"I Do Not Paint Eye Balls in 15mm" Topic

I'll do a black line, that's it.

Just sayin'

I rarely even do them on 28mm. I just don't think they look natural.

At that scale it would be like looking at a person from a good 100 yards away, you're not really going to see much detail about the eyes. So why not just lines or even dots.

Myself just let a little darker wash fill in the facial features.

Me neither…. In fact when it looks good at arms length I stop…..

I think it makes it look like an army of Marty feldmans

Yeah it does!

anyone else see the humor in this topic coming from Cyclopeus?

I'd say most people can't do them in 28mm so yeah, good advice for the smaller scale.

I don't have OCD, I have OCE; Obsessive Compulsive Empowerment.

(and Bourbon, I have Bourbon, so forgive me if I ramble a bit)

I did a whole regiment of 15mm cavalry horses once, with white dots for the eyes, then brown pupils in the middle.

The whites of the eyes ended up a bit overdone, and it made every horse look pop-eyed, as if they had just been goosed.

Always paint them in 28mm (with difficulty) but not in 15mm.

@Tuscaloosa-Or charging wildly?

Wow, that's a lot of goosed horses.

I think that we are so used to seeing well painted figures that have been painted to be seen about ten time actual size on web sites and in books that a lot of us think we should paint eyes as well – or else we are somehow not doing it right. Personally, I live with that and never paint eyes.

I think it makes it look like an army of Marty feldmans

I have plenty of those from years ago.

I rarely even do them on 28mm. I just don't think they look natural.

Me too. They end up looking like Bug Eyed Monsters.
Nothing ruins a good paint job like bulging eyes.

Are those Flames of War Scots Greys? they seem to be charging hub to hub.

Just a little black dash of a thin line

The dip gives me my eyes

I do the eyes on me 3mm Napoleonics. Y'all are wimps.

I seem to be in a minority but I think figures without painted eyes look dead; although I can see people's point about 15mm.

I've only painted a few 18mm fantasy figures in this scale but they all get painted eyes.

In 28mm I always do eyes

link

28mm, yes. 15mm, nah.

Happy Little Trees
That looks like the scot's greys from the painting at Waterloo monument. The last time I was there was 1973.

Only done it a couple of times

I paint figures for wargames not for display, dioramas or some contest. Life is too short to paint eyes!

Only done it a couple of times

The one on the end, right – for eyes: well that's hardly fair :)

John T

I rarely pain eyes on 28mm minis. Only do that on dark-skinned folks, to be honest. Yes, even my Infinity minis:

please pardon the craptastic cellphone camera picture.

couldn't be bothered to do it on 15s, even for African-dark skin tones.

Though I guess I will have to paint eyes on all those Super Dungeon Explore chibis I got from the Relic Knights KS.

If they don't have eyes how do they see to fight?!

If they don't have eyes how do they see to fight?!

Where we're going, we won't need eyes!

But on a serious note, a 28mm mini at 3 feet distance is the same size as a 6' person 65 yards away (It's a simple trig problem). A 15mm mini at 3 feet is about the same size as a 6' person 150 yards away (depends on which '15mm' minis you're talking about).

You can't see eyes at those distances in real life, so why are you painting them?

Because even though they are 3 dimensional figures that have real shadows, I paint shadows on too.

I think one of the big problems with painting eyes on 15s is that so many of the figures have ill-defined eyes to start with.

I think that eyes give figures a lot more life.

Demonworld figures had ridiculous detail.
This is a Thain character I painted up to be a vampire countess:

Here is a Rebel Z hunter and 2 zeds I did a while back. The eyes on the hunter are just okay, but I still prefer it to nothing. I think that white eyes of the zeds help distinguish them from car accident survivors… :-)

I don't paint eyes on 28mm models.

If I can't see them from 4' away, I don't paint them.

I don't even bother painting more than hair/flesh on a 15mm model.

I quit painting in the eyes in 28 a while ago too.

Here are some of my first 15mm guys. I was using a lot of black lining then and the whole battalion turned out way too dark, but I kind of like the faces in a sort of cubist sense.

This was the 'Nose and U' format, adjusted to fit the individual sculpt. I'd do these again, if I was working in bulk like you do with Soviet infantry.

I don't paint eyes on most of my 25/28s. (Certainly not on 15s). On some "special" 25s I put a white line and a black dot, then paint over the top and bottom of it with flesh, then shade with brown ink. By that time there is merely the hint of an eye left !

I'm afraid I don't, as I said here, do eyes in 15mm figures TMP link

After some detail is painted on (webbing, rifles, different coloured bits of kit etc) they get dipped

But no actual eyes beyond what is supplied by Mr Army Painter…

John T