Post by Chris Wright on Oct 23, 2015 12:42:06 GMT -5
Don’t paint so you see the whites of their eyes!
Look, there are a thousand different ways to paint a little toy race-car driver. How you do it is totally up to you. But are you getting the results you want? Even though I make and sell little men, as far as finishing them, I get them looking the way I want…sometimes….
There IS something I’m going for, though, and as I build and paint the figures I offer to you, the modeler, I stumble upon “IT” now and again, but have yet to be able to achieve “IT” reliably and predictably. There are some things I have learned in previous lives, though, that I think could be of value to you the modeler. Warning: I will be dropping names.
“A model is just a shape to hang paint on.” - Allen Coulter
As much as it pains me to admit it, being a purveyor of what I like to think are reasonably detailed models with recognizable likenesses, my old boss and old friend Al had a point. The finish coat, the paint, is what is actually reflecting light to the viewer’s eye. Paint can save a bad sculpture, or ruin a good one. No pressure though!
“Don’t use black primer under skin tones. Red-terra-cotta undertone.” - Rick Baker
Okay, I’m the one advising you to steer away from black primer, not my longtime employer Rick Baker (Star Wars, American Werewolf in London, Men in Black, and a lot of brilliance in-between).
Rick Baker, as far as I know, has never warned anyone away from using black primer. He might never have heard of such a bizarre idea, and might ask “Why the hell would you want to do that?” In Rick’s early days of making rubber over-the head masks, he used a dark red undertone which gave his masks a depth and liveliness that no one had really ever seen before. He advanced the art of rubber masks from dead chalky blobs to vibrant lively characters. I think it’s advantageous to apply this bit of wisdom to painting little race-drivers. Over the red primer use a base, a shadow, and a highlight color for flesh-tones. The fine points of this I’m still sorting out. I’m no Rick Baker.
“Draw (paint) what you see, not what you think you see.” - Jay Harder
My taskmaster in art school, Jay Harder was not averse to shooing you out of your seat and rubbing out all your work. It was maddening, but in Jay Harder’s painting and drawing dojo we learned through pain. The single most enduring piece of advice from Dr. Harder was “Draw what you see, not what you THINK you see.” When you sit back and consider this, it’s actually hugely important. Which leads us to…
“Don’t paint so you see the whites of their eyes!” - Marc Tyler
I cant tell you how often I’ve seen it, black dots swimming in blobs of white. The cardinal sin of the figure painter! Look at photos, observe life! Hold up some white paper against the white of your own eye in a mirror. The white of your eye is not white. The whites of eyes are shadowed by the brows. THERE IS NO SPECTRAL WHITE IN THE HUMAN FACE! Okay, there are catch-lights, highlights in the eyes, but not something you can practically depict at 1:32 or 1:24 scale.
Don’t paint so you see the whites of their eyes!
