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Step 8Until you see the whites of their eyes
Though not as critical as the iris, the whites of a set of eyes are important to providing realism. First of all, the white of an eye isn't really completely white. Depending on the person it may have a red tint from irritation, drugs or alcohol abuse, it might have a slightly bluish tinge from certain hormone levels or enzymes present in the body, it might be yellow from decreased liver function and excessive bilirubin as in IV drug users with liver disease, or they may have a brownish tinge with green and gray spots if they are a zombie. In most cases the whites of eyes will also have at least some blood vessels present.
-Carefully and quickly put on a base coat of white acrylic paint. Thinner paint will run together hiding brush strokes but will require more coats. Thicker paint will have better coverage but may end up not giving a smooth finish. For the base coat a consistency about equal to 2% milk is pretty good. Be careful not to get it on the iris as it will wick up into your iris and possibly mess up a lot of work and make you say words that will get put on your permanent record.
-Using the hair dryer to speed drying will make this go quicker. The seam in my bolo hair bows were a pain. They kept wicking up the paint. I finally applied undiluted paint to the seam and then sanded it smooth filling in the crack. Once this was done I continued to apply several coats of white acrylic paint.
[edit] Discovered a better way to get the whites looking even more realistic and it makes them even easier to achieve good results.
-Once the white acrylic base is dry, lightly sand any brush strokes. You don't need to be too fanatical about it though.
I bought a bottle of white nail polish, real high dollar stuff it was $3.98. It has high solids and dries very quickly. Having high solids it covers a multitude of sins (and brush strokes and lines and oops etc...)
-Cut short sections of red yarn, about 3 inches or around 8 centimeters, its not critical. Then pull the sections of yarn apart. Now start picking these apart until you have 15 or so strands separated.
-Apply the white nail polish liberally from iris to the bottom of the eye, working your way round the eye as you go.
-By the time I get all the way round the eye the polish I applied is already starting to set. A little extra and some careful blending gives a surface that is beautifully smooth.
-Now working quickly I embed the strands into the wet nail polish, then using care and trying to make it look like webs of blood vessels I placed it against the wet polish. I helped the strands into place using the pointed end of my sharpened paint brush. bringing the strands together like the branching of a tree when possible.
-A little blood red nail polish applied to the lower parts of the "tree" shapes helps with realism and depth.
-Now using a disposable container I mix a few drops of white, a few drops of the semi-transparent opalescent yellowish color and a fair amount of clear. My goal was to cause the "blood vessels" appear to be just visible in the surface of the white of the eye when they are small and the larger capillaries to be more visible.
-I allowed this to dry, then successive coats of clear polish help to embed the fibers into the surface of the white of the eye.
*(a special not here, I tried using an enamel meant for model cars in one of the trial and error sessions which didn't work out, it didn't work well at all, the clear acrylic nail polish and following top coat caused the enamel to get a crackle finish which looked like... Ahem.) The pictures will be updated as soon as I can get hold of the camera again, my own camera is ancient and produces terrible quality pics.
-Carefully and quickly put on a base coat of white acrylic paint. Thinner paint will run together hiding brush strokes but will require more coats. Thicker paint will have better coverage but may end up not giving a smooth finish. For the base coat a consistency about equal to 2% milk is pretty good. Be careful not to get it on the iris as it will wick up into your iris and possibly mess up a lot of work and make you say words that will get put on your permanent record.
-Using the hair dryer to speed drying will make this go quicker. The seam in my bolo hair bows were a pain. They kept wicking up the paint. I finally applied undiluted paint to the seam and then sanded it smooth filling in the crack. Once this was done I continued to apply several coats of white acrylic paint.
[edit] Discovered a better way to get the whites looking even more realistic and it makes them even easier to achieve good results.
-Once the white acrylic base is dry, lightly sand any brush strokes. You don't need to be too fanatical about it though.
I bought a bottle of white nail polish, real high dollar stuff it was $3.98. It has high solids and dries very quickly. Having high solids it covers a multitude of sins (and brush strokes and lines and oops etc...)
-Cut short sections of red yarn, about 3 inches or around 8 centimeters, its not critical. Then pull the sections of yarn apart. Now start picking these apart until you have 15 or so strands separated.
-Apply the white nail polish liberally from iris to the bottom of the eye, working your way round the eye as you go.
-By the time I get all the way round the eye the polish I applied is already starting to set. A little extra and some careful blending gives a surface that is beautifully smooth.
-Now working quickly I embed the strands into the wet nail polish, then using care and trying to make it look like webs of blood vessels I placed it against the wet polish. I helped the strands into place using the pointed end of my sharpened paint brush. bringing the strands together like the branching of a tree when possible.
-A little blood red nail polish applied to the lower parts of the "tree" shapes helps with realism and depth.
-Now using a disposable container I mix a few drops of white, a few drops of the semi-transparent opalescent yellowish color and a fair amount of clear. My goal was to cause the "blood vessels" appear to be just visible in the surface of the white of the eye when they are small and the larger capillaries to be more visible.
-I allowed this to dry, then successive coats of clear polish help to embed the fibers into the surface of the white of the eye.
*(a special not here, I tried using an enamel meant for model cars in one of the trial and error sessions which didn't work out, it didn't work well at all, the clear acrylic nail polish and following top coat caused the enamel to get a crackle finish which looked like... Ahem.) The pictures will be updated as soon as I can get hold of the camera again, my own camera is ancient and produces terrible quality pics.
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