To copy a detail on a figure, you can use latex mold material, which can be bought at most hobby and craft stores. It comes in a bottle, and you apply it with a brush as follows:
First, clean the area to be copied thoroughly. Make sure that you get all dust and other foreign material off of it, then give it a light coat of mold release agent (also available at most hobby and craft stores). Then brush on in several thin layers the latex mold material until you have a thickness that will retain its shape, but will still be flexible, as you will have to bend the mold backwards to release the final detail that you make in it. To make your new detail part, use either liquid metal or two-part epoxy putty (not the kind that comes in two strips, use the kind that comes in two cans and is about the consistency of pancake batter [the type used by model aircraft builders, not the type used for sculpting]). Make sure that your mold is completely hardened before you remove it from the figure that you are copying from. To make your new detail(s), first paint the inside of the mold with mold release agent, then fill it with either of the materials above, making sure that there are no air bubbles, and that the mold is completely full. As the material will shrink slightly, you should just overfill the mold a small amount. When your detail part is hardened, remove it from the mold, clean it up with hobby knives and jeweler's files, then wash it very well to get rid of all of the mold release agent. Now all you have to do is affix your new detail to whatever figure you are converting, this can be done with either superglue or two-part epoxy, depending on the size. That's all there is to it, it's not really very hard if you are just patient with it and take your time, some of the steps can be very slow, because you're waiting on materials to dry, but it's well worth the effort to have a unique model.
You should always protective-coat all of your models. To do this, first spray with a light coat of gloss lacquer (varnish), then overspray this with a light coat of dull (matte finish) lacquer. Never, I repeat never use matte medium as a varnish, it is meant to be used for mixing acrylic paints, not as a varnish, even though some brands claim that it can be used for this. Also, never just use a matte varnish alone, as it is not hard enough to protects your models by itself.
What I use is Krylon Crystal Clear with an overspray of Testor's Dulcote, always remember when spraying varnishes that the first coat must be a very, very light one, so that you don't damage all that nice paint work you've done, spray several light coats, not one heavy one.
Method 1
This is the easiest method for painting eyes and faces, I will not be using
specific colors in the description, as colors are race-specific and also subjective.
First Step: Make sure the area of the face to be painted is primer coated white (a black primer coat gives a sickly greyish cast), as this will give the clearest and best results. Even if the finished face will be dark (example: Black Orcs), still use white as a primer coat.
Second Step: Choose a medium shade of the skin color you are using, (this will be your base color) and paint the full face. Make sure to only put on a thin coat, so that you don't obscure any detail.
Third Step: Deep Shadowing. Make a very dark shade of your base skin color and shadow in the eye sockets, along the edge of the sides of the nose, under the nose, under the lower lip, around the hairline, in the deepest hollows of the cheeks, under the chin where the neck and head comes together, inside the ears, behind and under the ears.
Fourth Step:
Take a lighter shading color, make it into a wash (make sure to use some matte medium in all your washes), now wash over the face, blending the shadowed areas with the lighter skin color (always use small amounts of the wash color on your brush, and don't allow it to puddle up).Fifth Step: Take your finest brush, paint in the eyeballs white, try to make sure that both eyes are the same size and shape, and try to make sure that you don't get them too large. Take your finest brush, get just a very small amount of the color you wish to use for the pupils on it, now dot in the pupils, trying to make sure that they are centered in the eye. Now take your deepest shadowing color, and paint the eyelid so that it just clips off the top of the pupil so that the eyes do not look pop-eyed.
Sixth Step: (This step can be skipped if you don't think you have enough painting experience for it.) Now it is time to start highlighting. Highlights should go along the top of the nose, the upper lip, the forehead, and along the jaw line and cheekbones. Start with a color just slightly lighter than your base skin color, and work inward with ever-lighter shades until you are satisfied with the highlight.
Seventh Step: Paint the eyebrows and hair a base hair color, wash it with a darker color, being careful not to get any on the face, now drybrush the hair with a lighter hair color.
There are many more details that you can add to a face, such as painting the inside of a mouth with a very dark color and drybrushing the teeth with Bone White or other appropriate color. The steps above will give a presentable face without being too hard for a beginning painter. For the beginners out there, you can always leave out painting the eyeballs until you have more experience, and just shadow in the eye sockets. One of the best tips I can give you is to study paintings and photographs of real faces to understand what light does to a face; this is what we are trying to recreate on our figures. The method above is called The Wash and Highlight Method. There is another method called Layer Painting, which will give spectacular results, but is much harder to do, and only for very experienced painters. If people wish, I will go into layer painting at a later date for the more experienced painters.
Here's some practice exercises for your airbrush that I hope will help: Take a piece of Ruled paper (notebook paper will do), pin it to a piece of cardboard, and practice with different air and paint flow settings until you can paint straight lines inside the rulings with even edges (no feathering). Make sure that your paint is at a consistency that will flow through your nozzle without splattering and/or chalking (premature drying before it hits the surface).
Take a white sheet of poster board or just plain old cardboard as long as it's white, practice painting circles, and other designs until you can do them consistently, try to make sharp edges on these designs.
For this exercise, use your paint cup, it's much easier, as you will be changing colors often. Try practicing painting a color, and then feathering a contrasting color over it, so that they seem to fade together.
When painting, use your airbrush held like a pen, and always try to keep your speed consistent. Always start your pass before the item you want to paint, and end it after the area, unless you are doing it for a special effect, never start spraying directly on a model (to do camouflage and designs, you have to start on the model, but otherwise it's best to start off of it).
Practice different effects that you want by manipulating your air and paint flow while painting, but do this on cardboard first, not on your models.
This is the basics, from this point on it is just practice, practice, practice.
One more thing though, if you can use a compressor with a tank, or a tank of CO2 (carbon dioxide), use a pressure regulator set between 20 and 25 psi for most painting, you can play with this for special effects also.
A book that is a good training tool is the one written by Vargus.
When mixing wash coats of paint, add in some matte medium (a good one is made by Windsor and Newton, and is sold wherever artists' acrylics are sold, and Graumbacher also makes a good one), this keeps your paint from breaking up. When painting on the wash, use only small amounts of paint in your brush at a time, and don't let it puddle up.
When painting highlights, work your way gradually from your base color in ever lighter stages, with each highlight being smaller than the one before, try to make sure that they blend together evenly from one stage to the next. Use yellow for lightening green; use white for blues; orange, then yellow for reds. To darken red, use dark brown, never black. To shadow whites, use either a cream brown or a blue-grey, depending on the effect you want (the cream brown will give a slightly dirty look, the blue-grey will give a very clean look), white can be brightened by adding just a drop of Ultramarine Blue. Try not to use too many different colors when mixing paints, as, if you do, you will get a muddy look.
Always start painting your models with a medium color, halfway between the shadows and the highlights effects you want.
When you purchase a new paintbrush, get the best that you can afford; a good paintbrush will outlast ten cheap paintbrushes. When cleaning your brush, use a mild dish detergent, and wipe it on a pad of paper towels until it is clean, do not pinch your brush between the towels to clean it, as you will break the bristles. Instead, put it against the pad of towels and twirl it, do this over and over until there is no paint remaining in it. When the brush is clean, before you store it, take a drop of detergent, wet the bristles of your brush, and if it is a round brush, shape it into a point, if a flat brush, reshape it to where all the bristles are standing together smooth and even. Always make sure to clean all paint of the ferrule and stem of the brush (handle). Store your brushes standing bristle end up in a cup or jar so that their tips will not be damaged.
Rule Number One:
ALWAYS be careful with hobby knives.When using a hobby knife to score a straight line, take a #11 blade and break off the tip, this will make it go straighter, and always use a metal straight edge. Make several light passes with the knife instead of trying to cut all the way on one cut.
Save your dull blades and use them for scraping off mold lines, just always go back to a sharp blade before doing any cutting. If you have any heavy cutting to do, change to one of the heavier blades. The #11 blade is meant for delicate detail work, and not for heavy cutting, if you put too much pressure on it, it will break. Before putting your knife away after using, clean it thoroughly and wipe the blade with a very light oil; this will keep it from rusting.
If you plan to cut figures and models apart to do modifications, use a razor saw or a jeweler saw, knives are not meant for this kind of work.
When you cut a model into two parts, you will need to get the joint area smooth and flat to be able to glue them together again. To do this, take a thick piece of glass and attach your sandpaper to it, then sand the two pieces by rubbing the area to be sanded back and forth across the sandpaper. This will give you a smooth, flat surface. It is always a good idea when gluing two parts of a figure or model together, to drill a hole in each part at the same place just large enough for a piece of brass wire to be fitted into it and glued, pinning the two pieces together.
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© 1997 Thomas Setzer
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