Dear All , I have been trying not very successfully to paint faces with acrylics and while I have got to a stage where its ok sometimes I am thinking of trying oils, any advice ,best practise and your pros and cons on the subject would be greatly appreciated..........I know the drying time is a factor but I do feel the face looks more realistic if I can say that ?????????

I'm a oilpainter. But painting the eyes will be the easyest with acrylic.
Why??? because of the drying time you can correct almost immediately when you made a mistake.
With oils are two opinions: whipe it of with turps or wait till the next day and start over.

Marc

Yes Marc agree and that was my plan , would you go paint the eyes first ? Base coat with acrylics ? Marc would you mind sharing how you go about it , what colours you use and the best way to get the best results ???? thanks

I switched from acrylics to oils, I bought the book " Painting Miniatures by Danilo Cartacci" In the book he gives a step by step of how to paint a face in oils including what colour oil paints to use and how to mix/use them. I was instantly impressed with my first results with this method. The book is out of production I think but you should be able to source one second hand. Probably one of the best figure books I ever bought.

Cheers
Steve

Ok thanks appreciate that

I saw that house but how does he apply it...do you put a wash for shadows after an acrylic base ?

Can u suggest any

A few here;







Many varied tutorials on various subjects, show reports etc. on here;

https://www.youtube.com/user/projectionniste/videos?disable_polymer=1

Note not many are in English but the techniques are fairly self explanatory.
Hope that helps
Geoff

Eddy Vandersteen has a tutorial on the EL Greco site that’s worth checking out.

Thank you all very much for your help

I'm also an oil painter,
Its taken a while but here's my take on flesh tones and it seems to work on most scales. Also it's fairly simple .
1.I undercoat in Humbrol sand. let it dry well I tend to go 24hrs as a minimum.
2.A heavy wash of Burnt umber. again 24 hrs to dry.
3.Dry Brush Naples yellow
This gives your basic hi and lowlights
4.additional areas in either, Burnt Sienna,raw umber , white, Burnt umber or a mix. ie cheeks Burnt sienna and a red of some sort.
5. then eyes lips hair.

I use to have a slightly more complicated version of the above but found this worked as well and is more consistent.


HTH and gives some food for thought.


Chris

Chris when you say dry brush do you do this all over the face or just over where your going to put highlights? And after each section you leave it to dry out? Would you do eyes in acrylics as was suggested?

what are the best brushes to use for oils and what sizes ???

Geoff that was really very helpful and well could I in touch with you ?




Note not many are in English but the techniques are fairly self explanatory.
Hope that helps
Geoff[/quote]

After priming with a very cheap primer (Halfords or Action) I let it dry for 24 hours.
then a basecoat with acrylic all around, eyes etc.
Then I start with the acrylic base coat and lighten that up with some white.
Painting the eyeball and let it dry. Then a very small dark line under the upper eyelid (burnt umber) and the under eyelid with burntumber + white.
After drying a paint a small black half circle leaving a very small white line at the underside.
If this is dry I paint a color (blue, blue grey, green or brown) for the iris. If that's dry and it is not a bust (cant paint a pupil into that small area) i paint a black dot into the middle of the iris. If there is space enough i do a very small dot of white for the catchlight.
After drying i make a wash of red and white and do a small dot into the corners of the eye. When all is dry i do a coat of highgloss varnish up the whole eyeball.

Then I start painting with the oils.
My palette: Skintone from Shminke, burnt sienna, prussian or french blue to kill the warm tone, brown madder alizaron, magenta and white.

Mixing the skintone and burnt sienna till i get a satisfied light brown skintone. If the color is to warm for me i mix in a very small amount of blue. Not to much otherwise you get a grey.
I paint it on the face and avoid that nothing comes into the eyeball. Also painting the upper and under eyelid. I paint as thin as possible. If its not enough I do it over again the next day.
Then I start shading and highlighting. Shading is with the brown madder alizaron and small amounts of magente. The magenta is on the cheeks, ears, nosepoint.
Highlighting is with white.
All is done wet in wet.
After drying you can do some points over again. The first step must be done with a great contrast between dark and light. Within 24 hours you have the half off contrast.

Good luck.

Marc

Marc thank you so much for that and your time to write I really do appreciate that..

Hey,
I dry brush over the complete face with the Naples yellow , I then mix the Naples yellow with white and do another pass and keep going getting lighter and lighter to and almost pure white. Also I do eyes in Humbrol enamels.Just to be different HTH.

That sounds interesting Chris thank you