brow, under the lower lip, etc) and highlights (eg on the bridge of the nose, on the cheekbones, earlobes, forehead, etc)
- Move on to uniform details and highlights and shadows on the uniform and equipment. Study the folds of cloth, bends in straps and belts, etc, to decide where to add shadows and highlights. Look at your own arm or leg and see how shadows and highlights look.
- In a small scale, 1/48 or smaller, you can “cheat” a little and use a wash to provide this kind of detail, once you have your basic colors laid in. I do this with my 1/48 and 1/72 aircrew figures. I paint my basic flesh and uniform colors, paint the figures’ eyes as thin black lines in the face, cutting them with my flesh colors to make them thin, then I’ll use a thin wash of burnt umber or burnt siena to accent the molded detail of the figure. Once installed in a cockpit, or on a diorama base, it looks pretty good, because the viewer is about 40 scale feet or more from the subject.
- I seal my figures with a matte lacquer varnish (DullCote)
That’s a basic outline; there are variations for any given project, of course.
Shep’s book follows pretty much the same sequence.
I hope that helps!
Best regards,
Brad
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I agree with Baron, Shep’s books,even though they were written many years ago are still sources of great information and instructional techniques. You might want to try you tube videos, especially ones that deal with painting gaming figures. There’s also a figure painting podcast called, "Small Subjects"which is also very good.
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Thank yoh so much for the quick reply @the_Baron & @MR_TOM_SCHRY ! Its greatly appreciated!
When speaking about Mr Paines book, do you mean this one?
If so, ill definitely be on the lookout for it… Thank you once again!
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That’s the one that I was referring to. “The Bible” of figure painting, especially with oil paints.
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Ok sweet deal! Guess I know what I’ll be doing once the kids are off to school! Haha
Yep, that’s the one!
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One thing that is a common thing with novices is paint saturation. Most paints of the shelf have high color saturation, while clothing and skin have pretty low saturation. I often play around to get the gray level I want with just gray,black and white. Then I slowly add color till I get the low saturation I want.
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