Vanguard Vets (WIP) Update 9 - Face Painting

Really close to complete now.  Almost all colors have been shaded and highlighted.  What is left is lettering on the various scrolls, and the face on one of the two alternate sergeants.  Saving the hardest parts for last.

While I have painted a few faces before, looking back they were fine for my skill level at the time, but in the past few years I feel I've really improved a lot.  For this attempt, I was going to follow Darren Latham's technique.  I've used his contrast paint technique for a face before, but this would be the first time with conventional paint.

Starting Point: 4 or so coats of Bugman's Glow

With these zoomed in images, I can tell that I'm still not quite on the high level that I see from other hobbyists/professionals online, but I do see improvement from my own work in the past.  One thing that stands out though is the bumpiness - I think this is the spray primer which continues to disappoint, but when I look at the models in person they look much better.

Basic highlights added

I found Darren's instructions really detailed and easy to follow and I'm really pleased with the results.  Below I have the basic steps and paints for my own reference.  I don't typically work with paints thinned down to washes so much, especially since it tends to pond/pool, but after watching his work and trying this out, I think I've actually made a breakthrough in how to control the watery paint and draw it off if its ponding.

Basic shading added

The model itself has really extremely exaggerated cheekbones, more so than the primaris space marine head that Darren used, so I used deeper shading, but otherwise I mostly followed his instructions (from his youtube video) directly.  Also, this miniature has barred teeth, so I used some Zandri Dust and Screaming Skull and it worked great (I felt white would be too much).  I used white ink for the first time and it is a lot better than white paint.  

Color glazes and final highlights added

The model seems to have one eye open and one eye closed (or the primer obscured the detail), and the open eye seems to have a deep scowl so you can only see the side of the eyeball.  Thus, I decided that, after the step to black out the eye, I just needed to put a dot of white on the side of the eyeball, and use the existing black to create the iris.  Since the narrowed eye and the direction he would be looking would mean you wouldn't see the white on the other side of the iris, it massively simplified the hardest steps of painting the eyes.  I think it turned out great, especially when viewed in person.  With my magnifying glasses, I can tell it still isn't quite perfect, but overall I'm really happy my first time trying this technique out, it worked much, much better than the methods I had pieced together before.

Final details: eyes, teeth, etc added

This time I skipped adding stubble/ 5o'clock shadow.  Either the sculpt has scaring on the left side of the face (in shadow here) or the primer/finish kinda messed up the details, but either way I decided trying to go for the stubble wouldn't turn out.  Maybe next time.  Looking forward to trying this again and using darker shades to vary the skin tone.

Finally, here's the whole troop (just before painting the face):