Hey folks!
This guide will be about a process I tend to use for painting faces on mostly Warhammer models. Goal of my tutorials is to showcase the process to achieve the highest reasonable level, but nothing stops you from tweaking or removing some steps to better suit your own goals. Towards the end I'll show an example using a simpler approach for more of a "tabletop standard".
The obvious caveat of face painting: you have to have a certain level of brush and paint control to do such tiny details, so guide won't focus on the fundamentals. There will also be plenty of "eyeball mixing" going on, and I honestly find it inevitable to achieve nice skin tones.
Worth mentioning is that I always use paper towel to wipe of the excess paint off the brush before applications, especially for thinner consistencies, and twisting it while doing so should bring it to a nice point.
Apart from the obvious skin and eyes, I also touch on additional details and effects like hair, stubble, 5 o'clock shadows, scars, "warpaint".
I can't possibly cover all possible skin tone types, but you can achieve whatever you'd like by simply switching some of the colors or washes used.
Few examples of skin tones on Tempestus Scions heads.
And finished models, for good measure and some context.
With prelude out of the way, lets proceed to the actual step-by-step. Steps used for specific head are marked as a), b), c).
Colors used.
0. Tutorial bits, good old Primaris Astartes and Adepta Sororita. Primed with brown.
1. Basecoats.
Lighter colors will usually have poorer coverage, keep the layers thin and do a few, if needed. Be patient, let each one dry completely, so to not peel any wet paint off and create undesired rough spots.
Skin:
a) Catachan Flesh. b) Beige Red. c) Heavy Warmgrey + Off White 2:1.
Referred to as "base skin color" in the future.
Referred to as "base skin color" in the future.
Hair:
a), b) German Grey.
Brief explanation about shading & highlighting of hair will be in step 13.
I've also blocked in all the surrounding details with black (easier and makes more sense to do at step 4).
1.2. c) Go back and forth between stubble mix and base tone to establish a hair line, stippling with thin paint works best as it gives the texture and doesn't take as much effort as glazing would. Do some stippling with base skin color on the stubble too for some texture.
1.3. c) Stipple/glaze the back of the head with darker grey (pure Dark Sea Green here, you may want to go darker depending on the base skin tone) for some shadows. Stubble effect itself is pretty much done at this point, you won't need to highlight it further, but some optional glazing can be done later.
2. Wash.
a) Nuln Oil + Reikland Fleshshade (about 2:1).
b) Reikland Fleshshade.
c) Reikland Fleshshade + a bit of medium. Thing to note about the stubble - wash itself won't affect it too much if you apply it as a very thin film, so work fast and brush away any excess.
3. Recess touch ups.
a) Rhinox Hide + a bit of black.b), c) Rhinox mixed into the base skin color.
Thin the mix down into a "wash" consistency (note: process itself is NOT a wash, but a controlled application with removing the excess paint from the brush) and apply it into the deepest recesses and areas wash from step 2 didn't affect much.
On b) & c) I've also done an additional darker pass into deepest recesses.
Now it's also time to mention female faces and difficulties they pose. In my example, Sisters' heads are noticeably smaller (pictures are sized "to scale") than Space Marines, which is an obvious difficulty level increase. Then, to not make faces rough and wrinkly, the transitions and detail needs to be done as smoothly as possible, which, combined with the basic miniature painting requirement of artificially boosting the contrast and exaggerating details, creates a difficulty to achieve a fine balance there.
GW's new sculpts are really good and lend themselves for different approaches, as is hopefully seen in my efforts.
4. Fill in the eyes, outline the face (so any armour or clothing bits, sculpted hairline, etc.)
a) Rhinox Hide + black (done at step 3).b) Rhinox Hide + base skin color darker mix (eyes), Rhinox Hide (outline).
c) Rhinox Hide.
5. Eyes.
I usually do eyes and mouths at this stage. I'm not afraid that I will mess it all up with later work on the skin, but you might prefer to do it after that.Process I use for painting eyes:
5.1. Fill in the eye shape with Off White. Go back and forth with dark brown if needed.
For b) I've used Off White + a tiny bit of base skin tone.
5.2. Dot in the pupil with dark brown (or dark *insert color*, I just find there's no discernible difference at such scale between eye colors. Sister's eyes were done with Incubi Darkness). Proportion of the white/pupil/white, if model is looking straight, should be about 30/40/30 - small pupil usually looks comical.
5.3. White dot for the pupil glint. Optional, but it adds that extra... spark and makes eyes more readable if done right.
General tips/notes:
Paint consistency is rather thin for everything, as it's crucial that paint flows freely from the brush and you aren't fighting it. It will take practice and experimentation to find what works best for you. A little drying retarder in mixes might help with flow and control, for example.
It's crucial to find a stable pose - I rest and brace my hands together on the table. I'm also short-sighted, so, to a degree, can see what I do, but recently started to consider getting magnifying glasses.
Useful thing to do is turn the head upside down to check for symmetry - it can also be easier to do one of the eyes upside down, depending on the sculpt.
All stages, mostly glint, can take a few tries to get it right, so no need to worry or get frustrated if mistakes happen. Everything can be corrected.
And, perfect eyes is, in a way, apex miniature painting, so obviously don't expect to be awesome at it on the first try.
6. Bringing back the base skin tone. Base skin color.
Go over all the raised details, for flat surfaces thin it more and glaze it towards the what-should-be highlighted areas.
On Sister a darker line under the right eye appeared after the wash - not sure why, but, instead of covering it, I've decided to exaggerate it as a cut or scar.
7. First highlight stage. "Highlight color" mixed into the base skin color.
a) Ice Yellow.
b), c) Off White.
Aim is to hit all the raised surfaces and features of the faces. I mainly use light "dotting"/stippling motions for this, since I have more control over that than continous strokes.
8. Second highlight stage. Lighter mix.
Same process, but covering less area. Wasn't done on c).
9. Optional glazes. A mix of base skin color, Rhinox Hide and Mephiston Red, thinned very heavily to almost "colored water" consistency.
Apply that towards shadows on cheeks, lips, any scars or near bionic details, some patches here and there. One coat on some areas will be fine, on others you might want to do a few. DON'T overdo this, be very careful. It's easy to add another layer, if needed, but taking it back pretty much involves re-paiting the area again.
10. Final skin highlight. Lightest mix.
Dots on sharpest features - top of the forehead, eyebrows, tip of the nose, lips, chin, you get the idea.
11. Optional 5 o'clock shadow glazes.
Similar thing as step 9, but red is swapped for a) German Grey; c) Dark Sea Green.
Applied towards the bottom of the face, so that pigment from the brushstroke gathers there. Also done on shaved sides on a). 1-2 coats is usually enough to give visual suggestion of a stubble.
12. Optional "warpaint". Mephiston Red.
Inspired by Emperor's Spears artwork. Some lines freehanded with thinned paint. If needed, re-highlight the skin.Out of fear of ruining the piece, I've only did the chin strips.
13. Hair.
a) Highlighted as dots with Dark Sea Green, Cold Grey.b) Washed with Nuln Oil. After that it was pretty much on-the-fly (failed) experiment to create kind of purplish black hair. Highlighted with German Grey + Purple + Off White mixes in a few stages.
Not all hair texture and strands are sculpted, so some were freehanded during highlighting.
14. With rest of details painted, we are done.
Additional angles.
"Tabletop level" bonus, as promised in the beginning.
It was done with drybrushing and washes only (and, well, basecoats). Couldn't help but to do the eyes (left the glints out, though).
Skin was basecoated with Vallejo Beige Red + a bit of Tan, drybrushed with Beige Red and mixes of BR + Off White (2 stages), then washed with Reikland Fleshshade. You could stop there, but nice thing about washes/shades is that you can apply them as glazes, so I've boosted the shadows a bit again with Reikland, and then more precisely with Agrax (eyes, mouth, face outline). I also used some AP Red Tone, mixed with Agrax, to glaze around the scar, service stud, lower lip and some shadow areas. After all that I gave the skin a final precise "drybrush" (use a normal old size 2-ish brush and don't remove as much paint, and just gently "glance" over the raised details).
Without the eyes, something like this can be painted relatively quickly (~15 minutes for everything, including hair and metal) and will look decent from the distance.
This tutorial took a while and was harder to do than I expected. I've underestimated how tiny Adepta Sorotitas heads are, the one I've used here was actually a second attempt.
Also, everything just looks that much sharper and unforgiving on up close photos than I can see in real life with my natural vision, so I hope you appreciate that fact, and also me not taking any shortcuts and showing everything as close and crisp as my camera setup allowed.
Thanks for scrolling this far down and reading the guide, hope you'll find it useful.
Keep painting and have fun!