Hi All,

Here is the other article kindly provided by Allan Yong on painting faces following his recent, excellent Figure Painting tutorial (July 8th). Its an article written by Jaume Ortiz. Unfortunately I have not come across the link though so Jaume Ortiz article is reproduced below:

PAINTING FACES WITH ACRYLICS by Jaume Ortiz Forns

Once prepared the figure, I painted it with an enamel layer Clear Grey of Tamiya (Primer). This allows tome to work over a base that accepts well the acrylic paint. Simultaneously, that shows
any failure in the putty one or the sand papering.

79th Cameron Highlanders Officer (Latorre Models 54mm)

I use an aluminium trowel with ten cups to prepare all the ascents of light and shades whereupon I'm going to work. This allows me to work by zones and power to advance and back down in the highlighting and shading process.

I use Red Leather as base colour, Basic Skin tone to clarify it and Burnt Cadmium Red to darken it.

In the trowel, I prepare a cup with the base colour, another one with the chosen colour to highlight and another one with the darker colour. Then I prepare five ascents of light and two intermediate shadows. I apply the base colour on two or three very diluted layers not to cover detail . When the base coat is dry I applied an intermediate light, second or third one, to the most prominent zones of the face, chin, bridge and fins of the nose, forehead, cheekbones and superior lip.

Then, I paint a first shadow to the inferior lip, under the cheekbones, sides of nose, under the chin and river basins of the eyes.

Now, I return to highlight over the first applied light with the Basic Skin tone, but taking less space than in the previous process.

I repeat the same operation when shading, with Burnt Cadmium Red, in the sunk zones of the shaded ones previously.

Now, I have the face "drawn", with all its characteristics defined. But the union between the different tones is evident and sharp.

I try to fill up the unions between lights, between shades and between lights and shades, with the intermediate tones that I have not even used.

Taking advantage of the transparency properties that diluted acrylics have, I superimpose several thin layers of intermediate colours until create a gradation between tones.

If I'm wrong with some tone, I can always rectify since I have all tones available in the trowel simultaneously.

I do it on a side of the face first. When finished, I copy the effect in the other side. Also I paint details like lips, eyes, hair, chin strap and ears.

When I finish this stage, the face usually is enough good, but it's lack of personality. Some details that confer strength to the facial expression. I'm used to darken some zones like underneath the chin and nose and eye hollows with Cadmium Maroon. Also I paint face's adjacent zones, like cap and the neck of jacket to see if contrast applied is enough or excessive.

Vallejo Model Colour
Red Leather 818
Basic Skintone 815
Burnt Cadmium Red 814
Cadmium Marron 859

Thanks Allan & CK.

Cheers :)

thanks for the article..
so anybody else got the book by jaume ortiz??