Faces 3 Ways! From Beginner to Artisan!

[Music] [Applause] hey everybody in this video we're going to be showing you three different methods of painting the faces on your miniatures which is actually a very important detail about painting models because just like when you meet someone in real life and you look at their face first of all you draw a lot of information from that and the same is true on miniatures you get a lot of emotion a lot of character and feeling from these details so it's something you definitely want to take your time on now we're going to be looking at three different methods that you can use here starting out with one that's all about speed painting so if you want to paint your army fast this one's going to be ideal for you after that we're going to look for a more sort of tabletop standard method where we put a bit more detail into there in a bit more life but after that we're going to move on to a more advanced method of painting the faces where you can really take it much further now as you'll see it might look quite complex when you first look at the face but when you see it in process of being done it's actually not as difficult as it looks anyway we hope you enjoyed this video and if you like this content then be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell to make sure you don't miss any future content and if you really like it then head over to duncanroads.com which is our membership website packed full of videos like this but without further ado let's paint some faces [Applause] [Music] the first method for painting faces we're going to take a look at is all about painting them quickly so speed painting and if you've not encountered speed painting before essentially this is about painting your miniatures as quickly as possible so they look great on the table top but it's worth noting that the methods and techniques used to do this are actually really easy to replicate too and they don't require many paints either so if you're new to the hobby this is great for you as well because it looks really nice at the end too so what we need to do is first of all take a look at what faces we're going to be painting and what we're using for our examples and what i've got is some heads from some space marine intercessors from games workshop and the reason for this is firstly get plenty of them inside the box so it's great for lots to practice on but you can see too that the detail is nice and clear on them there's really good expression on them it's all nice and well easy to pick these features out so it's ideal for this kind of thing you'll notice too his head's on a spike and that's not because his enemies have defeated him or anything it's because we want this to be nice and clear because on intercessors they have quite high collars which can get in the way of what we're doing here so for the sake of clarity what i've done is just well stuck him onto a little pin of brass wire really you don't have to do this though you can easily paint it on the main assembly which for speed painting typically you'll do but the choice is yours whether you do something like this or not so what we need to do then is first of all work out the method we're going to be using for the speed painting and it's to use some of the speed paints from the army painter although you could use contrast paint from citadel in the exact same way as what we're going to be doing here you'll get a slightly different result but it's still the same steps to use this kind of paint what you need to do is set up by painting a very light color first of all on the flesh and this could be any sort of tone you want if you're painting living skin though you definitely want to go for a warmer tone so avoid colder grays you want things like bone kind of colours so things like wraith bone or screening skull in this case i'm going to be using flayed one flesh because i like how it turns out really but it's entirely up to you as i mentioned so what we need to do is start out by painting that colour onto the skin and to do this go for a medium sized brush i have a medium layer brush here from citadel and we've got to set this up first of all on the palette i am using a wet palette here you can use a regular part if you want to the key thing for this is to make sure we apply it smoothly because we want that detail to really show through because the speed paint grabs onto that you see so we need to be as clear as possible that means applying this paint as a few thin coats now if you are speed painting yes it does mean a few coats but it's a good idea just have a hair dryer on hand to make it dry quicker or paint a whole load at once and by the time the last one's been painted the first one will be dry so that's what i'd recommend doing in that case but it is important to make sure that detail shows through so on your palette just use a little bit of water to thin it down just testing it so it's nice and smooth and once you've done so all you got to do is apply it onto the skin so here we go we've got the face we're going to be painting here just a matter of painting it all over and you can see it is a bit translucent so it's not a problem just let it dry completely and then apply a second thin coat in the exact same way [Music] those thin coats are now completely dry and you can see we've got a nice even tone on the skin and also the detail remains nice and strong too so ideal for what we're going to do next which is to apply the speed paint over the top now as i mentioned i'm going to use one from the army painter and the color is called crusader skin but if you wanted to use a citadel equivalent it's going to be one of the contrast paints and the color here would be golem and flesh but whichever you choose the application is just the same now if you've not seen this kind of paint before essentially what it does is stains the surface that you painted onto and collects in the recesses much more than on the raised areas so those parts become stronger with the color that you're using this creates shading on your miniature and those parts where there's less of it sticking so the ray surfaces the original colour shows through and gives the highlight so the idea is you just paint over that light surface and it stains it right down so you can kind of think of it as doing the base coating and shading at once and also some highlighting too so what we need to do is to get some on the palette and you can see i've switched my hard palate for this i've got crusader skin and all we're going to do is just to put some onto there so it's just a matter of just getting a little bit there like that and then you just need to paint it onto the face and in this case i'm sticking to the same brush i used in that previous step i have my medium layer don't need to thin it down with any water you just need to load up with some of this on your brush and then just paint it directly over that skin so because it's quite a small area you can pick any starting point you want so for example around here you just paint it straight on like this and you're looking for this sort of quantity so this amount making sure it's not loads and loads it's not collecting too much but you can see the shading showing through clearly so once you paint it all over the face all you got to do is leave it to dry [Music] the speed paint is now completely dry and you can see the face looks great and in fact you could just leave it here if you wanted to but if you want what you can do is take a little bit further by doing a small highlight on there just to help it pop a little bit more and for speed painting what we want to do here is a nice quick technique so i'm going to dry brush it which is a fantastically useful technique whenever you're painting anything fast and for this i'd recommend going for a citadel small dry brush here because the bristles are nice and soft and so ideal for the kind of detail we're picking out and you want to get a pale flesh color the one i've gone for here is flayed one flesh so again the same color as a starting point but it's got a little bit of warmth in there so it's really nice for a highlight on the skin and so you just need a small amount and on your tissue here what you do is just start working the paint into the bristles and removing the excess as you go along so really work away at it until hardly anything is appearing on the texture of the paper there so it looks pretty good like that very little paint coming off now so with this all you do is just very lightly flick it back and forth across the face so just very gently just so a little bit this color catches some of those top ranged edges and just gives that final highlight just to finish it off [Music] and here we have the completed speed painted face and as you seen doing this was really easy and really quick as well and in fact it only required two colors to be able to do it and so doing this is very simple and you'll be able to get it painted in no time now there are some key things to remember about doing this particular technique the first is to make sure you use the right sort of color as our original base coat you need to make sure it's nice warm color so it has that living flesh appearance to it also when you're applying that base coat a really important thing is to make sure you do it as multiple thin coats because it's important that the texture is as smooth as possible once it's done so that when you put that speed paint over the top it settles evenly and you get some nice shading and highlights [Music] [Applause] [Music] the next method we're going to take a look at is very much kind of an intermediate sort of method of painting miniature faces which is one i've been using for a long long time in all kinds of miniatures because it's just a great reliable go-to way of doing it it's relatively quick to do and allows a great deal of control and works well across a whole army from your lowest troops all the way up to your characters and you can really push it further depending on how many highlights and things you want to put into it now the difference between this one and the previous method is that rather than using contrast or speed paints we're instead going to be using washers to kind of create a road map on the face which we then use as reference as we move on to highlighting and the highlighting is going to be applied in more precise and controlled fashion which allows us to control exactly where we want these details to stand out to bring out the character and the expression of the face now to do this what we need to do is to start out with a base coat that gives a nice warm base tone to build upon and in this case what i'm going to use is some bugman's glow and to apply it again go for a medium sized brush i have a medium layer brush here from citadel and with this all we're looking to do is get that initial base coat to work from so this is all about making sure you get it as smooth as possible and as even as possible so remember like with that previous um method that we used just make sure you thin the paint down so it's nice and smooth so that it doesn't clog up any detail and it stays smooth there's no texture on it once you've finished doing this step so with that prepared all you've got to do is paint it all over the skin so here we go it's just a matter of applying it all over that flesh and you can see again it's quite translucent so all i'm going to do is let it dry and apply a second thin coat in the exact same way [Music] and there we go we've got that even base coat tone and so now what we can do is move on to the next step which is to apply the wash over the top of it and as i mentioned the idea here is that it gives that shading but also provides us that kind of road map because then we can see where we need to start applying lighter colors to do the highlighting and here what you need is a sort of warm chestnut brown kind of color to give that life to the skin tone rather than a colder brown if you go for like a colder kind of color it starts to become a little bit more corpse like and we are going for living flesh here so what i'm going to be using here is some right and flesh shade but any sort of wash color like this will do for example army paint to make one called flesh wash conveniently enough and it's very similar to this and the application is just the same all you need to do is get some of this ready on your palette to control how much is going on at once and i'm using a medium layer brush to apply this again all you do is just load up and just paint it directly all over the skin and you'll see straight away it runs into those recesses so we can see where the shading is going to be so we need to do is apply it all over the flesh to about this sort of level and then just give it around about 15 minutes to dry [Music] the wash is completely dry now and you can see if you look carefully at the face we've now got those darker lines on there which are that point that we're going to be following along to make sure we apply our highlights in the right sort of area and start out with we're actually going to be layering so this is quite a heavy highlight really and for this what we need is some cadium flesh tones a nice sort of mid-tone for the skin and when applying this an important thing to understand is that we need to go into this assuming that we're going to be applying multiple coats of it because we want those thin layers that are translucent that we can build up so we can start to contour the different tones on the flesh a little bit with it so to do this definitely want a smaller brush now because we need that control and i've switched down to a small airbrush from citadel and i'm looking for that translucency in the paint here so on the palette you can see i added a fair amount of water to it it's a little bit runny it's going to bring a bit more pigment into it but i'm looking for that translucency now if i just go and apply it like this straight away it's just going to be far too much paint on the brush for it so what you need to do is remove the excess often some tissue and load up fresh and so it will look like there's not much paint in your brush at all but trust me it will apply in the way that you want it to so long as it's thinned correctly you can always test it on the palette and you can see it's flowing nicely there and you can see i'm getting that nice coverage so i actually want to thin it just have a slightly more so there we go over time you'll get a feel for this it does come with practice so you know if you don't get it exactly right first time don't worry about it keep at it and you'll get it but once you get that right feel and i'm happy with that then ready to go so what we need to do is to look to avoid the recesses where more of that wash settled and basically just painted more raised up areas so if we take a look at the center of his face for example the nose is a great starting point and what we want to do is start by just picking it out and there's a bit of texture on it so i'm just kind of angling to follow along and there we go like that so we get that sort of rough texture on there and you can see the color here is not exactly the same as what it was in the palette because it's translucent so that's ideal because what i can do is apply this thin coat as this first layer all the way around looking all the time to carefully avoid those recesses including the little stud we've got there on his head and just bring it around the side it's a bit easier when you get these larger smooth areas like down the side of here but as we get to this sort of area again we need that more control as we start following down the side of his mouth so just there a little bit of the cheek along there and then we've got the top of his mouth here so really it's just this kind of technique all the way around now you can see now that because i've been applying it thinly the first coat is just about dry it dries very quickly from where i put it on so okay there like that so this means now as we move into applying the second coat we can start to focus it to be the areas where we want the color to be stronger so just before i do that to finish that side of the face so there you go you can see that's kind of what the first coat wants to look like so now going into the second coat and you'll notice this is the first time i picked up some more paint to my brush so even though it looked like it wasn't much on there you can see how far it went the second coat we can now start to focus more on the parts we want to be a little bit lighter so we're looking now at areas where the light would catch just parts that stand out a little bit more such as the brow and you can get that control to apply directly on the brow so on that side as well and then skip past a little bit and start to apply it onto the forehead because now as i apply that second coat you can see the color gets stronger and it's getting closer to what it was straight out the pot and this way i'm starting to get that highlight appearing there on his forehead so really it's just a matter of proceeding like this just always keeping your hands nice and steady making sure those coats are thin and just focusing just focusing more and more towards any parts that would catch the light so we're looking at just cheekbones around there the chin those standing out lines inside the mouth anywhere like that just taking your time just to build up that color [Music] and there we go the layering stage is done and as you can see we can now get that detail standing out nicely and you actually look carefully even though it was just that one color i used there just kidding flesh tone you can see by applying those coats thinly and building them up i've actually got a variety of tones there on the skin and so what we're going to do now is push that further by moving into the highlights going with lighter colors and essentially emphasizing those raised areas even more so any parts of the light would catch and for this we need some lighter colors i'm going to start out with some kislev flesh for this and then if you want to take it a bit further you can go for a lighter color on top of that in this case i'm going to use some shabti bone and this is something i normally reserve for more character miniatures or squad leaders things like that but first of all we need that kislev flesh and definitely go for a small brush so i'm back to my small layer brush here and what we need to do is set this up in the exact same way as what we did with that previous color so adding that wasp to it thin it down so it has that translucency and make sure you've got that control on it too so there we go just watering it down that feels pretty good but again if i just painted straight away like that there's way too much paint in the brush and it's going to go out of control so let's use the tissue to remove the excess and just load up a small amount fresh and then we're set to go and so we're looking for those raised areas which we have already started picking out but we just want to be a bit more selective about just pushing them a little bit further so on the nose in this case rather than doing the whole thing i'm looking at just doing a little bit towards the very tip there like that and because we've got these kind of bumps going up it i just want to just pick out a few of those with just a few dots just gently moving up there like that and like that previous stage you can see because the paint's translucent it's not actually a solid color like how it is just straight in the pot it's not quite as bright but that's okay because like with that previous step we can just apply it as two coats just to emphasize in certain areas depending on where we want it to be we can see i'm just following around the brow just there and then the cheekbones are going to be catching light too so i want to get those so it's going to be a natural just catching that area there and then we want to get the other side too so just very carefully towards the top so just there and then at the top of the mouth these kind of lines got coming down here just want to get a little bit of the top of them just there so on that side and that side and then as well if you want to you can pick out the jawline and doing this does make your miniatures look particularly heroic so ideal for space marines just like a little area there and then just follow the jawline kind of going back towards the side now when it comes towards the top of the head what i like to do is just introduce a few little kind of wrinkles onto it and to do this i tend to turn it to the side so i'm painting kind of in this downward motion towards myself and this is going to be a matter of just doing just a few little lines just across here very gently like that to give the impression of that texture but then we come around to the top of the head and it goes very smooth around here so sometimes you'll have a miniature that's bald as well where it's a much larger surface area and so how do you highlight that by using this sort of technique well in this case what we're going to do is thinly glaze the color on top of it and you just again apply a few coats of it to slowly build it up in the area we want it to be lighter so to set this up you just need to thin the paint down even more than what we've currently got so add a bit more water into it so it goes very translucent there you see now make sure you apply it thinly onto the palette to test how it is so you can see what it's actually going to look like in your miniature and that's okay i want to be a little bit thinner than that so just a bit more water there we go and just test it by just getting rid of the excess test it on there that looks good you can see how translucent that is it's just very subtle and so by applying a few coats you can again build that up so i'm happy with that and with this all you do is thinly apply it towards the top of the head where the light would catch which in this case is going to be just alongside the hairline just there looking at this sort of area very thinly put on so you see it's subtle but what you do is just paint it on like that and then same on the other side so just along there and then because it's so thin it dries very quickly so we can go back and do a second coat just to push the highlight a little bit further [Music] once you're happy with that highlight if you want to you can take it a little bit further with a second highlight this time with a bone kind of color so i'm using a shabti bone for this and with this color what we want to do is emphasize the bone structure mainly so we're looking at a little bit on the chin just there a little bit on the cheekbones so very small amounts and again this color has been thinned down just like in the previous step so it's translucent so if you want you can add a second coat to build it up a little bit more now in addition even though it's not necessarily part of the bone you definitely want to highlight the tip of the nose just a little bit down there and also just follow up very gently on the bridge of it too [Music] the skin is now fully highlighted and you can see that detail is standing out really nicely and we've got a lot of life in there too and well now we can move on to a smaller feature which is a question you may have pondered sometimes what about painting the eyes and the truth is when it comes to painting eyes and miniatures like this it is very difficult because they're so small and you require a lot of precise control to be able to do it and if they're not exactly right it looks very very strange on your miniatures so often it's easier just to do a trick on especially rank and file models like this just to paint them in with a darker brown to give the impression that the eyes are there especially on the tabletop just looks like they're in shadow now we are going to actually show how to paint the eyes in the next technique we're going to be using for faces but for this one what we need is a dark warm brown so i'm going to use some rhinox height for this and to apply it definitely go for a small brush so i'm using that small airbrush once again what we need to do is thin it down like we have been doing so it's quite inky we still have a bit of strength in the color but we want to make sure it just is flowing really easily so right about this kind of thinness is good and you just need a very small amount on your brush so use a tissue as you need to to make sure there's only a small amount there and then we just need to very carefully paint it into the deepest recess of the eye so really brace your hands approach each one from the side just carefully moving in and just let that color just run into the deepest area directly beneath the brow but up just above the o line that lower eyelid so very carefully in there like that when it comes to the other eye what i tend to do is turn the model like this so i can easily approach from the side once again it's a bit strange turning it almost upside down but it's very easy to access this way and once again just carefully go in to paint it with that dark brown [Music] and here we have the completed face and as you can see by just painting that dark brown into the eyes it gives the impression that eyes are there they're just in shadow and so there you go another great technique for painting faces and as you can see this one just allows a bit more control than that previous one because we can now start picking out where we want all those highlights to be just remember to use that wash to provide the map for where you're going to be applying the highlights on top of it and also remember when you're doing the layering and highlighting remember how thin i put the paint on there so i could control how much color was going to be there and build it up the key mistake i've often seen people making whilst doing this in seminars and shows and things is that they simply put on too much paint at once when it comes to those stages so just remember to use your palette make that paint really translucent and only have a small amount on your brush [Applause] [Music] the third method for painting faces that we're going to take a look at is one that's a bit more advanced than the other ones we've been doing so far but don't be intimidated because actually it uses a lot the same skills as what we used on the second technique only this time rather than using a wash for the shading we're going to do it all by hand instead and to do this we're going to start out with a darker color and gradually add in lighter tones to work our way up through a nice gradient towards our highlights and then we can add some subtle tones of color in there as well now if you use the second style of faces that we've been doing in this video then i encourage you to give this one a go because you'll be surprised at how easy it is to get a nice result on this it's really just about that control now to do this what you are going to need however is a wet palette it really does help out so we're going to be doing quite a bit of mixing here and it keeps that paint pliable for a long time so that's what i've got i've got one here from red grass games which is a very nice one but there are other brands out there as well but for the brush i do recommend as well that you go for some finer ones here so some staple hair ones if you can get them the one i'm going to start out with is from artist opus and this is their size one so it's about the size of a medium layer brush from citadel which will do just fine as well but as you'll find as we get into the more finer details having a really good brush really does help out here and what we need to do is start out with a darker sort of rich warm brown kind of color and i'm going to go for scrag brown for this but anything like this will do just fine and what we need to do is just apply this all over the flesh as our initial base coat so like with any kind of base coating all you got to do is get some of this onto your palette i'm actually going to start with this paint all the way over here and you'll see why soon but as ever you just need to make sure it's thinned down so it's nice and smooth and so it doesn't build up any texture on the on the miniature and it's just a matter then of blocking it all in with two thin coats all across the skin so all the way around here [Music] with that initial brown now applied we can move on to the next step which is to start to introduce that gradient and start to get a little bit lighter so here what we need is some scrag brown but we're now going to start bringing some canadian flesh tone into it now i've already got that scrag brown on the palette so i'm just going to get some canadian flesh tone next to it and i've actually switched to a smaller brush for doing this now gone down to a size zero from artistopus for just a little bit more control what we want to do is to create that gradient between them so it's just gonna be around about 50 50. just bring them together in the middle to get that color that's kind of in between so we're looking for something sort of like that so you see now i've got three tones happening there and what i'm going to do is start introducing this onto the flesh by thinning it down as we have been doing in those previous methods so making sure it's nice and smooth so just bring that water in as you need to and just make sure it's nice and translucent on the pallet before you apply it so bring it down to about there now i'm also going to prepare some of that cadium flesh tone because i think i'm going to be needing some of that shortly so i want to bring that down there as well so what we need to do is start with that in between so it's just a matter of getting a little bit of this and then thinking about where light would be landing on the face and looking for those kind of parts so initially really we're just looking to avoid the deepest recesses only so if we start on his nose we want to just kind of bring it down that part just there so that like just that light color along there and then let's start working our way around the face so going down the side there and then picking out the chin especially the chin there we really want to make sure we get that lighter color appearing on top of it so just there got the lower lip to get and the top of his mouth just there and then on the other side too so again it's that process of applying thin coats this color and just slowly kind of working it up so always looking for raised up areas avoiding recesses and just working our way around them i can see how much this is about brush control you can see i'm really making sure my hands are nice and steady but it's not that different from the layering that we're doing in the previous technique you see it's just that this time we don't have that shading on there already to sort of look for instead we're just having to actually look at the shape of the face and follow it around when you get to the top of the head of course this is where more light is going to catch so we want to make sure we get a good coat across all of this area here so there we go and the same on the other side just around there and then with that done we can then start to push it a little bit lighter so now it's going to get a little bit more of that cadium fleshstone in there so i get a slightly lighter mix and then we want to start applying this on top of this so now just gradually starting to focus it more towards where we want the light to be catching on it so we're looking out definitely on the top of the cheeks now so that sort of area there a little bit over but when we get to the deepest recess that's where we avoid it completely and just carry on again beyond it so areas like that so now it's just a matter then of essentially carrying this on and you can see it's a bit of a lengthy process because we've got to take our time just looking at it just taking our time going around looking for these parts that we want to just raise out and lift out from the rest of the skin so it is about really having patience with it but remember just take your time thin layers slowly building it up [Music] with that step done we're now going to move a little bit lighter by bringing in a new color and going a little bit lighter up on the tones so now what we need is some kislev flesh but we're still going to be using kdm flesh tone at the same time and like in that previous stage what we're going to do is make a mix and then gradually start stepping towards kislev flesh on its own so what we need to do is add that into our mix here and i'm still using the same brush as in the previous step i'm just going to get some of this onto the palette and like before just start creating a bit of a mix in between so i've got those tones i can run across so get that kids level on first of all and then start mixing two colors together in the middle so what we need to do is just bring a bit more of that cajun in there to make it a little bit more 50 50. so there we go so you see now we're getting those variety of tones going on getting lighter as we go a little bit further along to the right on here so let's get a bit more kiss left when we need that and again thin that down as well so there we go and then all we've got to do is start introducing this onto the flesh and it's going to be a lot like in that previous stage where we're just looking for those parts where the light is going to be catching so sort of following that bone structure so i've got the mix first of all and now i'm going to be starting again to look for those parts that are standing out so on the nose now i'm going to start following that texture on there so we just want a little bit on the end there and then on these kind of reaches we've got going up here and then we're looking to follow around the brows so just a little bit of this color again thinly applied so it's translucent so we can gradually build it up as we go along get that lower eyelid too and we've got the cheekbone going around here and then down the side of the mouth so just very very carefully down here so there we go so you can see now i'm just adjusting the tone but as you're going along you may find in some cases that you might go a little bit too light so this is the advantage to having the wet palette here you can always step back to darker colors should you need to so for example if we're doing around this side of the face just here and we're going around the jaw we've got a nice heroic appearance just there and we're going down the side and we've also got the cheek just here you might find that you go a little bit too far up here and you start to lose some of that shading on there well it's not an issue because you can just step back to some of those colors we had next to previously and just bring them back down so just bringing it onto there just turn that back down and you can see just easy together with those thin coats so we get that nice gradient going on now once you're happy with this in between tone and you've gone all the way around here looking for those parts are standing out so just there and those little faint lines there on the forehead and of course we need to get this uh this part on the side of the head just around there too what we can then do is just step it up towards just kisler flesh on its own so i'm just going to get a little bit of that now and start bringing that into again just looking now to be even more selective about it so just those final little lines finer details looking for those areas that are standing out and just carefully following along each one [Music] i've finished applying that color now and you can see we're really building up that volume now and the features are really starting to stand out and you can see by every extra color we add to take a little bit lighter you can just see things really progress further and further and so now we need to go even further on the highlights by adding an even lighter color so for this gonna use some flayed one flesh but again we've got the previous color on hands that's kisler flesh this time so what we need to do is to continue our little track we've got here going a little bit further along so still using that size zero brush now gonna bring some flavor and flesh into it so there we go and then we just need to start putting these two together to get that in between tone to start from so we can go further and further towards just flayed one izone so there we go just bring those together to get that mix and then as usual thin it down with that water so we've got that nice diluted version so we can slowly apply the color onto the miniature and we'll need to do the same as well with flayed on on its own so just get that thin down as well and there we go so with those prepared we can start applying them onto the model starting out with that mix so we're looking for this or light tone just here and again we're looking for the parts where we want to really build that volume up even more and it's going to be kind of areas where the light is going to be catching it so we're looking at areas if we're looking down and towards the top of it where the light would catch on top of that so when it comes to things like the chin now it's kind of applying it on the top of it almost so it's this sort of area very carefully there leaving it darker as it crests underneath we need to do that upper lip as well and we can sort of get that shape on it too by just leaving it slightly darker in the middle and then carrying on again on the other side same on the nose carefully applying it to build up those ridges ever so slightly more so just gently there and the brows as well and so just kind of building on top of the parts that we've been doing so far [Music] i finished applying that highlight and i'm happy with the tone up to there because now you can see we've got lots of volume there the details really standing out and so is the expression and well i'm really happy with that position it's got to but you could go further if you want to by bringing in some more highlights and going lighter and lighter even up to a pure white the choice really is yours but you can see here the advantage of this version over the second version because all those colors we've been bringing in and what shading that we've done by hand means it can very easily go back to those colors and adjust the tone as much as we want to so you can really play around with it and this is the main difference between this and the previous method of painting the faces is that this one you can see takes longer but it does give you more control but what i want to do now is just get a little bit of defined shading in there and some select areas with a much darker brown things like the line of the mouth that kind of thing and for this what we need is the dark warm browns i need some rhinox height for this we don't need very much and it is important to make sure that it applies very thinly so as ever we need to need to really thin it down with that water on the palette just making sure it's kind of inky really so bring it down to this sort of point here so don't very much but with this i just want to kind of define some of the deepest shadows on it so with that prepared what i'm looking to do first of all is apply it just into the line of the mouth so just very carefully with the tip of the brush just running it into that recess along there to give it that definition i'm also just going to run it into the eyes the time being to darken them down too and also more recessed areas that we want to define as well so such as the inside the ears right there and also i'm just going to run a little bit of it into the scar as well [Music] that little bit of definition has been applied so now we can move on to the next step which is one that's actually really fun because what we're going to do now is introduce just some subtle little hints of color into the skin we're talking about things like blues and things here it's all purples that sort of thing because if you ever really studied skin and really looked at photographs you'll notice there's all kinds of different tones of color into the skin all sort of interesting little details in there which you can bring into your miniatures that add a lot of life and character to them now it's actually quite easy to do this but what you need to do is first of all just decide what sort of tones you want to have on there and for some inspiration what i recommend you do is just go online and just look up some photographs of faces and just really study them to see what sort tones you can pick out on there in this case i'm going to be adding a little bit of purple and also a little bit of pink in there i'm going to be starting out with the purple the color i've got for this is phoenician purple and what i'm going to be doing is mixing it in with the colors we've got straight away because we can't just go to that purple because it'd be far too much we instead just want to bring a little bit of it into the colors we've got so far so what i'm looking at doing is first of all creating a darker mix with this so i'm just going to get a bit of this purple over here and what we want to do is start to bring it into those colors we've got above it which is why so useful here having the wet palette because we can still play around with it and adjust the color as we need to so what we're looking at doing is kind of going into this darker color here and you can see now i'm getting that slightly more purple tone on there if we want it to be darker too what we can do is just bring in a touch of rhinoceride into it don't need much it's a little bit like that can really darken it down and so we can get a nice bit of variety on what tone of purple we've got as well so there we go slightly darker one there you can see i'm not mixing very much here because really we don't need very much but it's also very easy to adjust it on the fly as we need to as well to get the variety in there so there we go you see nice little variety of purpley sort of skin tones there so to apply this we need to thinly thinly glaze it on so don't have it really thick water it down on your pallets and just kind of bring it down to that translucent nature so this kind of effect is what we're looking for and with this then what you do is just decide whereabouts you want to have that more purple tone in this case i'm looking for areas that i want to have in shadow so sort of pass out underneath the face really so if we look at the front of it what we're looking at on the cheeks is going to be areas beneath the cheekbones so we're looking at this sort of area here all you do is just thinly apply it into that recess just staining it ever so slightly purple to get a little bit of color in there same is true on the other side so we want to bring it down to that part there and also i just want to apply a little bit on the side of the head too so this kind of area here around the ear now you'll notice how thinly i'm putting it on it's drying very quickly and it's just fading into the surrounding area so that's the trick with this kind of thing just making sure you only put a small amount on but also i want to get some color onto the eyes just down here those lower eyelids so what i'm going to do is just run this over those lower lids just to deep them down a little bit and make them a deeper color so adding that purple into it and then just letting that dry briefly whilst i go to that light color that we had so just get a bit more of that so there we go and with this lighter purple tone i'm just going to apply it into the middle of the lower eyelid so really bracing so nice and sturdy and just applying it in there so we've got that little hint of color in those features [Music] we've now got those little hints of purple in the flesh and so the next thing to do is to add the little hints of pink in as well and so for this what i'm introducing is some pink hole right now and like before i'm just going to be using it along with all the other colors we've been using so far and this one it's going to go ahead more towards the lighter colors because i'm going to be applying this onto some more raised up sort of areas so looking at applying some of this around here and then just bringing it into the tones we've got above it just to get a variety of these sort of fleshy kind of pinkish kind of tones so make sure it's thinned down of course as ever and bring them in and we're looking for colors kind of like that i want to get a variety so get a bit of a lighter color in there too so there we are and also we'll go for someone that's slightly darker so just get a little bit of this color bring that on that side and there we go we've got some nice pinks that we can make use of so what i want to do first of all is thinly apply this onto the tops of the cheeks to make them slightly more rosy so what we want to do is to glaze that on so just make sure i've got a very thin version of the color so there we go just test it on the palette i want to water down just a little bit more so we've got that translucency and there we go with this then what i'm going to do is start applying it towards the top of the cheek so rather than last time we went underneath and went colder this time we're going to go warmer towards the top so we're looking at this sort of area on the top just there and on this side too now like with all of this it's just a matter of slowly building this up so apply a few coats as you need to to get to the kind of tone that you want but you can see the first one's on and dried quite quick so we can go into a second one to make it a little bit pinker so a bit more round there just adding that subtle little bit of color now in addition i want to do some around that scar and this time i want to push it a bit further so i'm going to bring a bit more of that pink into the mix and this time i'm just going to apply it on either side so we're looking at very carefully along there and then down over the cheek so that's going to be just around there now in addition what we need to do is to make the lower lip a little bit pinker and for this i'm going to start out with the darker mix that we made up and this is just going to be very carefully applied across that lip so just going to really brace on nice and steady and just add it in there so there we go that little subtle tone change there to help it stand out but also want to add a slight bit of texture onto there so i'm going to go to that lighter mix that we had so nice and light really bringing a bit more of that flayed one flesh into it and with this rather than running across it what i'm going to do is just dot it along here so just very carefully along the edge to give a hint of texture across that surface [Music] the pink's been applied and there we go i'm really happy with the subtle tones that we've got on here but really this is just the very beginning of it you could really go quite far adding all sorts of different tones on there and like i said i really do encourage you to take a look at some photographs of faces and just use that for inspiration for the different sorts of tones you can introduce into there but what we're going to do now is give the impression of some shaved hair on top of his head because he's got a bit of hair but see at the sides it's been shaved so what we want to do is give the impression that it's really short there so kind of stubbornly and you can of course use this for things like a stubbly like beard a mustache and all that too if you want to but for this what you need is a deep grey so i'm going to be using some mechanical standard gray and it's like with glazing those colors that we've just done the skin you basically mix these into the tones that you got already and just use that to create the impression of the stubble on the head so i'm going to go in about this sort of point here just a little bit of that gray and then start mixing them together with the colors that we've got above it so it's quite strong at this stage so i definitely need to bring some more of this color down into it so we're looking at that sort of tone there so you see the sort of color i've created a slightly grayish version of the skin that we've got and then we've just got to glaze this on so we just need to really thin it down on the palette so it's really really thin so adding that water as much as we need to to bring it down to this point and then it's just a matter of applying this where we want that shaved hair to be so in this case on the side of the head if we look at this side what we're going to be doing is going from the very top of it the crest around here and we just sort of bring it round this sort of area here and then down to the side burns and that first coat is going to be thin and subtle but all you do is apply a second coat and build it up until you're happy [Music] and with that we've now got the shaved hair on the side of the head and so we can move on to the final detail which is going to be to paint in those eyes and as i mentioned earlier on painting eyes is difficult remember you don't have to do it you can always paint it really dark brown if you want to but if you do want to do it the main thing is to make sure you have the control to make sure the eyes are looking in the same direction now honestly it's very rare that i get this right the first time when i do it and there's always a little bit of adjustments that need to be made but remember long as you've got that wet palette you can certainly do it quite easily and it is all down to that control which if you've been following along by this point i'm sure you've got the hang of because for this what we need to do is start out with the black so what i've got is a pitch black i've got matte black from the army painter and once that's done we're then going to move on to a pure white and for this i'm going to be using matte white also from the army painter for a brush go for the finest one that you can get hold of in this case i've gone for another art stop as one this is a double zero and you can see i've already got some of the map there on my black on my palette what i want to do is to thin it down so it's kind of inky because this first step is just like when we were doing that brown earlier on for that fine bit of shading when we painted it into the eyes same sort of thing just make sure it's nicely thinned down so it's a bit inky like that and then really importantly make sure you don't have loads on your brush and then it's just a matter of really bracing your hands to be as steady as possible to paint the whole eyeball using this color so gently move in from the side and very carefully just apply it into that detail [Music] once that's done we're then ready to move on to matte white and with this we just need to paint a small dot of the color on either side of the eye so very carefully moving in being as steady as possible just putting a dot there and then a dot at the back there now the reason why we're doing it this way around is because you get that black outline all the way around so you see you get a nice definition for the eye the trick as i mentioned is to make sure the eyes are looking the same direction which is very difficult but if you find out they're not looking the same way don't worry about it you can always go back to matte black just to neaten them up before you move on [Music] and there we are the eyes are painted in and well with a few little adjustments they're now looking the same direction and here we have the completed head with all the hair and extra details painted in so as you've seen painting this one is by and large using the same techniques as what we used in the second one the difference is there's more of an emphasis on glazing particularly towards the end when you're adding in those extra colors that said you could always take that glazing technique that we used at the end and apply it to the other faces that we did in this video when the choice really is yours but for this one it's all about that control because painting in the shadows by hand and the highlights slowly adding them it really gives you that control to really emphasize the details that you want to bring out on the face so it takes a little bit longer but gives a really nice result so there you go three fantastic methods of painting the faces on your miniatures now remember painting the faces is a very important part of painting the model and it's definitely worth taking the time to practice your skill to get better and better at it because it is that focal point and you do look at it straight away it's not for nothing that the phrase faces and bases make your model aces certainly goes around the hobby a lot and is bound to be something that you'll hear early on in your time in it now remember when it comes to that final method even though it looked more advanced really it's the same sort of techniques it's just all about control and the key to doing that is to make sure you're thinning your paint correctly on the palette and that you're not overloading your brush so have fun painting those faces and we'll see you again very soon [Music] you

Channel: Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy

Views: 384,227

Keywords: Duncan Rhodes, Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, Miniature Painting, Wargaming, painting warhammer, warhammer 40000, Warhammer 40K, Painting Faces, Army Painter Speed paint, Artis Opus, Citadel, Wet Blending, Glazing, Speed painting Miniatures, Painting Miniatures for Beginners

Id: SlvJ4oVVMwc

Length: 40min 18sec (2418 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022