"The eyes have it " Topic

I've been casting Prince August "Traditional Toy Soldiers" for a little while now and they have been quite challenging in some ways – unlike anything else I've painted. They demand a different more toy like approach than my usual wargaming figures.

I've been trying to work out how to do eyes for these fellas and I think I've finally cracked it.

You can see a couple of the options here.

link

Have some of those molds but haven't fooled with them yet:( Nice job :)

Those Gloucestershire figures are Britains, but re-painted by Col. Bath. A trawl of the Web will turn up some original Britains paint jobs, where the eyes are less glarey-starey.

you defintely have to go toy soldier style with them. I think the white part of the eyes is a non-starter. Black dot, but very carefully placed, is the only thing that works. Red cheeks is optional, but a nice touch if really pushing the toy soldier effect.

I paint mine with black dots/lines for the eyes on white/caucasian flesh and a small amount of white/black line for darker flesh.

I don't really like the surprised look!

Mike

There's a nice toy soldier painting tutorial and history of how the old makers did it on the Irregular Miniatures site under their Deutsche Homage 42mm range. It makes interesting reading, and it helped me decide how I wanted to do the faces on my STS Mexican American War faces.

Many years ago I cast up a Prussian corps and a British corps using Prince August 25 mm molds. Probably around 500-600 figures each corps including inf/cav/arty. Plain figures but at just a few cents a figure…