Painting glass lenses on miniatures

[Dashetal]

Help! What premade paint type product best represents glass lenses on minis? I just want something simple one coat to get lenses done on several figures.

[Elbows]

I just use a stand-out colour and do one highlight swipe - then hit them with gloss finish. 



Turqoise on the lense, a lighter colour slapped on the top of the lense, and then gloss over the top.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Help! What premade paint type product best represents glass lenses on minis? I just want something simple one coat to get lenses done on several figures.

Simple glasses, goggles or glass lenses on a robot?   I think they are all different.......

[Michi]

I just use a stand-out colour and do one highlight swipe - then hit them with gloss finish. 



Turqoise on the lense, a lighter colour slapped on the top of the lense, and then gloss over the top.

I do it vice versa: The lighter tone on the bottom half (colour doesn't matter, it's always the same technique) and a white dot for light source reflection on the top half:

[Cubs]

If you mean spectacles, I usually just paint a slightly distorted version of the person's eye, as you would normally see.

[Dashetal]

I am referring to standard eyeglass lenses for humans. Baraka who makes Rif war figures for the 1920s has several with eyeglasses. Sunglasses were not invented until 1929 so its just regular eyeglasses.

[Fitz]

Sunglasses were not invented until 1929 so its just regular eyeglasses.

Perhaps you're referring to a particular brand or type of sunglasses, but people were wearing green glasses against the glare in the 19th century, and even earlier than that. Sunglasses were being advertised by that name in America by 1895.

[Dashetal]

txs Fitz you made me search further on the internet for the history. I discovered commercially modern sunglasses were sold in 1929 by Foster Grant which my first research was not clear about. Sunglasses have appeared to have been around for centuries in several variants, so my first research info was flawed. And now I know what color to paint them, green. Solved.

[FifteensAway]

Not certain, but I believe the 'first' 'sunglasses' were very thin bits of shell, maybe mother-of-pearl.  And that goes back deep into antiquity.

[FramFramson]

A term to look for in searches for similar early eye protection is "smoked glasses", as opposed to sunglasses or sun-glasses.

[FramFramson]

As for the original question in the thread, my technique is similar to Cubs' albeit greatly simplified. I paint the lens a matching flesh tone (easy enough when you're painting the head anyway), dab in a simplified eye without any white, and then rim the lens with white and add a reflective dot. Any more complex and it starts to become a muddle that doesn't read well from a distance, at least not with the skills available to me.

A couple examples:





In the second shot, it's hard to see in the photo, but the frame (basically the nose bridge and the... handles? Whatever those bits are called that go over the ears) were painted metallic rather than white. In theory I could have tried to paint the outer edge of the lens discs silver as well while keeping the white rim on the front, but the hell with that! Looks fine as is, IMO.

[Condottiere]

txs Fitz you made me search further on the internet for the history. I discovered commercially modern sunglasses were sold in 1929 by Foster Grant which my first research was not clear about. Sunglasses have appeared to have been around for centuries in several variants, so my first research info was flawed. And now I know what color to paint them, green. Solved.

Found this Arizona Ghostriders' Youtube video: