Painting new eyes on a figure. Any tips?

[Darth_Cain]

I have a head I am repainting in it's entirety, and I am close to working on the eyes. Anyone have any ideas to paint eyes that look respectable? It seems that people either crush eyes when they are painted and they look amazing or (no offense) it looks like a child might have done it. I have white of the eye filled in. Happy with that mostly. But now I am on the the iris and pupil. I was thinking toothpicks might be a good approach, any others? I don't want to redo this 30 times and cake on more and more paint rendering the sculpted area for the eye moot.

Thanks.

 

[YAK_Chewie]

Eyes are always a struggle to paint.

I try and use the thinnest brush that I can and an ever so small touch of paint on the tip and carefully touch the center of the eye with it.

:wink:

 

[Jodo]

I have be thinking about doing this too, but how does everyone remove the original paint?

 

[darthvlad]

I used toothpicks when I needed to do eyes on my droids during the last Yakfinites. As a method, toothpicks work decently. They're stiffer than a brush and that's a plus, but you have to have steady hands and great eye-coordination otherwise you'll end up having to re-do it. What I did was use the paint left on the lid from shaking, dip the tip in the paint, and a quick test blot on newpaper or a napkin to get rid of the excess pain so that the pupil is a small dot and not a large, asymmetrical blob.

 

[darthvlad]

I have be thinking about doing this too, but how does everyone remove the original paint?

I used my exacto to scrape off the paint. Takes time, but worked pretty well. If scraping doesn't get it all off, then a light coat of white (or whatever color the person/creature's eyeball is) does the trick.

 

[Evilivo]

For paint removal - some acetone or other organic solvent, like nail polish remover or similar. With a toothpick with very smal piece of cotton wrapped around it. For painting - what darthvlad said, toothpick dipped in a small drop of paint or a very thin paintbrush.
I also saw this technique a long time ago and use it a lot, where you first colour the whole eye black and then paint white, but not bright white, more like skull white or such and you leave a thin black line not covered with the white for the eyelashes. And then you paint the pupils, layer by layer.

 

[Darth_Cain]

Thanks for all of the input. I just made my second attempt and, aside from a little touching up, it turned out pretty well. Attempt 1 was...not good. I was able to recover and then took the toothpick technique and went one step further. I took an exact knife and sharpened the end of the toothpick even more so, making the point for the eye smaller. Really pleased with the results of it. I would share, but I want to complete the custom first before doing so.

So, if anyone else reads this I would add to sharpen the end of the toothpick to even more of a finer point. Dab in a little black, do a couple practice trials and go for it.

 

[Utinniii]

Painting is not my forte, but I often use a pin for very fine details.