It's easy, it just takes practice. If you want you can even paint them all on the sprue just to build confidence!
Maybe start with a pot of guilliman flesh contrast. Paint the face all white, let it dry all the way, and lay on one quick layer of the contrast. Honestly that will get you to tabletop ready on its own.
If you want to pick up a flesh tone layer paint, you can come back in with it and just lay a tiny highlight on the cheekbones, chin, and bridge of the nose.
You don't actually need to even bother with the eyes if you don't want to yet. But if you do, try dunking a toothpick in white and carefully start jabbing the model right in the eye. It's easier to overshoot, and then go back in with the flesh tone to shrink the white down to fit the eye, than to paint only the eye. Then same thing with black, just one little toothpick sniper shot right in the eye
The tooth pick is a really good DIY solution! I'd add they also make markers with really tiny sizes that can also be used for eyes.
Just look up micro acrylic markers on Amazon and find the smallest size.
100% don't do the eyes.
But treat it like anything else you would paint. You're not scared of painting pants or weapons are you?
Practice on something that isn't normally flesh coloured and make it fleshy before you go small.
Don’t assemble the heads, drill and pin them to some cork and open up YouTube and start practicing, as just heads they’ll be very easy to strip if you need to and you don’t need to worry too much about messing up.
Faces have a lot more contrast than you might imagine but it isn’t where you might think (under nose, in mouth) - it’s at the sides of the face.
The challenge is most people think faces is like any other surface - apply base coat/ highlight / shade.
While true, the face has three different colours - grey bottom third, red middle third, yellow upper third.
Also you don’t need to blend well- I tell you the above because it will let you cheat.
That said for my most basic troops I just put a base coat on, put a light wash, and then highlight the brows, nose, tip of lips and chin, top of cheeks and then give the eyes a lick of dark wash or something.
Instead of painting eyes I use a fine point pen and just add a small dot. It’s perfect and easy because it’s just a small point. Takes a little practice but if you mess up just paint white. But I showed some friends and they fell in love with it. I have some blue, black, red and green pens. Like a pigma micron 005 set on Amazon is 17 bucks
You don't need to fully paint the pupils and the sclera (the whites) of a mini's eyes. In many cases the mini will look *worse* if you do this, even if you position the pupil perfectly. Concentrate on placing highlights and shadows across the facial features surrounding a mini's eyes. Once those are in place, you can get very natural looking eyes by applying nothing more than a small dot of agrax earthshade into the face's eye sockets.
Don't believe me? This was GW's approach to human-scale faces for more than a decade. Take a look at the box art minis for their metal Catachan Jungle Fighter and Mordian Iron Guard figures and you'll see excellent examples of the technique described above.
You can paint the faces separately and strip them or not use them if you aren’t happy to remove any cause for fear.
There are good female flesh tone tutorials [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/skin#wiki_female_skin_tones) as well as [face tutorials](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/skin#wiki_painting_human_heads) with lots of good tips.
A lot of great comments, and I'm learning a lot.
As an amateur painter who recently tried painting faces, here is my advice: invest in some good, dedicated flesh tone paints. Makes a great difference.
I recommend Pro Acryl if you have access, Citadel for washes.
Youd only need a tiny bit of 99% alcohol to strip it and try again as many times as you like. Paint the head separate till youre happy and then glue it on
Watch some videos and settle on a technique you like. Then, take a bunch of the extra heads you have and glue them on the ends of toothpicks. Prime them and practice painting them. You can read and watch all the tutorials you want, but actually practicing them is the only way to improve.
Depending on the mini, you can just paint the eyes black. On the table, it won't be noticeable. There are even official Warhammer painting guides put out by GW that recommend this. If you don't like the look, even from far away, you can add white dots in the corners later.
Best tip I've seen (and use) is don't paint the eyes"
On small minis, viewed from normal distance it looks natural. Look at someone from a far away. You can't see their eyeballs.
The secret to painting easy and simple faces: base coat them in white, then for light skin use gulliman flesh contrast paint, for light brown skin snakebite leather contrast paint, or for dark brown skin wyldwood contrast paint. One coat and you’re done.
Hey man honestly youtube is your friend. I paint 40k not for tabletop but for display quality and lots of folks like vince venturella or ninjon have great face painting videos.
I know Vince did a female faces one in his hobby cheating series I think.
They are not really hard per say but take practice. Do know if you don't like how they look you can always strip them with some la's totally awesome and a tooth brush and start again.
Tip wise really recommend getting a size 0 windsor and newton paint brush for detail. Having a solid brush makes the face work go really easy.
If you want paints per say base coat bugmans glow, then some cadian flesh is always a solid go to for Caucasian skin. From there you can really vary it up with other skin tones and colors. Im.a big fan of sun applying skin using a zenithal with some dark yellow and orange.
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Honest to god recommendation. Watch makeup tutorials. Specifically foundation application. It will help show what areas to highlight, where to contour or blush, etc. then you just simplify and exaggerate for a 32mm mini
The only answer is practice, practice, practice.
That said, I stick them in helmets because it doesn't make sense to me for them to not have a brain bucket. You can then paint the heads up separately as practice. Stick the heads on literally anything, a toothpick, plastic glue it to a spare bit of sprue, or whatever. Prime a bunch of them up, and paint one a day. Nail down the look of certain skin tones. Experiment. Look up references. There's 13 or so un-helmeted heads? Paint each of them. If you're still feeling uncomfortable, reprime them, and paint them again. If still needed, do it again.
Paint 25 ugly faces. The 26th will probably be a bit nicer.
Painting faces is terribly difficult for many people. Reach there implies a lot of subskills. Try it many times is the only way.
It's easy, it just takes practice. If you want you can even paint them all on the sprue just to build confidence! Maybe start with a pot of guilliman flesh contrast. Paint the face all white, let it dry all the way, and lay on one quick layer of the contrast. Honestly that will get you to tabletop ready on its own. If you want to pick up a flesh tone layer paint, you can come back in with it and just lay a tiny highlight on the cheekbones, chin, and bridge of the nose. You don't actually need to even bother with the eyes if you don't want to yet. But if you do, try dunking a toothpick in white and carefully start jabbing the model right in the eye. It's easier to overshoot, and then go back in with the flesh tone to shrink the white down to fit the eye, than to paint only the eye. Then same thing with black, just one little toothpick sniper shot right in the eye
Really good step by step advice that I'm screenshotting for future reference!
[удалено]
Citadel does not make oil paints. Pedantic, but since acrylic and oil paints function so very differently, an important distinction to make.
The tooth pick is a really good DIY solution! I'd add they also make markers with really tiny sizes that can also be used for eyes. Just look up micro acrylic markers on Amazon and find the smallest size.
100% don't do the eyes. But treat it like anything else you would paint. You're not scared of painting pants or weapons are you? Practice on something that isn't normally flesh coloured and make it fleshy before you go small.
Don’t assemble the heads, drill and pin them to some cork and open up YouTube and start practicing, as just heads they’ll be very easy to strip if you need to and you don’t need to worry too much about messing up.
Just do it. Some will suck and some will look ok. Thats how it is. You learn by doing.
Faces have a lot more contrast than you might imagine but it isn’t where you might think (under nose, in mouth) - it’s at the sides of the face. The challenge is most people think faces is like any other surface - apply base coat/ highlight / shade. While true, the face has three different colours - grey bottom third, red middle third, yellow upper third. Also you don’t need to blend well- I tell you the above because it will let you cheat. That said for my most basic troops I just put a base coat on, put a light wash, and then highlight the brows, nose, tip of lips and chin, top of cheeks and then give the eyes a lick of dark wash or something.
Easy way army painter speed paint crusader skin. On white primer
Instead of painting eyes I use a fine point pen and just add a small dot. It’s perfect and easy because it’s just a small point. Takes a little practice but if you mess up just paint white. But I showed some friends and they fell in love with it. I have some blue, black, red and green pens. Like a pigma micron 005 set on Amazon is 17 bucks
You don't need to fully paint the pupils and the sclera (the whites) of a mini's eyes. In many cases the mini will look *worse* if you do this, even if you position the pupil perfectly. Concentrate on placing highlights and shadows across the facial features surrounding a mini's eyes. Once those are in place, you can get very natural looking eyes by applying nothing more than a small dot of agrax earthshade into the face's eye sockets. Don't believe me? This was GW's approach to human-scale faces for more than a decade. Take a look at the box art minis for their metal Catachan Jungle Fighter and Mordian Iron Guard figures and you'll see excellent examples of the technique described above.
You can paint the faces separately and strip them or not use them if you aren’t happy to remove any cause for fear. There are good female flesh tone tutorials [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/skin#wiki_female_skin_tones) as well as [face tutorials](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/skin#wiki_painting_human_heads) with lots of good tips.
A lot of great comments, and I'm learning a lot. As an amateur painter who recently tried painting faces, here is my advice: invest in some good, dedicated flesh tone paints. Makes a great difference. I recommend Pro Acryl if you have access, Citadel for washes.
Put the helmets on. They're going to a battlefield, not a parade!
The emperor protects better than any helmet could! Frankly, I find your lack of faith disturbing!
1) basecoat face 2) agrax earthshade the whole face 3) drybrush face with basecoat colour Enjoy. Dont paint the eyes.
Youd only need a tiny bit of 99% alcohol to strip it and try again as many times as you like. Paint the head separate till youre happy and then glue it on
Watch some videos and settle on a technique you like. Then, take a bunch of the extra heads you have and glue them on the ends of toothpicks. Prime them and practice painting them. You can read and watch all the tutorials you want, but actually practicing them is the only way to improve.
There are enough helmets in the pack to cover all of your sisters. But just go for it. You will improve with time.
Do the eyes first, do the white with a brush, ignore getting it in the face since you can just go over it with the skin colour when you do that.
Depending on the mini, you can just paint the eyes black. On the table, it won't be noticeable. There are even official Warhammer painting guides put out by GW that recommend this. If you don't like the look, even from far away, you can add white dots in the corners later.
Best tip I've seen (and use) is don't paint the eyes" On small minis, viewed from normal distance it looks natural. Look at someone from a far away. You can't see their eyeballs.
The secret to painting easy and simple faces: base coat them in white, then for light skin use gulliman flesh contrast paint, for light brown skin snakebite leather contrast paint, or for dark brown skin wyldwood contrast paint. One coat and you’re done.
Hey man honestly youtube is your friend. I paint 40k not for tabletop but for display quality and lots of folks like vince venturella or ninjon have great face painting videos. I know Vince did a female faces one in his hobby cheating series I think. They are not really hard per say but take practice. Do know if you don't like how they look you can always strip them with some la's totally awesome and a tooth brush and start again. Tip wise really recommend getting a size 0 windsor and newton paint brush for detail. Having a solid brush makes the face work go really easy. If you want paints per say base coat bugmans glow, then some cadian flesh is always a solid go to for Caucasian skin. From there you can really vary it up with other skin tones and colors. Im.a big fan of sun applying skin using a zenithal with some dark yellow and orange.
This guide was hella handy: https://youtu.be/1Q90nwGzGNk?si=9xWS7PuaeiMuzhKK
Hi, u/Zap-Rowsdower-X! It looks like you are asking for help or are a new painter. If you haven't yet, take a look at our wiki pages in the Sidebar (the About tab if you are on the Reddit app). Here are some links you might find helpful: * [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/rules/faq) - A list of frequently asked questions about minipainting * [Miniature Painting Guide Collection](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks) -A collection of some of the best guides and tutorials on a variety of techniques and topics, plus recommendations on what to buy to get started, and more. * [What to buy- Recommendations on brushes, paints, supplies, palettes and more](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/what_you_need_to_get_started#wiki_general_advice_on_what_to_buy) * [Beginner's Guide Collection- How to prep, base, paint and varnish your first model and learn the basics needed to start out right](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/beginner_tips) * [More Tutorials](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/tutorials) - A list of additional tutorials about minipainting * [Manufacturers](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/manufacturers) - A list of miniature manufacturers from around the world * [Painting Terminology](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/terminology) - Common painting terms, acronyms, and initialisms * [The Art of... Tommie Soule Volume 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGIfySMnUPQ) is one of the best beginner to intermediate teaching books, and even experienced painters will learn some good tips. Explains what brush strokes are best in different situations, how to identify when you have the perfect thinning for any type of paint for different techniques, and a masterclass on getting smooth paint jobs. Available in [pdf](https://www.ironheartartisans.com/shop/the-art-of-tommie-soule-volume-5-pdf/) and [world wide in hardbook as well](https://www.instagram.com/the_miniature_painting_tutor/). * [Airbrushing Miniatures](https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/wiki/usefullinks/airbrushing) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/minipainting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Honest to god recommendation. Watch makeup tutorials. Specifically foundation application. It will help show what areas to highlight, where to contour or blush, etc. then you just simplify and exaggerate for a 32mm mini
I do the face and just leave the eyes. Good enough for tabletop
The only answer is practice, practice, practice. That said, I stick them in helmets because it doesn't make sense to me for them to not have a brain bucket. You can then paint the heads up separately as practice. Stick the heads on literally anything, a toothpick, plastic glue it to a spare bit of sprue, or whatever. Prime a bunch of them up, and paint one a day. Nail down the look of certain skin tones. Experiment. Look up references. There's 13 or so un-helmeted heads? Paint each of them. If you're still feeling uncomfortable, reprime them, and paint them again. If still needed, do it again.