How do you folks paint eyes?

[robartes]

These days I seldom do eyes on my miniatures. As I paint to get units on the wargames table, doing the eyes is not worth it really - I subscribe to the 'you don't see eyes when you scale up the distances' theory.

However, when I do paint eyes, even back when I used to agonise hours over each individual figure's paintjob, I kept them very simple: horizontal stripe in off white, vertical stripe in black, and that's all. The trick, as with all painting, is to get the consistency of your paint right (for this kind of detail work, it needs to be bit thicker than for normal painting): it needs to flow smoothly of your brush but not be too thin to run into the sculpted detail.

Another tip which was touched upon a bit higher in the thread is to start, after the horizontal stripes are done, with the black stripe for the 'difficult' eye. That's the eye on the figure that matches your 'handedness'. I'm left handed, so for me it's the figure's left eye. The reason it's more difficult is that you need to reach 'across the nose' with your brush and that makes it harder to position the pupil accurately. The reason you do this first is that it is easier to match up the 'easy' eye's pupil position to the difficult one than the other way around.

Way back when, I did a blog post on this too:

http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000024.html

CU

Bart

[mondria]

sometimes I do most of the time not

I find this tutorial a great help

http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=2512&p=22888#p22888

[Doomhippie]

I'm not really an army painter as I prefer the skirmish style games. That means each model is an individual and as such I do paint eyes if possible at all. I find eyes add a lot to the character of a model. I try to go for upside down black triangle for the iris making sure it connects to the upper eye lid.

[Orctrader]

To be entirely fair, some of the Marty Feldman type eyes are due to the sculpting. 

Some of my favourite sculptors “do” eyes as protruding.  Personally, I remove these during the prepping stage.  Unless it is a Fantasy Figure.  I’m assured that Goblins, for example, do actually have eyes like Marty Feldman. 

[Wraith]

OP here.
"Most" of the minis I have painted in the past were in mass for wargaming, and I never painted the eyes.
Lately though, I have been painting characters for RPGing and after looking at some of the paintjobs on this board with painted eyes, it does make them pop.
Thats why I want to get good at it for my character minis, I just havent mastered it yet. When I get time, i will be looking at the tutorials that some have posted in this thread.
Thanks guys!

Wraith.

[SamuraiSeapig]

I also don't paint eyes. I think a bad eye paintjob looks FAR worse then no eyes at all.

Besides, all my guys are steely eyed, with their eyes slitted in intensity. I just add some extra ink.

[magokiron]

As I came from a "massed fantasy armies" background, I get used to just shadow the eyesockets.

For most of my minis, a dark shade of the skin color works perfectly, as the eyes are not seen once the mini is on the tabletop anyway.

But for some character figures, if I "feel the mood" I'll panit the eyes, no matter how long it takes.

Anyhow, I use the simple method of painting all the socket a darker than skin color (for humans dark brown or black), then a thiny white or ivory strip a little larger than needed, and a black dot in the appropriate position (usually the center of the eye, but sometimes you want your figure to look sideways). After that, I "trim" the upper part of the eye with the same dark color, to simulate the upper eyelid, thus minimizing the "bug eye" syndrome.

Hope that helps.

[widgren]

-shade socket
-white eyeball. use a good sized brush with a good tip. i use a size 2 for this. dilute the paint 1:1 with water
-let dry
-use marker to paint slit/dot/whatever on white

this works for me

[Photographer]

I don't bother. It makes the figure look silly.