Jon Smith Modellbau Lewis Gunner - Painting the Face

Well this has been a blast. Something I really like about the painting stage is the opportunity to try out new things but also to learn from past mistakes and these two things have been brought to bear here. Previously I've worked at making my face painting more realistic but have felt disappointed with the introduction of reds, which often made faces look too artificial. There are plenty of complexions which include a lot of red and pink, especially in the cold, but the more I looked the more I felt that in many instances complexions don't need that much red or pink. With this in mind I set about building on the lessons learned in the past while avoiding reds, and especially avoiding dark reds.

The head for our Lewis gunner includes a number of different elements which add interesting complications, including the Feldmutze which has piping, a colour band and the two cockades. He also has a moustache, a notably uneven haircut at the back (I don't imagine the Feldwebel would have approved) and of course a pair of glasses. I'll be building the glasses at another time so I'm just going to concentrate upon the head here.

The head was primed in black at the same time as the rest of the kit, so the next step was the base colour for the field cap. I've really struggled with the correct greys for this kit but for the hat I settled on an equal mix of 866 Grey Green and 338 Highlight German I (Feldgrau). This gives a slightly greenish grey effect which seemed reasonable to me.

With this done I set about using 820 Off-white as a background for the eyes and for the various reds since red, like yellow, has opacity issues and is best backed up with white. The images above and below show the stage before I did a rough stripe for the piping. This was done rough because my chances of being able to produce a convincingly sharp line freehand the first time around were almost nil, so I decided to use a technique in which the mistakes are back filled with the base colour, allowing the production of a better finish.

For the band and the piping I used 947 Red, which is quite bright, but then the originals were pretty bright too. I used a number 10 brush for the piping and then corrected any errors with the field grey of the hat, giving an effect which seems to work.

For the field grey I used a mix of the base colour with Burnt Umber for the lowlights, and the base colour with Sunny Skin Tone for the highlights. I've agonised over the colours for the darker and lighter shades for grey base colours and have done a lot of reading around on the subject, as well as a great deal of experimentation and observation. These mixes appear to work and they were applied very heavily thinned in order to allow for the colours to blend as washes.

The cockades were done with the same method as the piping, with a rough base and then back filling the other colours. Even then it was a challenge but we got there in the end. I've used the Hessian colours of red and white for the lower cockade, since our chap is supposed to come from the 117th Hessian regiment, a unit with a very long history indeed.

For the face I started with several layers of the mix of 860 Medium Flesh and 835 Salmon Rose which I used on the B-17 gunner. This produces a realistic flesh tone, to which I added 815 Basic Skintone as a highlight in several very thin layers on high points such as the bridge of the nose, the tops of the cheeks, etc. For lowlights I used the base mix plus 876 Brown Sand rather than the red I've used in the past and again this was applied as a wash using a number 10 brush in selected areas. For the five o'clock shadow I used the base mix and a much smaller amount of 869 Basalt Grey than I've used previously. Again thinning was very heavy but the result is much more subtle and realistic than previous attempts. The hair, eye brows and moustache were done with 872 Chocolate Brown and for this the black primer helped to add depth. I added Brown Sand to the mix for a dry brush of the top layers of hair in order to give some variety to the colours. I also straightened up the hairline at the back.

The irises were done with 964 Field Blue. I would normally do these looking to the side but the kit includes indentations for the irises so I stuck with these. Finally I used a wash of heavily thinned 926 Red for the lips and for the eyes, notably the areas around the tear ducts, etc. This gives the piece much more realism without the sense of overdoing it which I've had with previous attempts at painting faces.

This has been a huge amount of fun and next will come the intriguing prospect of making his glasses. I'm more happy with this piece of face painting than with any previous effort and if anything the photos don't really do the final effect justice. It's good to be making progress with something which has been a stumbling block in the past.

Zigerastica