With over 11,600 page views (at the time writing) and even a translation to Dutch, John Pradarelli’s “John’s Painting Class III” has become one a quintessential reference for newcomers to figure face painting. We now have the pleasure to present it to you as a feature article, including the supplies, priming and basecoating sections specific to face painting.

Link to Painting a Face: Oils over Acrylic

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks John!

Rudi,
Great idea making this a feature.
Always helps to get good information out there for new members to see
Craig

Rudi:
My sincere thanks to John. I started on figures using Shep Paynes "Building Dioramas" book years ago and in just a few minutes reading John's article helped clear up alot of things I was doing wrong. The illistrations for his techniques were great.

Hi Craig,

Glad to do it, and about time I think. The words are all John's and it was a breeze to put together given his original plan. I find that although the article is indeed aimed at the newcomer, many of the tips to be found here are equally useful to those having been in the hobby a bit longer. Always good to have a refresher

Rudi

Hi Taylor,

A pleasure, and I'm sure John appreciates the thanks. Indeed the diagrams are of immense value.

I agree with you regarding the somewhat disconnect you may have had in reading Shep's figure painting chapter from the above book. I think the reason for that is largely because the chapter as it appears in Dioramas is basically an abbreviated summary of several chapters of his figures book - which is sadly OOP.

Anyway.... glad you found the article of use. So... when do we some of your figures then?

Rudi

I came to this article via another post, don't know how I missed it when published. It's very well explained and I'll be trying it out soon. Thanks Rudi for publishing it and of course to John for writing it

Hello John P. and Rudi

John: thank you for writing one of the best face painting tutorials I have seen to date. I think one of the best things about this tutorial is that some of the techniques displayed here lend themselves to various mediums, and not only oil. The diagrams featuring high and low lights are worth their weight in gold.

Rudi: nice job at putting the various forum posts together. Thanks for your hospitality during my visit. See you next year.

John

I know this is an old thread but was wondering which Winsor & Newton Oils were used, the Artist's grade or Winton student grade?

Hello Glueit,

To be honest with you, I have an arsenal of both artist grade and student grade Winsor & Newton paints. Not out of intention, but more a case of me just grabbing whatever I happened to pick at Michaels craft store. I'm not married to one grade over another.

I haven't done any extensive testing to determine the benefits of artist grade versus student grade in terms of figure painting. Frankly, I think both are acceptable.

The artist grade offers more color choices, and uses a higher level of pigmentation. Again, I don't think in what we do this wil be too much of an issue.

I hope this helps you in making your buying decisions.

John

Thanks for the reply. I knew that the artist grade offered a higher grade of pigmentation which i guess would not fade as fast as lower concentration of pigment. also the artist grade are a lot more money, but for figure painting it would go a long way as well as the student grade.
I have read your articeles pertainting to painting and have found them very useful. If you know of any other articles you can recommend i read let me know!
thanks

Although i have read this article in the past i have just gone through it again and enjoyed it, a very nicely done and informative article. Although i paint pradominately in acrylics i still think oils are best for flesh.

nice job John (and you Rudi for putting it together )

Steve

This was a great tutorial! I was never quite clear on the layering and blending process with oils, but this really cleared things up. The only change I would make is using a better sculpted head for the tutorial. Details are fairly muddy and he sort of has a "dock worker with downs syndrome" expression on his face.

Taesung Harmms heads and figures are amongst the best in the business. It's also important to view the head/face in context with the rest of the figure.

Oh yeah, he definitely does good work, it's just this head which I find a little lacking. Did he also sculpt the body, because the body seems to be really well done?

THANK YOU... just looking at some figures to "play with" so to speak and can get the clothing not too bad (possibly by shadows are too thick and too defined) but I had yet to tackle the heads. as they are just Tamiya kits the heads are already on the torso, but can try to follow this guide (have some oil paints already so hope to be able to get to use them "in anger"....