New to painting myself, but I've honestly been considering trying to do that for most human characters. Any time I've painted something with eyes I always just go "ugh", and they neeeeeever look good. The DD style just looks so much better imo
There is an old, super-awesome April (due to April's fools, I think) story in Dragon Magazine called "A Brush With Life" about a guy that paints miniatures and one of them comes to life. Unfortunately it's an obnoxious, uncouth barbarian. And hilarity ensues. EDIT: April 1994, Issue 204. The Interwebs have not forgotten this one.
Agreed. For D&D minis, they just have to representations of a character. You would that a belt pouch is brown, but at that scale, eyes should just be dark. Most painted eyes always look wonky and cartoony.
Thanks Uncle Atom! This video cleverly addresses "freedom of choice"" as it relates to this Hobby. This is supposed to be fun, heck, even relaxing. Practice, grow, enjoy!
This is why you *always* give your models the helmet option. You don’t have to worry anymore, after that. If you can find any reason to give the model a magic/psychic feel, give them glowing eyes. Make sure to do light coats around the eyes to make it actually feel like it’s glowing.
I do paint eyes for my heroes and display models, small grey streak, a dot with a brown/blue/red/purple/green micron pen and a dot with a 0.2mm pen. Troops, not so much.
Getting a tiny micron pen has kept me doing eyes, you can line it up with the direction their gun is pointing or some other cue from the mini's pose and it's pretty easy to just do one dot. But I have a rule, if I try it twice and still can't get it to look right I paint over and forget about it.
Display, character, and sergeant figures (and very occasionally if the eyes are well enough defined on the rank and file) all get the eyes painted in my collection. Black or a very dark brown to fill the eye socket, then a dot of light grey on either side of where the pupil would be is the easiest method I have found. Great video, btw...
That's the core of it, a general rule. Because of distance effects, and the scale, all the colours should be slightly greyed out, and a big part of the bad examples are made worse by not doing that. Most of my modelling is in 3D graphics now, and that doesn't change, details too small to see and the greying out of colour. If you don't do anything, not even a dark wash and highlight, it's going to show. Some people do gaming with much smaller figures. They still need something to hint at shapes.
I feel vindicated! I'm not super experienced, but I quickly gave up painting eyes. It always gave the least return on invested effort, it wasn't fun doing it, and I never missed it when I finished painting a mini. Now, I probably won't even bother unless there's some special exception.
I always wondered why I thought it was so weird to see the whites of a mini's eyes and that explanation gives me the reason and removes all the imaginary expectations I had placed on myself to do them. Thank you. Great vid!
Late to this party but thank you so much for this vid. I'm working on the faces for my Hernkyn Jaegir's for 40K Kill Team after returning to the hobby from about 20 odd years ago. I've been dreading this part and now I'm feeling the confidence to tackle it again! Cheers!
I truly appreciate your insight about detailed eyes. Every time I see models with the eye's done it always looks crazy wrong. I thought maybe my perception was off so it's nice to know it's not just me. Sad to see the Fezz go but you got to do you.
The only time I've ever painted eyes I actually liked when they were done was on some Lizardmen, with some nice reptilian eyes. Not too hard to do either Human eyes? Forget it.
For my kruleboyz, i usually paint the eyes white and then use a yellow contrast paint and it works great. Extra tip: always have a qtip Edit: i can't spell
Watching this video was very reassuring and such a relief. After a few attempts at painting, the first miniature that I was actually proud of was a human barbarian. I used this very same technique of using wash in the eye holes and he ended up looking pretty badass.
@@ozymandias3540 back in the eighties when I started painting miniatures Shep Payne wrote a book on painting. Most of it was about 54mm miniatures and above. On smaller figures after doing some highlights on the face painting a small very fine line across the eye and then adding a chestnut wash. Most of the available flesh tones were very pale at that time, so you got a ruddy end result.
@@ozymandias3540 one more thing Shep when he talked about detail in painting said to take your miniature out and hold it up until you find a person in the distance who appears to be the same size and look at them . That is your baseline for details. If you want to go with more good on you, but you really don't need to.
Genius!! Might actually try this in the next few days. Being completely new at this I'm kind of discouraged at trying to paint eyes on a 28mm model and for somebody to tell me that frankly it's not that important or to remind me that yeah, in real life you really can't see the whites of somebody's eyes unless you are standing right next to them or at least within 10 feet of them. This is awesome. What you're telling us is as long as you can give the suggestion of eyes being there your model will look fine no matter what. THANK YOU!!
A timely video. I spent a while last night painting and re-painting some microscopic eyes on an old skool Forest Goblin. I’d kinda already decided to abort, as it looked better when there was just a bit of dark wash gathered under his brow, making him look suitably ferocious - this video has given me the final permission I needed, thanks!
I’m painting eldar after having a 25 year hiatus and looking at the tiny face yesterday I thought this is going to be fun… 3 attempts later and I move onto something else. Thinking that face looks fine as is no eyes vs what I’m capable of atm. I’ll sleep on it. Wake up this morning and fine this gem of a video. He’s remaining eyeless. The eyeless pilot.
As a novice painter that is still on his first space marines, I go to lenghts during building the miniatures that I won't have a visible face anywhere, one because I think the helmets look cooler and two, the bigger reason, because I have tried painting one head without a helmet on and I neither get the skin tones and highlights on the face right, nor the eyes so I do what I consider more fun and put a helmet on each and every one of the marines. In the case where a marine has strapped his helmet to his belt, sargeants for instance, I cut that helmet off, clean up the left over belt or cover it with some ornaments and put on a different helmet and it works!
This guys great. For those of us coming back to hobby after a 20 year break, his advice is spot on and helps to build the ol’ confidence with painting!
@@Siege181 Bwahaha best reason! Mine'z 'Da Greenstest' Snakebitez, but also doing a Death Guard Kill Team. Just cause Nurgle loves me and those guys are really fun to paint.
I kept making one passable eye and one eye that was obnoxiously bad, so a large portion of my kill team with exposed heads got a "bionic eye". A big ol' metallic ring around the blob-that-was-supposed-to-be-an-eye and a colored "lens" over the blob itself actually looks pretty fantastic. And it gives my KT a bit of a theme that I didn't intend.
Honestly I never understood the obsession with painting eyeballs in the miniature community. It never looks better the the shading style you described.
I'm glad that you brought up the glowy eyes for the skaven/orks. I feel like for armies like orks especially, painting the eyes are important since they have bigger heads. But, it'll probably look fine regardless.
The only time you should work on the eyes is on a competition piece. And it will take you HOURS to get it right. On a gamepiece....wash is fine. What I do sometimes on Marines is put a minuscule white dot in the middle of the lenses to make the eyes pop and fake the "glare/reflection" of the lenses.
I agree with this. I started out years ago making Historex 54mm Napoleonic figures, occasionally a 90mm. The first thing I painted was the eyes. I was taught that the eyes are the window to the soul, and once you give your figure a soul, you've given it life, and once it has life you will be motivated to do a much better overall job. Now that I am in the 28mm realm, I mostly just use a dark wash, and at arm's length it looks just fine. Some facial expressions call for at least a black dot and that's about it. Anyone who puts one of my models under a magnifying glass must first take me to see some of his.
Great advice as ever, recently did my first decent eye paint (whites and Iris only) on a Carnevale Romani Fortune Teller but this was for a special reason - I also gave her red nail varnish on the fingers and toes. I used the magnifying glasses you recommended some time back, £7 ($9) and to be honest you can only see these details using the macro setting on my camera or when wearing the glasses with the highest magnification lenses and holding the model 2 inches from my nose. I am proud of what I achieved, but won't be making a habit of it. Thanks for the tip on the magnifiers though, I'm 53 and my eyesight is awful but now I can continue with the hobby.
Great tip! I always paint eyes an it looks good (because you'll always see very little white - if any). One thing about: "Wait until you see the white of their eyes!": In my opinion it's definitely NOT to save ammo. It's because a well timed and well aimed ("LOW!") salvo can be decicive in a firefight.
This makes a lot of sense. I'm going to have to study my models and think about if it matches my style. Thanks for the alternate view point. I appreciate it.
Long term viewer, first time commenter. Thanks Uncle Atom for the great tips. The brown wash idea was great. Dont feel so bad about painting eyes anymore. Was always making sure I was using the helmeted version of marines.
I'm reminded of the Larry Leadhead comic where his friend shows him some minis he just finished and proudly mentions that he painted their eyes. After remarking that they look like dinner plates, Larry tells his friend that if he told his troops don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes, they'd be out of ammo before the enemy ever got within range.
Funny thing I remembered while watching: the quote of Colonel William Prescott is also found in 1710s regulations of Swedens military infantry. They weren't supposed to give fire until they were "able to see the whites of the enemies eyes" (i.e. Unable to miss). It should be noted that it served a different purpose though, as the swedes were supposed to induce terror into their enemies and come close enough to use their swords by doing so rather than preserve ammunition.
This vid needs more Pa-Chow! Entertaining video for real. I love the freedom this hobby affords me in choice. I can choose to go batch paint a whole mob of zomies real quick, or a couple of cultists with moderate details, or go totally hog wild on one special character. Every project is tailored to what I want from the final result and there really is no "wrong" way.
I always paint the eyes because I enjoy the practice and the character it adds to the model, but one of my favorite games, Darkest Dungeon, famously does not show eyes and it adds its own character. No one should criticize anyone for how they enjoy their hobby, so if you don't want to paint eyes, it's no one's place to say boo to you. And if you get "crazy eye" from trying to paint them, well, keep practicing, they'll get better and, hey, crazy eyed characters can have their own charm... or at least achieve meme status.
But if you DO want to paint eyes, take the easy approach: White base coating, tiny drop of shader in the wanted eye color. Works fine, try it out! Damn commented too early. Now you're saying it too :D
Glad I'm not the only one. I used to be able to do human eyes, but recently I've given up due to lack of a stable and fine enough point on any of my brushes, and generally not being able to see the eye well enough whilst my brush is in the area, even with a magnifier. Some of the soft detail mouldings on plastic models don't help either. Problem is, when you photograph a model, it's very obvious that it has no eyes, and kind of detracts from the overall "ta da" moment - I hate doing my best on a model, then having to explain that I purposely didn't do the eyes. Works fine though if they're wearing a hat or something and their face is in shadow.
Man, you just saved me so much time and frustration, I've been working on getting good at eyes for a couple years now, and I've gotten pretty decent, but i never thought of it the way you explained it, makes perfect sense, thank you!
As an illustrator, eyes are by far the hardest thing to get right. As cheesy as it sounds "The eyes are the window to the soul". They are the one detail that brings a character to life and if it's even slightly off it just becomes uncanny valley. Allowing our brains to fill in the blanks with the suggestion of details will always look better than providing details that are wrong/slightly off.
@elminiaturista here! I agree what you say, but if you still wanna try I recommend: Good brush (real Marta hair), augmentation glasses X3, thin white paint (But just a little in the brush) and start the eyes looking to left or right (not center) :D
I tried to paint my orruk megaboss with black & yellow eyes (black base and a yellow dot for highlight) I did the right eye spot on, it was perfect but whenever I tried to get the left eye spot on it'd look ... goofy, so I decided to paint the left side of his face (including his eye) so it looked like it was burnt (so like two-face from DC...but as an orruk). Anyways, I love your vids man, keep it up!.
I read that you can turn the model upside down if you are better at painting one side than the other so you technically paint the same side eye twice. I haven't tried it myself yet but maybe it will help?
Solid advice! I do exactly the same with my mass troops. When I have a character model then I usually put the detail into the eye, however I then hit it with a Wash this is to dull the white down a lot to give it detail but not make it look odd
Tips for eyes. 1 Work out which way the head is looking. I have a sister that is leading to the right with her shoulder and her head is turned in that direction also. So the iris is actually painted to the right of the eye ball. 2. Don't worry about your initial paint on the eye ball. It is ok if the sclera and the iris overlap the eye lids. Get the eye done and paint the skin back. The iris is never completely exposed. Just look at some one and you will see part of the iris under the upper lid and just brushing the lower lid. So painting over the sclera and iris improves the effect. 3. It can be as easy as you think it is. Relax, dot, relax dot and tidy. But if it doesn't come out the way you want, just ditch it and go the shade as per Uncle Atom
In general, I agree. I'd say that if you do want to paint eyes use some kind of off-white. Using a bright white is just asking for trouble. And paint the pupil as a vertical line instead of a dot.
I collect orks and subscribe to the 'boop' of red paint on the eye technique. I once tried painting pupils on a random human mini I was painting and ended up deciding it wasn't worth it after repainting many different versions of cross-eyed or drugged out derpiness
I play deathwatch, got mucho compliments from how clean I did the different Chapter badges than I ever did on getting a Marine's eyes to look the same way. I'm in complete agreement, just a hit of shade and done, detail and take time with your standout items like weapons, or just the armor in general.
Wow this is crazy. I literally just talked to a more mathematical friend of mine about this very issue. Thanks for this video. I asked a friend to do the math so I’m not sure if this is right. A 1” figure held out at 3’ could roughly represent a 6’ figure standing at 216’. So why the hell can I see the eye color of my figure at approximately arm’s length when there’s just no way I can read a man’s eye color at 216’ away? I know my players will ask, “What’s up with this guy’s eyes?” So I guess I’ll paint them anyway...
I absolutely love your attitude to this hobby. Tried painting eyes on my crisis protocol models recently and Jesus Christ haha 😂 I don’t think I’m gonna bother in the future. Too much hassle, too stressful and it feels like an absolute crap shoot as to whether or not it’s actually gonna look even ‘ok’. Thanks atom!
I've been saying this for years. I like to call it the Kojima Method. In Metal Gear Solid the characters eyes were just shadows. If it's good enough for MGS it's good enough for me.
I'm doing a Dialogus right now and will absolutely take this advice to heart. I've never managed good irises. On Saint Celestine I did white eyes with running mascara. Turned out fine.
This is basically what I do too. Most of the eyes I paint are just shaded in with maybe one little dot of white. I have an easy trick for big monsters though. Paint the eyes with a nice off white or maybe khaki or other very light neutral color, then grab a #0 Round and place one little black dot in each as best you can. The placement of the dots will determine what it seems the monster is looking at. You can even correct that placement by making it just a tiny bit bigger with the black paint or trimming the edges back with the white, but it doesn't need to be perfectly round. The placement and size of the dot matters far more. For that matter, you could make a slit like a cat's eye if that suits the creature better than a dot. I actually use black craft paint for making the dot, because it's thicker and I find it easier to control. YMMV. Once that is dried and all set how you want, simply wash the whole eye with red ink or thinned down paint. Depending on the effect you want, you can flood the eye more or less. You can use flesh wash or other colors instead of red. For example, on a dire wolf, I used yellow. This is actually simpler than it sounds and I'm sure it would work better as a video. It's quite easy once you get it down.
Took my new painter tush 3 hours to try to do the face/eyes for my canoness kitbash. I ended up happy with it, but I figure I will only do eyes for character/special models. Its nice to see a different view and I appreciate it!
Another thing that tends to work is to use an extremely fine tipped felt pen to just do a mark for the eyes if they're set up to make it easy. Most of the time a good wash just makes them look like their eyes are closed at the moment. Only real time I go further is with either larger models like monsters or ones with odd eye designs that work for making it easy and/or needed. Things like Space Marines do need them in their helmets...
One thing I do on 25mm to 28mm human minis is paint the white eyes and then dip the fine tip of a straight point sculpting tool into black paint and press it centered in the eye ball. It leaves a small black dot and then after a wash looks great.
Totally agree, I only paint eyes if I can pull off not putting an iris in, such as with red eyes or plaguey yellow/white. I also like to use the eye and mouth regions as places to put in washes of colors that pop like blue or purple. It looks especially good on my orks to put coelia green shade in those areas.
I use a technical pen to put small black dots for my rank'n'file models. Another trick is painting the eye socket with your flesh shade color, it'll look like shadow/eyelid.
Painted eyes often look weird because white is often used to paint them. The sclera - though we call it the white of the eye - isn't white at all. It would sit more as a mid to light grey in terms of luminosity when well lit. Then, depending on blood vessels and light environment etc can have varying degrees of blue, yellow and red in them. The highlight on a nose will always be *considerably* brighter than the 'whites' of an eye. Anything on the face brighter than it's most prominent highlight reads as though it is an emissive material, rather than a reflective material. So not painting the eye itself and painting just a general shadowed area with a relative highlight to indicate the reflective quality of eyes makes more than good sense :) [I'm a noob painter - but a seasoned photo retoucher]
Funny that this video just came out today, I was just working on Space Marine heads yesterday and I decided to not paint the eyes like I did on previous models. And while I did a well enough job with those models to actually like how the eyes turned out, the heads with unpainted eyes still look better and were easier to do. They're way too small to do detailed eyes and painting them white with a black dot in the center takes away from the details of the sculpt, which is why they look weird. However I love painting helmet lenses (kinda the same concept as Skaven eyes), couldn't imagine not doing that.
I pant eyes by doing just a single horizontal white line and then a single veritcal line for the iris, then I heavy wash them like you, makes it show typically as just a shadow like your style but allows you to see just a little glint of the eyes in the right angle and light. works perfectly. up close it looks like the model is squinting or straining, humans rarely ever open our eye lids fully, and thats whats typically missing on models, the eye lids.
This is the technique I started using recently and it really is the best thing to do, looks much more natural. My marines helmet lenses get a little color but the eyes just get a wash
Honestly eyes feel like the biggest busywork in miniature painting. I'll do it for like, a competition. But regular 28mm tabletop? Nah. Agreed 100% with the video. Unleash the crazy walleye-marines
Hay! New to the hobby, new subscriber. Just wanted to say I've been catching a lot of your older videos and have greatly appricated the perspective from the experiance. Keep up the content and keep that human perspective, we always need more of that in the world. :)
