Figure Painting Tutorial

[Greif8]

I did a small Step-by-Step (SBS) in my SE-5a build thread in the "In Progress" section for painting the leather coats of the two figures I plan to display in that build.  That sparked some interest and I got several requests to do a tutorial on how I paint figures, so here we are.  

 

A couple of caveats before I get started.  I am not a master class figure painter.  My stuff is decent and some folks think I am good enough to do a tutorial, but I am not the "cat's meow" when it comes to figure painting.  Second, the techniques I am going to go through in this thread are those that I use, some much more than others.  There are many techniques and media to paint good figures that work just as well as what I will highlight; the trick is to find those you like and that work for you.  Finally, this will be a long running thread and I will likely post in spurts as time allows.  So - lets get to it.

 

This first series of posts will cover painting a figure's face as this is by far the most important part of a figure.  Faces tend to draw the viewer's attention first; they then begin to see the rest of the figure and the model.  Most people who have viewed one of my displays containing models I have built comment on the figures first - specifically the figure's face, before saying anything about the model.  As with the aircraft, and other models we build, the tools we use to paint figures are important to the final product's quality; they are just behind our skill level in determining how good the end result is.

 

I use artist oils to paint the flesh areas of figures nearly 100% of the time.  For years I used Winsor&Newton (W&N) oil paints exclusively, and still do frequently; however, I started using Abteilung 502 oils a couple of years ago and now use them for the majority of my flesh painting.  Winsor&Newton oils are very high quality oil paints with very fine pigments and a huge selection of colors.  They mix and cover well, are easy to use and a tube lasts forever.  But they also take a long time - 4 to 7 days to dry without a drying box and 2 to 3 days when on is used.  Abteilung 502 oils do everything the W&N oils do, but dry in 25% of the time it takes the W&N oils.

 

Brushes are the next tool that goes a long way towards determining both how enjoyable figure painting - especially painting a figure's face - and how good the final result is.  If you are serious about getting good results do not skimp here.  I have a set of Winsor&Newton Series 7 Kolinski brushes ranging in size from 00 - 3, all pointer types.  The only job those brushes do is laying down oil paints on figure's faces.  They cost a bit, but I have taken good care of them and they are still going strong nearly 10 years, and at least 150 figure faces, later. 

 

Below are the paints and brushes I talked about above.  I use the colors shown to create a wide variety of skin tones.  Not every color is used each time, some of them are only sparingly used in fact.  You can also see the bottle of white spirits I use to clean my brushes during a session.   

  

This close up shows the W&N paints I use to mix many different skin tones.  When used with one or more of the other colors shown to their right above you can mix any skin tone.

 

 

 

These are the Abteilung 502 paints from their flesh set.  Like the W&N oils, I use these colors to mix any tone I need.  

 

Below are the two types of oils laid out on a piece of cardboard.  Letting your oil paints sit on cardboard for 7-10 minutes leeches a lot of the linseed oil from them resulting in faster drying times.  The Abteilung 502 oils have dryed overnight in many cases after letting them sit on cardboard.  You can also see that the W&N oils (the lower oils) contain much more linseed oil than the Abteilung 502 oils.

 

The paints transferred to a palette and mixed.  The W&N oils are on the left and the three colors used to create the deep tan flesh tone are the ones to the right of the leftmost dark color which is Raw Umber.  The others are left to right - Burnt Sienna, Gold Ochre and Titanium White.  Those three colors alone can be used to mix a large variety of tones; Burnt Sienna and Gold Ochre are mixed in fairly equal parts and the Titanium White is added in small quantities until you get the tone you want.  The colors on the right side of the palette are the Abteilung oils.  The ones used to get the skin tone you can see below them are the three colors immediately to the right of the leftmost dark color which is Shadow Brown; those three colors are: Flesh Shadow, Sunny Flesh Tone and Basic Flesh Tone.  As with the W&N oils I can mix about any tone I want from those three colors. Flesh Shadow and Sunny Flesh Tone are mixed in roughly equal parts and the Basic Flesh Tone is added little by little until I get the tone I want.         

 

Below I have mixed the deep shadows, intermediate shadows, intermediate highlights and light highlights.   For the W&N oils Raw Umber has been mixed with seperate blobs of the base skin tone to create the shadows.  Titanium White has been used in the same way to create the highlights.  Be careful that you do not use too much of the Raw Umber or Titanium White as they will very quickly darken or lighten the color - use small quantities until you get the tone you want.  The Abteilung 502 shadows were made using the same process using the Shadow Brown color and the highlights were made using the Light Flesh color.  You can see I have kept the contrasts fairly strong.  On 1/32 or 1/35 scale figures they need to be as the area is so small that if the colors are not strongly delinated they will disappear when viewed at normal distance.

 

Pretty long post, so I'll stop here.

 

Ernest 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Greif8

[Greif8]

Using the oils in the above post you can create an endless variety of skin tones.  The heads below show just a few of the possibilities.  The left most head is finished and the two on the right are still works in progress.  Note the different skin tones which are noticable even in this fairly poor photo (sorry for that!)

 

This shot of the finished figure of "Pips" Priller shows the figure with a tan as if he had just returned to the cockpit from the French Riviera!  I gave his hair a slicked back gel look that was popular then as well.  The tones of all four faces were mixed using the colors I showed in the first post.

  

Good faces require a good casting.  Casting or molding imprefections can be corrected on a figure's uniform or equipment - on the face not so much.  I buy good quality figures for this reason.  Below are three heads that are excellently cast and that will make painting them enjoyable and a bit less challenging.  I have cleaned them prior to priming.

 

And here they are primed.  I always airbrush both the primer coat and the acrylic base flesh coat to enusre I get the smoothest surface possible.  I used Mr. Surfacer 1500 black because I want a warm base tone to start with.  If you want a cold tone, for example for a figure set in a winter scene where the skin has a more "waxy" shade use white or light grey primer. 

   

I use Tamiya XF-15 Flesh for the acrylic base color for all my figures.  Coupled with a good primer it has always been "bullet proof" for me.  I thin the paint with Mr. Leveling Thinner, but Tamiya Lacquer thinner works just as well, at the same ratio I do when airbrushing base coats on a model.  You can see that the base is smooth.  You can also see that I sprayed the coverage slightly differently for each head.  This well give the heads slightly different tones/hues when painted with the same oil base.

 

Ok, I'll let these cure overnight and we'll get to painting tomorrow.

 

Ernest

Edited December 27, 2022 by Greif8

[Stokey Pete]

Excellent topic Ernest. One I’ve often pondered in order to attempt to improve my figure work. This may well become one of my go to articles from how deep you’re tackling the subject so far. Thank you. 

[Greif8]

I realized that the three heads that I am using for this SBS are 1/35 scale, which is fine.  But I decided to use two of the 1/32 scale heads that I have already painted to have two LSP scale figure heads in the SBS.  

 

Here are the two 1/32 scale heads.  I am going to redo everything on both except for the eyes.  I have already laid in a base coat of the Abteilung 502 (A502) oils.  You can see that the hue of the "flesh" is slightly different on each figure.  This is due to the undercoat and is desirable as no two people's skin ever has exactly the same tone and hue.

 

Below is the first 1/35 scale head that will be used in this SBS.  I have laid in the base flesh color with the A502 mix I made.  This head, and the other two as well, are 3d printed.  They look a bit rough in the macros, but you will see that from a distance of about 10 cm+ they look just fine. Note how this guy's skin color is ever so slightly different from the two above.

 

Jumping right to the most difficult thing in painting faces - the eyes.  This particular head is not squinting, so the eyes have to be done; the eyes of a figure that is squinting can be replicated very easily with a dark shadow.  I use the tip of a toothpick that I have broken to paint both the "whites" and the iris.  They are very good for this task as they are a bit rigid and the tip can hold a tiny amount of paint that you can place pretty accurately.  I have in fact laid in the "whites" of the eyes in the shot above.  Note here:  Never use pure white as that can very easily lead to the "pop eye" look.  I use a very light shade of the flesh tone for this job.

 

The irises have been painted.  You can see the left one is not perfect.  Before you decide to correct something like this take a look at the figure from about 25-30 cms away.  If the eyes, or eye looks fine, I always go with it.  No one has ever looked at my figures with an optivisor or magnifying glass, so if the eyes look ok from 25-30 cms away I am inclined to accept them and move on.

 

The below photo was taken from 15-20 cms away; see what I mean? 

 

Deep shadows are laid in and ready for blending.  The areas I have put the deep shadows in are generally where you want to place them.  I find that each head is slightly different and I might lengthen or shorten deep shadow lines depending on the creases of a particular figure's face.  Also note how stark the contrast is in the macro.  Once blended and viewed at normal range the contrast will look very subtle.

 

Blended.  I use a 00 or 000 pointer to do this by strippling lightly along the border between the shadow and base flesh.  Normally it only take a few very light passes to blend the paint.  If you overwork the blending you will end up with no contrast at all.  Less is more here, and if it looks too stark or ugly viewed through the optivisor or magnifier, look at it at normal range - you will often see that it looks just fine.  It takes practice to know when to stop and I recommend that you stop and look at the face from a distance after each pass or two while blending to avoid overworking the area.

 

A better photo of the above.

 

Intermediate shadows laid in.  I almost always put these in the hollows of the cheeks, under the lower lip, on the sides of the nose and alongside the deep shadows towards areas that will have lighter tones.

 

Blended.  Even at this fairly close range the effect is now much more subtle.

 

Intermediate highlights laid in.  You can easily see where I place these in the photo.

 

Blended with the shades the intermediate highlights come into contact with.  Sorry for the not so great photo.

 

Finally I have laid in the extreme highlights on the bridge of the nose, the point of the chin, the highest point of the forehead and on the very top of the muscles in the neck.

 

Blended.

 

A bit of rose color has been added to the lower lip and the cheek areas that tend to get a rosey shade on real people's faces.  This gives the face some nice warmth.  I have already blended the cheek areas, the lower lip does not need blending.

 

After this succession of macros you might be thinking, "Wow Ernest, the figure does not really look that good - in fact it looks like crap!" I agree, and again, one of the challenges in painting 1/35 or 1/32 scale faces is knowing when to stop the blending process.  A rule of thumb I follow is to stop when the face looks like it does in each of the photos.  I look at it from 25-30 cms away and assess my work.  If I need to make corrections or blend an area a bit more I do that and look at the figure again.  I think 25-30 cms away is about as close a most people are going to get to your work and IMHO if a figure looks good at that distance it is effective at what it is meant to do.  The photo below was taken at about 25 cms - I forgot to take a macro of after painting the eyebrows.

 

And this picture was taken about 40-45 cms away which is about as close a most people are going to get.

 

I'll let the head dry overnight and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow.  When painting with oil paints don't be worried if what you have just finished painting looks garish or worse.  While oils dry they tend to do a bit of self blending and what looks overdone or has overly stark transitions turns out to be very nice once dry.  I'll tackle one of the 1/32 scale heads tomorrow,

 

Ernest 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Greif8
Grammer

[Greif8]

Let's see how or subject looks after 12 hours in the drying box.

 

As you can see the oils have leveled out nicely as they dried and the transitions between shadows, base color and highlights now have a subtle contrast.  The subject is dry, but I usually let a figure painted with oils cure for another 8-12 hours in the drying box before considering ready.  You can also see that the subject's right eyebrow, the left one in the photo, needs a bit of touching up before it is ready for prime time.  By the way all the photos in this series were shot at a distance of 15 cms unless otherwise stated.

 

Eyebrow corrected by carefully overpainting some of the dark brown with the base flesh color.  This photo was taken at about 10cm range.  

 

A two light coats of a medium brown acrylic color have been applied for the hair.

 

After two dark brown washes of the darkened and diluted brown used for the hair.

 

Now I use a technique that is not much discussed today, pioneered by a master modeller that is also not much discussed today - Francois Verlinden - dry brushing.  I successively lighten the base color and apply three rounds of dry brushing to add more depth to the hair.

 

One

 

Two

 

Three

 

Done.  The subject is ready to be placed on a figure in the future.  compare the finished subject with the photo below this one that shows the subject right after the oil flesh base coat was applied.

 

I'll see if I can squeeze in some more figure work today, but my SE-5a build is frowning at me!

 

Ernest

Edited December 29, 2022 by Greif8

[mozart]

This is all excellent stuff Ernest, thank you so much for taking the time to photograph and demonstrate it all.  I agree 100% that with heads especially the quality and sharpness of the figure is key to it's final success, or not!  I have a ready supply of Hornet heads and hands which with I adapt some figures, I suspect we all have our favourite sculptors with whom we develop an empathy, I know I do.

[Neo]

Wow amazing, this should be pinned @Out2gtcha

[Greif8]

13 hours ago, mozart said:

This is all excellent stuff Ernest, thank you so much for taking the time to photograph and demonstrate it all.  I agree 100% that with heads especially the quality and sharpness of the figure is key to it's final success, or not!  I have a ready supply of Hornet heads and hands which with I adapt some figures, I suspect we all have our favourite sculptors with whom we develop an empathy, I know I do.

 

Thank you for the kind words!  I wish the lighting at my bench was better so that I could take better photos.  I have to assemble and disassemble my photo taking setup each time I use it and I just don't want to invest the effort to do that every day!  I really need to work on getting better lighting for photos at the bench though.  I completely agree with you that quality figures are absolutely required to get a good end result.  Hornet heads and hands are among the best IMHO; I also like Alpine and Legend products, though the Legend stuff is hard to get.  I do have my favorite casters/sculptors, Mike Good is one of them.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

7 hours ago, Neo said:

Wow amazing, this should be pinned @Out2gtcha

 

Thank you Neo, it is nice that you think I am doing the topic well enough that it should be pinned.  As I stated at the beginning of the thread, it will be long running - and I will be going through different techniques and media as it progresses.

 

Ernest

[ringleheim]

Regarding the comment about oil paint drying times...

 

You can add "Japan dryer" artist medium to any oil paint and it will dry quickly.

 

An easier solution that I use is to always squeeze out your paint onto an absorbent material, like cardboard, or an index card, and let it sit there for 10 minutes or so before trying to use.  All of the oils inside the tube will absorb into the medium and your oil paints will be dry in a few hours, definitely overnight.

 

Before I learned this trick, my oils (initially used for wood grain effects on WNW aircraft) would take AT LEAST ONE WEEK to dry!  There is no need to be waiting longer than "over night."

 

I have not yet read the tutorial here, but definitely WILL as figure painting is one mountain I want to climb, after quite few failed attempts! 

 

I have a large 1/9 Roman bust in resin that I need to take a crack at.

I will report back after I have absorbed the thread here!  

 

Thanks for doing this, Greif8!

 

 

[quang]

The thinner your paint coat, the faster it will dry. This is why I undercoat my figures with acrylic colours (Vallejo) before putting on the oils (W&N).

[Greif8]

On 1/1/2023 at 5:06 PM, ringleheim said:

Regarding the comment about oil paint drying times...

 

You can add "Japan dryer" artist medium to any oil paint and it will dry quickly.

 

An easier solution that I use is to always squeeze out your paint onto an absorbent material, like cardboard, or an index card, and let it sit there for 10 minutes or so before trying to use.  All of the oils inside the tube will absorb into the medium and your oil paints will be dry in a few hours, definitely overnight.

 

Before I learned this trick, my oils (initially used for wood grain effects on WNW aircraft) would take AT LEAST ONE WEEK to dry!  There is no need to be waiting longer than "over night."

 

I have not yet read the tutorial here, but definitely WILL as figure painting is one mountain I want to climb, after quite few failed attempts! 

 

I have a large 1/9 Roman bust in resin that I need to take a crack at.

I will report back after I have absorbed the thread here!  

 

Thanks for doing this, Greif8!

 

 

 

On 1/1/2023 at 5:16 PM, quang said:

The thinner your paint coat, the faster it will dry. This is why I undercoat my figures with acrylic colours (Vallejo) before putting on the oils (W&N).

 

Thank you for the comments and kind words guys!  

 

Ringleheim, I agree completely about letting the linseed oil bleed out of the oil paint before using it.  I actually mentioned this early in the tutorial, as it is something I always do.  This will be a long running thread - at least I plan for it to be - where I will cover different techniques in a step-by-step process.  Most of the time the oils do dry overnight, as I tend to apply them in thin layers and use a drying box that I made. 

 

Quang, I always undercoat figures with acrylic paints before applying oil paint.  I talk about this fairly early in my first post in this thread and discussed it in some detail when I did the step-by-step for painting the leather coats of the figures I will be dispalying in my "In Progress" build thread for the S.E.-5a.  I tend to use Lifecolor acrylics for this, but I also use Tamiya Acrylics; not a true water based acrylic, but I like the paint for several reasons.

 

Ernest

Edited January 3, 2023 by Greif8

[Greif8]

Following is another technique that can be used to paint faces.  This technique is the one I started with when I decided I wanted to get better at figure painting.  It is a bit easier to do than the one I use now, and I think it gives good solid results.  The other advantages to this technique is that you don't have to have the really good Kolinski brushes, or their equivilent, to get great results and the subject painted dries pretty quickly.  The main disadvantage is that this technique does not result in a more subtle blending effect.

 

Below is another 1/35 scale head.  The oil base coat has throughly dried and cured; important as the following technique uses oil washes.  Alternately, you can leave the subject with the acrylic base coat.  The brush in the photo is one of my synthetic brushes, a 3/0 as you can see.  I use a brush like this to lay in the oil washes and make minor adjustments as required.  

 

The face after a light wash using the dark shadow color that is shown at the beginning of this thread.

 

And after a second wash.  I dried the first wash for 45-50 seconds with a blow dryer.

 

After another short drying session, I applied a pin wash of the intermediate shadow that is shown at the beginning of the thread.

 

A have now added small dots of the lightest highlight color seen at the beginning of the thread; you can easily see where I have added the paint, especially if you can zoom the image.  Less is more here as you won't need very much paint to get the effect.  The brush is clean and dry - that is important - and will be used to blend the paint.  Starting at the highest point, the forehead, gently brush in a downward stroke once or twice just touching the surface.  Do this in each area that the highlight is added, make sure you use very light pressure and always brush in a downward motion.  This will blend the paint into the shadow areas and spread it slightly into the areas that have the base flesh color.

 

Blended.

 

Subject seen from 30 cms distance.

 

The eyes are laid in using the exact same technique with the fine tip of a broken toothpick.  The whites are done first.  This photo was taken from circa 10 cms away with a macro lens.  Note how "rough" the transitions are in the colors in this extreme close up and compare the look to the above photo.  As I have pointed out before, it takes practice to not be put off by how your work looks when zoomed in at high magnification.  If you eradicate the transitions so that they look smooth and nice at high magnification you will not have any transitions at all when viewed at normal viewing distance of 30-60 cms.

 

Blue irises have been added; this guy is going to have blond hair.

 

The following two photos were taken at circa 20 and 40 cms respectively.

 

Pink has been applied to the cheeks and lower lip exactly the way as in the first technique.

 

Seen from circa 30 cms distance after face is complete.

 

I used Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow for the blond hair painting just one thin coat.  I did this because the base color of the head meshes well with a blond hair tone.  You can see that there is still some decent shading.

 

I used a medium brown wash to enhance the shadow areas.

 

And then I dry brush 3 successively light layers of highlights.

 

The subject ready to go into the drying box for a few hours.  The paint drys very quickly using this technique.  I should be able to post a photo of the finished head in 3-4 hours.

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by Greif8
Spelling

[mozart]

Thank you Ernest for another invaluable lesson. I agree with a previous comment that this thread, this tutorial must be saved somewhere on the forum to be readily accessible to all when needed. 

[Greif8]

52 minutes ago, mozart said:

Thank you Ernest for another invaluable lesson. I agree with a previous comment that this thread, this tutorial must be saved somewhere on the forum to be readily accessible to all when needed. 

 

Thank you for the kind words Max!  I have posted the final few shots of this episode below.

 

Ernest