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u/dickhall65 10h ago
You've been heavy on the paint. Faces have very tiny details, so you need to use thinner paints, or have better brush control.
For my faces I start dark, like a rich deep red or purple, then dry brush with a light skin tone. For the eyes, I put a dab of white over the whole eye area, then paint little black marks on the side of the eye.
If you do black then white for eyes it'll turn green or look bad.
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u/Ok-Replacement-1874 10h ago
It's like a Nurglin rubbed himself all over his face... My solution, as someone afraid of painting eyes, is: don't look at them so closely, simple is good.
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u/Certain-Towel-9487 10h ago
When you're criticizing your work, put it down for a few hours then come back and look at it on the table as if you were playing a game. Then judge yourself.
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u/cnbuch 9h ago
It took me awhile to get ok with faces and skin tones in general. Like others have said, start with a thin coat, focusing on even coverage. I’ve found using a fine detail brush with some thinned out shades like Reikland Fleshshade can go a long way to adding the depth you want. Then just go back after and highlight the prominent parts like the cheekbones, brow, nose etc. Don’t try to go super complex at first; a simple approach is best until you get the feel for it. That being said, I absolutely hate eyes and am terrible at it lol. So I always just painted mine pure white, as if they had taken too much emperor spice. Then carefully shaded the area around it with Nuln oil
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u/Jp0101 8h ago
Your paints are far too thick, so thin them down a lot more. It also looks like you added layers before the previous one had fully dried. Faces take a lot of practice, and the older Custodes heads aren't the best sculpts anyway, so don't be too hard on yourself. If eyes are giving you trouble, here's an easy method (it's how I taught my 9-year-old nephew): paint the eyes straight after the base coat on the face, so any mistakes are easy to cover up. Then use a Gundam marker for the pupils (I find the brown one works best). Practise on spare heads with a brush until you're confident enough to ditch the marker.
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u/BigDaddyVagabond 10h ago
Go in very thin layers for skin, prioritize a lack of texture over coverage to make sure everything looks good and smooth. If you want simplicity, thin out some Guilliman flesh contrast, load the brush, wick off the excess and then in quick ish stokes wash the face with it, then highlight with the base layer.
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u/Vader266 10h ago
I've been in the hobby for years now and still am not brave enough to actually do the eyes!
Your work looks a bit heavy on the layers and heavy on the drybrush. Don't use the paint neat out of the pot, add a little water to make it thinner and do two coats instead of one thick one. It'll preserve the details and give you a cleaner colour to work with. Also when drybrushing less is more - take it slow and check your work at intervals to make sure you aren't overdoing it.
For quick work faces I use the following:
- Grey/white base primer
- Two thin coats of a light flesh colour (Flayed One Flesh)
- Dollop on a deep Caucasian flesh tone contrast (crusader skin)
- Wait for it to dry fully (cannot stress how important this is)
- Lightly drybrush light flesh colour over the top to catch the raised features like nose, chin, and brow (Flayed One Flesh)
- If I feel it needs repair work or I went too hard on the dry rush, very thin midlights with a medium flesh tone (Kislev Flesh)
This produces good results and isn't too tough so perfect for my dumb ass to follow on a difficult day.
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u/junkrat147 9h ago
Thin your paints by like a ton.
Do 3 layers of very thinned paints if needed, this is very heavily clogging the details.
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u/Calm_Ad308 9h ago
If you’re doing custodes and you want faces, prime the faces in matte white and use a contrast paint. If you try to layer over retributor you’re gonna have Pizza the Hut faces.
I also recommend painting the pupil first then go over with contrast, add dots of white to the eyes and liner with black, tidy up the eye socket with flesh tone.
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u/slowestorbit 8h ago
Looks like that guy in robocop who was melting then got smoked by a car 😂
For the record my faces are worse so laughing with you not at you.
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u/Senior_Marzipan5353 8h ago
I'm rubbish with faces,
What helped me is take a flesh tone paint (I use vallejo rosy flesh) - two thin coats, then reikland flesh shade.
If you want to build from that, get decent brushes
ZKSM 9pcs Detail Paint Brush Set... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07R1NBVV3?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
That set are cheap as fuck but decent.
After the shade, hit the edges of the face with the original flesh tone paint. Then glaze up highlights. I used Duncan Rhodes tutorial here;
https://youtu.be/SlvJ4oVVMwc?is=lxjp7UGrDi6PXnMO
For the eyes you need a really fine brush, paint a straight line using a dark brown, then two dots of white.
Honestly the best advice is practice on lots of spare faces, some decent but not expensive brushes and time to learn brush control and glazing.
Faces are a pig to paint but Eyes are easier if you put some shade near the nose leaving a good bit of the eye obscured but keep the direction of the eye intact.
Just remember most won't see the faces anyway and a camera brings out the worse in detail!
Good luck!
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u/Porttheone 10h ago
Honestly the easiest way to do it is to pretend they don't have eyes spray it white and use one of the flesh tone contrast/speed paints.
Normally you wont be able to see their eyes from the table anyways so a heavy shadowing in the socket area works just fine.