Elminiaturista is here to teach us how to paint faces, and with a little effort from this tutorial, your miniatures will be awesome!
Elminiaturista has some amazing hobby content and if you need some sweet painting tips, you should follow him to get up on all your painting and conversion techniques! They also have a great Patreon where you can get one-on-one coaching to get even better!
This time around he paints up an amazing-looking face, that will take your minis to the next level. Let’s get into the tutorial!
How to Paint Faces: Elminiaturista Tutorial
Here’s the head we’re starting with, nothing fancy but a greatly sculpted face! He recommends painting the heads separately as it will make it much easier.
Step 1:
He starts with Dark Red and Beige Red and throws them down on a palette. He mixes them together about 50/50 then does a base coat on the whole thing. Next, he puts white into an airbrush and hits it from above. Once dry he goes to a lighter skin tone and uses that to cover the white, again from the airbrush.
Step 2:
Next, he puts Guilliman Flesh in the airbrush and shoots from below to build up the shadows.
Step 3:
Once dry, he switches to a good brush with size 1. This will allow you to get the detail you need. He then fills in the eyes and teeth with white. Just be very careful here. Next, take some blue, or whatever color you want it to be, and do little dots in the eyes.
After that, he makes a violet wash, from oil paints and thinner, but you can buy your own premade wash here. He then goes over the entire head (except the hair) with the wash. Make sure to not let it pull in any one spot. Then he comes back with a make-up brush to take off the excess.
Step 4:
For the hair, he goes with a lighter beige tone than the skin was painted with and hits all the hair. He then goes to a lighter color (ivory or off-white) and does lines down the hair pulling from the front. Giving depth to the hair. He then breaks out the Aggaros Dunes contrast paint and covers all the hair with it.
Finishing Touches:
To finish it off, he puts the head on the mini and adds some glowing green near the earpiece. This is done with a base coat of Green Ink followed by a highlight of Fluorescent Green. There you have it, an awesome face!
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
