July Painting Challenge Fifth Update
Yet another update for my painting of Orsus Zokatvir, the Butcher of Khardov, as mentioned in an earlier post. The last few days have not been very productive for painting, I have had family visits, a birthday, and a return to work after a period of time off.
However this evening’s painting was concentrated on Butcher’s face. The focal point of the vast majority of models is the face and as such you should take your time and paint it to the best of your abilities. This update is therefore all about how I painted the face.
There is a plethora of information and tutorials out there on the web that cover the subject of painting faces. I would recommend going and reading a few, if I remember I’ll dig out some links later on this week and add them to this post. It is definitely worth a read through the various methods and seeing if there is a particular method you want to try. The method I choose to try and replicate was found in NQ#23 which has an article on painting male faces, hair and skin.
The colours used were: (all Forumla P3)
- Thamar Black
- Menoth White Highlight
- Bastion Grey
- Battledress Green
- Midlund Flesh
- Red Ink
- Ryn Flesh
- Skorne Red
- Thornwood Green
The painting process was as follows:
- Base coat with Midlund Flesh
- Shade with a mix of Skorne Red and Midlund Flesh
- Shade with a mix of Battledress Green and Midlund Flesh
- Finally shade the darkest areas with Battledress Green and Skorne Red
- Highlight with a mix of Midlund Flesh and Ryn Flesh
- Highlight with Ryn Flesh
- Mix Midlund Flesh and Bastion Grey and water, used as a glaze to add 5 o’clock shadow and shaved hair
- Shade the 5 o’clock shadow with a mix of Thornwood Green and Midlund Flesh
- With a mix of red ink and water glaze around the bridge of the nose and eyes
- Paint the eyes with Thamar Black
- Paint the eyes with Menoth White Highlight inside the previous black.
- Add a dot of black to the centre of the white.
Sorry about the image quality, lighting wasn’t brilliant and I was trying to get the face painted rather than make a proper step by step article.
Final finished look, this time not so close up and grainy 😉
Any comments on how I can improve his face? Leave them below.
Edit:
Here are some links I mentioned above about painting faces.
- http://handcannononline.com/blog/2012/06/18/a-beginners-guide-to-wet-palates-painting-faces/
- http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/tutorial-painting-face.html
- http://handcannononline.com/blog/2011/04/05/tutorial-painting-expressive-faces-and-eyes-2/
- http://chestofcolors.com/how-to-paint-faces/
- http://www.jrn-works.dk/tutorials/tut.php?tut=humanSkin&lan=eng
And cheating a little here are some links to lists of article links:
Splayed Paint Brush 
This is too cool! Great breakdown of the face.
I just started the game about a month or so ago and haven’t begun painting yet. Faces have been the most intimidating by far, but this helps a ton.
Any tips for someone completely new to this hobby? I feel like I’m going to hate everything I paint for at least a year or two.
Thanks, I hope you find it helpful.
Any tips? Well there is probably an essay’s worth but if it’s your first time painting then perhaps the following:
Don’t expect too much of your self, if you have never painted before your first few models may not meet your expectations, unless you are naturally gifted. Patience and practice are two things that will pay dividends, as in most hobbies. Finding the simpler techniques in web tutorials and practising those is possibly the best things to do as a beginner.
For example the above face painting has a lot of steps in it and I have chosen to paint the most important model in my force using it hoping it will give a better result than a simpler technique. For rank and file I might have used a base colour, a shade and a highlight tied together with a flesh wash, which would be a much simpler and faster technique to use.
Having said that, if you want to try a technique by all means try it and see how you do.
HandCannonOnline has an amazing resource of painting tutorials, one of the authors has compiled an index of them all on the PP Forums, I recommend having a look through those.
Thank you so much! I’ve been trying to research as much as possible and found HCO a great resource as well as your stuff and many many others for inspiration. (which can also be extremely intimidating at the same time)
Can’t wait to see more, and to get started myself!
Well when you do give it a go, good luck. I hope you enjoy it and are satisfied with your first few models.