Wednesday, 21 October 2009

The Eye's have it


I've completed finishing and basing the second unit of Carthaginian Levy (above), these are minis mass-painted by Greg, and detailed and based by myself.  This time I spent an extra 15 minutes on painting in the eyes.


After listening to the comments on the previous unit, I decided to go with as small a white dot as I could manage, and then to apply a dark ink in the eye socket and up to the brim of the helmet.  The left element (above) is from the new unit; the right is from the the original.  I'm pleased with the effect when viewed from a distance.  I feel that the "new" eyes are quite effective, from a distance; so I gave the unit an appropriate stantard!


I'm going to leave the remaining Numidian foot until reinforcements arrive from Paris, and sort the cavalry.  The above 24 minis will roughly double the size of my Numidian horse.  I was lucky enough to purchase 9 part-painted on eBay which has given me a head start!

4 comments:

Andrew said...

I like the eye experimentation. I've recently given up on spending lots of time on eyes. Now I just do a wash, letting the darker color fill in the recesses. Of course, some models have their eye balls sculpted so big that I have to paint some white in there, BlackTree for instance.

BigRedBat said...

Hi Andrew,

I agree about the bigger eyes; you get them on some Foundry, too. They are better with whites and an iris.

BTW I enjoy your RedRampant site! You paint, then, too?

The Doc said...

I agree with you, the white eyes do look better. I've done the same with some Spartans. Of course their helmets sit a bit lower on their heads than on these miniatures, but it does look better and gives the face a better definition.

AJ (Allan) Wright said...

The look good. I try to keep my whites from being too round and make the pupil/iris a bit larger.

Here's a page I refer too from time to time when I get away from what I like: http://www.paintingclinic.com/clinic/eyes.htm