Man ,is this difficult for me or what? Does everybody put up with a "flesh" colored face and exposed arms and legs on these guys? Is there a technique to make the faces look more realistic> I add an eye or some lips and it looks like my soldier is going on a date! Thanks for any response
[

As the old story goes, the visitor to New York asks the local, "how do I get to Carnegie Hall?" He is told, "Practice, practice, practice."

Do you know any figure painters near you who could mentor you in the practice of painting faces? This would be the quickest route to inmprovement.

What I do is put a base coat of burnt sienna and white, roughly matching my own skin color. When this has dried, I apply a coat of thinned burnt sienna so most of the color stays in the folds and creases and only tints the forhead and cheeks. After this has dried, I mix burnt sienna and white again and just hit the highlights in progessively lighter shades. In 1/35-54mm, lips should be very subtle, maybe just the slightest addition of red or Alizarin Crimson to the highlight color. Depending on the scuplting, eyes may just be a tiny drop of thinned Van Dyke Brown, so it flows and leaves a squinty look, or if the socket is very defined, you could add the lightest shade of highlight color, but not pure white, then a tiny, tiny, spot of dark color (black, van dyke brown, Prussian blue, etc) for the pupil/iris. You may need to go back with various levels of highlight , base or shadow to further define this.

Of all the challenges of figure painting, getting the face right is probably the greatest.

I am also a beginner at figure painting and have gone one step further than just plain flesh coloured faces, but not as far as some of the more experienced guys.

I am using acrylics for my faces, and do a base coat of the basic flesh colour and when it's dry I do a wash with diluted acrylic ink which picks out the detail quite nicely. After the wash is dry I lighten up the basic flesh colour with a LITTLE white, and paint on the raised sections of the face, then lighten a little more and pick out the highest points (nose, chin etc). I do the same thing on the hands too.

So you can see I only have 4 shades including the wash, and I don't yet pick out the eyes but it's a big improvement on the basic face and it's something to work on.

Good luck, and as has been said before.... Practice, practice, practice.

Roger

Mark Bannerman has an excellent article on painting faces on the Missing links webpage. Look in the articles section, then in figures for a full list of painting tips.
Here is the direct link to his article "8 steps to painting 1/35 faces"
http://www.missing-lynx.com/articles/figures/mbheads/mbheads.htm

A couple of things I have learned, usually the hard way, but sometimes I follow the advice of the masters.

1. paint the face first, usually.
2. paint it with a base of white acrylics first, then use a mix of burnt sienna and white to make the flesh tones. Practice... then practice some more. There really is an art and a science to it. I have completely wiped the paint off of a face and started over 3 or 4 times.
3. You can do it. There are lots of ariticles on it. Am I as good at it as most of these guys?? No... but my figures look realistic when I am done, at least to me. I am learning to mix oils... etc. It is a challenge, but worth the work.
4. Use acylics as a base... over the entire figure. The use oils to shade and weather.

My 2 cents.

There is an article on painting a figure using acrylics in the lastest edition of Fine Scale Modeler. The figure in this article is bigger than 1:35 scale but principles of painting are basically the same. There is a step-by-step on painting the face with some good photos too.

outremer, sorry but this has nothing to do with your question, but I notice you are using the Royal Engineers motto. Do you have any links?
Mal

I am also a beginner. I paint my faces like this. They are not perfect but don't look to bad and it's very easy.

1 Paint face with #1170 flat lite tan testors small bottle. This is the flesh tone I use.
2 paint the eye sockets with testors skin light tone #2001 enamel
3sharpen a tooth pick and draw a vertical line through the middle of the eye socket or to one side if you want him to be looking off the side.
4 Trim in the eyes with #1170
5 Mix up burnt sienna craft paint with 5 parts or so of acrylic thinner and wash the face with it but keep it out of the eyes. Don't thin it too much or you will loose control over the wash and get it in the eyes.
6 Drybrush with a small brush using #1170 hitting hit points of the face.
7Lighten the #1170 with white and drybrush again very lightly hitting highpoints of the face.
8 Paint the eyebrows using burnt umber craft paint and a toothpick.

This method works pretty good to get you to the point that your guys look presentable enough to not throw them away and they won't look like they are going on a date. You just have to mess around until you find what works for ya. #:-)


Also you can mix up a really nice flesh color using White, Yellow Ochre, and Burnt Sienna