I've been painting miniatures off and on for a decade and a half, but only with any sort of dedication for the last couple of years. I recently moved from tabletop miniatures to larger scale figures (I've only bought two, one 54mm and one 75mm), because I'd really like to focus on quality instead of quantity and my brush control is far too clumsy to do that kind of work on smaller models.

My first model is Diane Tianseen from Scale 75, and I'm starting with her skin because that seems to be where everyone starts -- probably because it's the hardest, and if you mess up you're only stripping the barest minimum amount of work.

Right now, she looks like this, but she'll be getting an acetone bath soon because my green stuff gap-filling wasn't as good as I'd like and it's bothering the hell out of me:




A project album can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/DSIN0

One area that I suffer is contrast -- I'd prefer to have realistic looking models, but my experience with tabletop miniatures is subtle shading and highlighting is totally lost beyond 2 feet -- and, knowing this, I'm worried that I'm going to overshoot my contrast and end up scary, garish, or even manly.

So, my question is this: do you have any suggestions, guides, tutorials, etc. for painting faces? Specifically female faces?

And, yes, I've been trying to use references as much as possible -- I've had Scale 75's studio pics of her open the whole time, even.

Thanks.

I'm afraid I can't cite a specific tutorial at this site, but I visit Cody Kwok's site a lot, Cody's Coop, http://codyscoop.com/ He paints mainly anime and manga subjects, albeit it with realistic skin tones. I like to browse his galleries and threads there. I also have the Andrea paperback, "Painting Girls in Miniature", which I think is a good overview of some basic techniques and things to remember when painting a female figure. But I'm a novice, so that's about the only advice I can give at this point. I look forward to seeing how this particular project comes out.

Prost!
Brad

Thanks, I didn't know about either of those. Hopefully I can find an actual copy of the Andrea book.

As far as contrast goes, the larger the scale, the more subtle you can be. You don't need the heavy contrasts that you're used to from 28mm. (I spent years painting that scale too). That and the figure won't be lost amongst a table full of other, nearly identical figures. It's hard to get out of the habit though, I still struggle!

Oh and check out the articles section for the one about leather boots, it'll be a lot of help for the rest of the model (she looks fond of leather).

To answer another question (that you haven't actually asked), I wouldn't use green stuff as a filler,it's too rubbery. I think you'd have better results with magicsculpt.

What is the consistency of magicsculpt once it's all mixed? Is it like spackle?

I ended up stripping the miniature this last weekend, and I'll probably tackle things in a more... conventional... fashion. The head and face, first, before I assemble anything.