Transcription
In today's video, we will be painting a 3D printed 1/3 scale Catwoman portrait, featuring how to paint skin tones, how to paint eyes, lips, and makeup for a beautiful female face.
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Okay, so in today's project, we're going to be working on Catwoman. This is a 1/3 scale head sculpt, and uh, the first step going in is we're going to be hitting her with some primer in prep for paint. And for that, I'm going in with the Stynylrez primer, uh, the same that I always use when I'm working on skin tones. So, being that we have, uh, her beautiful face right here, we're going to go in and use the skin tone primer just to base the entire model before paint.
All right, and here's how she's looking after the Stynylrez primer. Uh, one of the reasons why I like to use this primer, it's a great base for skin tone. So, from here, we're going to continue to work on her skin tones, uh, go in, do a little bit of shading, highlighting, maybe some freckle work, and, uh, get her all painted up. Uh, after the skin is finished, I'll get that masked off and start working on the cowl, but, uh, yeah, we're going to continue working on the skin tones from here.
Okay, and here's how Catwoman is looking after primer. Uh, the next step is I'm going to go in and start adding some highlights. For that, I'm going to be using Vallejo's Fair Flesh tone set. So, the first round of highlights are going to be very subtle, just to bring out some of the high points. And for that, we're going in with some Vallejo Natural Flesh along with Vallejo's Highlight Skin. Uh, these two mixed together, roughly 75% Natural Flesh to about, actually, sorry, the other way around. Uh, roughly, I get the focus, uh, roughly 75% Highlight Skin to roughly 25% of the Natural Flesh, just to, uh, tint it a little bit. And that'll be our first round of highlights. And after that, we can get back to, uh, doing some shading.
As far as the shading and highlight goes for the face, because she is a female, I want to keep everything on the softer side. This way, it's not too, too, uh, harsh and dramatic looking. So, we're going to keep all of the highlights, as well as the shading, especially the shading, very subtle. So, uh, first round, as mentioned, is going to be just the first round of highlights.
All right, and here's how she's looking after the first round of highlights. As for the actual areas, I hit the cheeks, uh, across the top of her eyebrows, on the chin, and the bridge of her nose, just to give it a little bit of a, a subtle highlight. So, next step is going to be to do some shading.
Okay, so next up for Catwoman is going to be the shading. For that, I'm going in with Vallejo's Burned Flesh. And again, because it's a female portrait, it's going to go in very subtly and hit some of the deeper, uh, crevices on the face, just to bring in some of the shading. If it goes on a little too heavy, uh, it's not that big of a deal because at the end, I'm going to come back with the original base tone color and lightly mist it over everything, just to smoothly blend in.
All right, so for the actual areas of shading, went under the cheekbones, under the lip, uh, into the nostrils, into the crevices of the eyes on both sides, and also under her chin, and a little bit around the hairline, just to darken it up a little bit. This way, when I go back later with the, uh, darker hair color, it's not so contrast. So, that's how she's looking for now. Looking good so far. Uh, we're going to get her sealed off with some clear coat, do some skin washes, and then come back and tie everything in all together.
Okay, so after the shading and highlighting on Catwoman, the next step is to do some washes. So, for the washes, we're going to use some transparent colors. I'm going to go in first with a Transparent Yellow by Vallejo. After that, we'll go in with a Transparent Blue, also by Vallejo. And then the last wash, if you watch my videos, you're probably familiar with this, I go in with the Transparent Red. Uh, but instead of dabbing off the wash with the brush or a microfiber type towel, I go in and I spritz it with a little bit of alcohol, and it breaks up, uh, the red paint to make it look a little bit more like blood vessels. So, I'll go through the steps as I go through each color, but first off, we're going to start off with the yellow. Um, and I'm going to thin this down also with my thinner, and we'll apply the first wash, which will be the yellow.
All right, starting off with the yellow. Just going to put a little yellow into my dish over here and then thin that down. This way, I can work in stages, slowly building up the yellow more and more to intensify the color as needed. You don't want to start off, uh, too dark with the yellow. So, applying my thinner. Also, uh, just as a reminder, anytime you're working with washes, you want to make sure you clear coat the surface first. This way, you're not disturbing the paint. Since we already did the highlighting and shading, we have our base coat the way we want it to look for the most part, um, at the moment. So, always make sure you're clear coating. She was hit with a flat clear coat to protect the paint so far. So, anything to do with the washes is being applied over the clear coat at the moment. And, uh, basically just staining the skin. The longer you leave it on, the longer it will stain. So, you kind of need to play around with that by brushing it on and wiping it off in different time intervals. So, the first go around, I usually wipe off right away, just to get an idea of what it's looking like, and then I can adjust, uh, the timing in the color if I need to intensify the color. And because it is a female face, we don't want to go in, um, too crazy. The same way if you've been watching the series of these portraits with the, uh, the male portraits, I don't want to have too much texture to her skin. I want her skin to be on the softer side. So, everything we do from here on out will be very subtle. And then also, after the wash, we're also going to go back in with the base coat, the first color, and lightly mist that over all of this to blend it all back in. So, don't worry if it's looking too crazy at the moment, it's supposed to look a little crazy. And, uh, basically, what the washes do is it adds a little different variation between the colors and the skin because, again, if you watch my series, as you know, with skin, it's not all just one color. You don't want it to look too, too similar. Skin has all different shades. You can see on the palm, my palm's a little bit more red down here. You're going to have a little bit of, you know, veins and so forth. It, it, it varies between the, the different colors. So, what we do with the, with the washes is we start off with yellow, gives the, the skin a little bit of a tint. Once we add the blue, the blue and the yellow merge in a way to almost give you like a greenish look, which then tints the skin a little bit more of a greenish color. And then lastly, with the red, the red merges in with the blue, creating more of like a purplish blue effect, which looks a little bit more like veins and gives the skin a little bit more, you know, life to make it look like blood is flowing under her skin. This way, she's not so simple looking with just a, a light flesh color.
Okay, next up, we're going to go in with the blue wash. Same step as the yellow. Add a little bit of blue acrylic paint, thin it down. Uh, by the way, you don't have to use thinner, just use water, as long as, as long as she's, uh, as long as the model is clear coated. Uh, if the model wasn't clear coated, you definitely don't want to put alcohol on top of the paint.
All right, so next up, we're going to do the blue wash and just go around and dab this on. For, going to do one more round of that.
Okay, going to let that dry up and then we'll go in with the red wash.
Okay, and the last step for our washes is going to be the transparent red. If you don't have transparent, you could just use, uh, opaque colors, by the way. You just need to thin or water them down more than usual. Okay.
All right, so for the red, as mentioned, I'm going to blot it on with the brush, and then I have a little spritz bottle filled with isopropyl alcohol, which I'm going to spray on top of the paint, which breaks it up, creates this separation of the paint, which mimics a little bit of blood vessels. I'm not going to go too crazy because, again, it's a female portrait. And anytime if you do feel like something is going on a little bit too heavy, keep in mind you can go back at the end and mist back over the base coat, which is going to help hide a lot of this anyway. So, again, don't worry if it's looking a little too extreme at the moment as you're working on this.
Okay, grab my little spritz bottle. Going to do it over here so I don't hit my paint off to the side there. Okay. And as you can see, it kind of, if it's showing up on camera, separates the paint to make it look like blood vessels. We're going to pat it down also. And with washes, it's one of those things where you go back and forth till you get the desired effect that you want. Okay, I'm going to let that dry for a second and then give it another coating with the red.
All right, and then as it's drying, I'm going to try to zoom in as best as possible so you kind of get a rough idea of what the washes are doing to, uh, the paint and the effect that we're going for. So, you want to imagine like this is what it would look like underneath the first layer of skin, kind of seeing like different veins and discoloration underneath that first layer of skin with the different vessels. And as mentioned, we'll come back with that base coat color, the light flesh skin color, mist it back all over this, uh, and, you know, add back on that first layer of skin, very, uh, translucent, this way you can still see some of that underneath it, and it'll make the skin look a little bit more realistic.
Before I go back into reapplying the base coat very lightly over her, I am going to go in and do some skin texturing with the Iwata HP-CH. Uh, this is usually my go-to airbrush these days because I like using the MAC valve. So, when doing skin textures, you want to lower the PSI, the pressure on your compressor, to the lowest setting. This way, when you're spraying it, it's just shooting, spritzing out basically the paint, instead of spraying it with a stronger flow. We're going to reduce the air pressure to where it's barely able to push out, and it's going to create like a burst, like a spritz effect. And I'll show you what that does. So, again, uh, the HP-CH, but if you don't have a MAC valve, which is this down here, you can just lower the compressor basically down to about 5 PSI, about as low as it goes until it's just barely pushing air out. So, uh, to show you what the MAC valve does. So, this is currently my flow, and then I can lower it and adjust the pressure setting. So, I'm going to lower it as much as it can go.
For the skin texture, we're going to go in with a darker tone than what the actual flesh color is now. This is a base flesh from, uh, the Fantasy line of Vallejo, and this will also help bronze the skin, give it a little bit more of a tannish look. And then, uh, after the skin texture, we'll go back in and add the base coat. Basically, this just makes the skin look a little bit more realistic, but again, it's a female, I want to keep her face on, uh, the softer side, so we're not going to do too much, but I do want to add it, just a little bit. Let's see if, uh, shows up on my glove. I'll show you what that's doing to the actual flow of the paint. So, if you look at my glove, all that splatter, uh, that's basically what happens when you lower the comp, uh, the PSI of the compressor, and that's the effect we're going for right there. So, we're going to apply that very lightly on top of the portrait of Catwoman, and then come back and add the first base coat color to tie it all in together. So, I'm just going to go around and lightly mist her from far away.
Okay, and if you have any too large of a spots, such as that one right there, you can go in with a little bit of a Q-tip and just blot it off, like so. So, we'll let that dry up and we'll come back with the base coat.
For my base coat color, I'm going in with a Natural Flesh. Originally, the base coat started off with our Stynylrez primer, which was a flesh tone primer. Obviously, don't want to use that because it's, it's a primer. You don't want to apply primer over acrylic paint. Uh, we want this to go on very lightly. So, I'm going in with something similar to that color. It's a Natural Flesh, but with skin tones, it's a back and forth process. So, it might not just be this color alone. I play around with it a lot off camera, but just to give you a rough idea, I do go back in with a similar color to what was used on, uh, you know, the first round of the base coat, and I try to match that as close as possible and basically play around with the colors. So, again, everything you see on video, I try to capture as much as possible, but there is a lot that's done off camera. But the next step is to go be, uh, to go back in, you know, with that first flesh tone color and just bury in all the effects that we just did. This way, it's not so drastic looking and, uh, bring back that smoothness to our face. And the end result should be a nice, realistic looking skin tone, and then we can move on to her other features, such as her eyes, her lips, and the Catwoman cowl. And to give you an idea of how that's looking so far, if it's showing up on camera, you have those little skin pores for texture.
So, at this point, I'm going to clear coat everything to lock it in because I'm happy with the way the skin tone is currently looking. So, we'll lock this in with clear coat and then move on to her makeup, such as her eyeshadow, and the blush around the cheeks, and then doing the lips and so forth. Um, this way, everything's locked in, and if I do make a, a slight mistake with the makeup, I can wipe it off and restart it. I think for the eyeshadow, we're actually going to go in with some, uh, pastels instead of the airbrush gun. I'll have more control with, uh, pastels. So, we take some pastels, chop it into a powder, and lightly brush it on, same as you would with, uh, actual real makeup. So, let me get this clear coated, everything locked into place, and then we'll move on to the makeup.
Okay, so here's how she's looking so far. Off camera, I went back and touched up some of the highlights, just to soften up the face a little bit. Still have those skin textures, but it's a little bit more subtle now. I also wanted to lighten up her face. I felt it was a little bit too much on the golden side, like she had too much of a tan. Uh, looking at the render, she's very, very pale in the face. So, I don't want to go too, too pale, but wanted to keep her a little bit more balanced out. From here, I'm going to move on to adding the makeup. So, I'm going to start off with the blush, uh, work my way onto the lips, the mascara, the eyeshadow. For the blush around the cheeks, I'm going in with some Sunset Red, which is basically just like a pinkish red. Go on very lightly. And from there, probably use a similar color to the lip. So, I'm just going to do my thing with the makeup for now, and I'll come back and show you the final result.
All right, and here's how she's looking after adding the blush to the cheeks with the Sunset Red by Vallejo. It was a little bit of a back and forth process, airbrushing it on and then going back with the skin color, lightly misting it over to get a nice blend. It's a little bit stronger on camera than it is in person. So, I'm going to move on to the lips next. Um, still using this Sunset Red, and I'm going to mix it with some, uh, Vallejo Clear Base Transparent. When painting lips, I like to do it in layers, very lightly, to build up the color. This way, it looks a little bit more natural. So, that'll be the next step.
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All right, so here's how the lips are currently looking. Again, uh, it's one of those things I have to do off camera because I need to see up close. But basically, it was different transparent glazes. You, uh, using the Vallejo Clear Base Transparent. Uh, for the highlights, I went in with a Squid Pink, and then for the main lip color, as mentioned, I went in with that Sunset Red. And then for a little bit of a lip liner, because again, I'm going by the renders, I had a little of a lip liner around the lips. I went in with the, just like, actually, no, it wasn't even this. It was, uh, sorry, it was just a dark red, regular red, but it's more on the darker side. It's a little bit more of a brownish red. And that's how the lips are currently looking. So, from here on out, I'm going to move on to applying the mascara with the black, and then for the eyeshadow, I'm going to use a powdery black pastel.
So, next step is going to be, uh, applying the mascara in black.
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Okay, so here's how she's looking after the eyeliner was applied. A lot was done off camera because I had to go in with the magnifying glasses so I can get up close and see what I was doing. Uh, but basically, went in with the black acrylic paint, did a thin line of, uh, the eyeliner, as well as her eyelashes. The pupils were done with the same color I always use when doing pupils. It's a Sky Gray. You never want to go in with the pure white, otherwise, it's too, too bright. Uh, as far as the eyeshadow, I'm going to hold off on doing the eyeshadow with the pastels until I do the pupils. So, I'm actually going to do the pupils next. Um, also, she was clear coated, this way it locks everything in. So, as of right now, she is protected, and any mistakes I could just wipe off. So, there was a lot of cleanup done off camera, just so I can get her finished up, but here's how she's looking so far.
For the pupils, going in with decals like I usually do. She has brownish eyes. So, these are by Archer, the decals. So, I'll go in with about, probably that size right there for third scale for her pupils. Uh, they're vinyl decals, so I'll show you how to apply those. One trick before putting on vinyl decals is to clear coat the eyeball with a gloss. This way, the vinyl sticker, you know, the vinyl decal slides more freely around the eyeball, this way it's easier to position it in place. So, that's what I'm going to do next. Uh, let me see what I have here.
So, before applying the vinyl decal, I'm just going to go in with a gloss top coat, brush this onto her eyeball, and that'll make, uh, applying the, the decal a lot easier to get it into place.
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All right, so I added a little bit of gloss. Probably see it showing up on camera. Going to let that dry. In the meantime, I'm going to get the decals cut out.
All right, so that's what the decal looks like, uh, once it's cut out. You want to leave a little bit of material around the outside, this way you have something to grab onto. And then once the decal is applied to the eyeball, you can let it dry, and then, uh, go back and cut off the excess material, which would be anything around that, that white area on the decal right now. So, we're going to push it into place, and then once it all dries, I can come back with the X-Acto blade and cut off the excess.
As for the decals themselves, these are water decals. So, you just need to soak them in water for about 20 seconds. One thing I like to do is, you also need to get, because we're applying it on an eyeball, and the eyes are a rounded surface, you want to make the decal somewhat, uh, maneuverable, you know, appliable. So, a trick for that is to get some white vinegar. If you don't have any decal solution, to soften it up. And what that does is it allows the decal to freely move around more and not be so stiff, this way it wraps around the eyeball. So, just a little trick. If you don't have decal solution, you know, solution that's made, uh, for decals, you could use a little bit of vinegar mixed with water. Take your decal and soak it in the solution for about 30 seconds, and then we can come back and apply it to her eyeballs, which I'll probably have to do off camera, this way I can get in there and see what I'm doing, but I'll come back and show you the final result.
All right, so here's how she is looking after the eye decals were applied. It's one of the reasons I like to use eye decals. I don't have to really worry about messing up the pupil placement because I could slide them around until they, uh, fall in place and look correct. So, the decals were positioned into, uh, place. I took some of that vinegar mixed with the water solution and a paintbrush and just brushed it over the decal to kind of smooth it out over the eyeball because the eyeball, as mentioned, has a little bit of a curvature to it. So, you kind of want to go around and get that decal to lay down flat. Uh, let the decal dry on the eyeball for about a few hours, maybe two to three hours, till the solution dried up. From there, you can go back and cut off any excess material of the clear part that might have been overlapping. I had a little bit overlapping onto her, uh, eyelashes and her eyelid, so that was removed with the X-Acto knife. Once everything was dry, also I went in, uh, in the meantime, with some Ultra Matte Clear Coat, just to seal everything into place. I'll later come back with a, a satin varnish just to make it look like the eyes are a little bit wet. Uh, but I still need to do the makeup with the, um, the eyeshadow around the eye. So, that's going to get sprayed again with flat coat. So, I'm not really worried about sealing off the eyes yet with any type of gloss finish until the very end. That'll be the last step. Uh, with eye decals, you can also go in with a little bit of paint if you'd like to make it look a little bit more natural. So, I'll probably go back in, touch up the pupils, maybe a little bit of some of the green areas with some actual acrylic paint. But for now, that's how she's looking. Everything's looking good. I like the way it turned out. Uh, from this point on, I'm going to start working on the eyeshadow, and for that, we're going to be using some pastels.
All right, so it's time to, uh, start working on the eyeshadow. So, now when it comes down to the eyeshadow, you can use an airbrush because, basically, that's the look we're going for. We want a subtle, light, faded look, which an airbrush would give you. But for to go around her eye at this point, that would take a lot of control with the actual airbrush, uh, which at this point I wouldn't want to mess up. So, it's a lot easier to just go in with a paintbrush with pastels. So, let me show you how to do that. So, you can take any pastel stick, or they actually sell pastel powder. I'm going to be doing an entire video on how to use pastels for shading. You could actually use this to shade entire models. Uh, but just for this instance, we're just going to be doing her, uh, eye makeup. But you could take a pastel stick if you don't have, uh, actual pastel powder, get yourself a little dish or, you know, some type of plate to put it on, uh, a razor blade, and you're basically, it's just going to scrape it off until, uh, it turns into a powder. So, let me show you what that looks like.
Okay, that should be enough for now. So, you can see now we have a powder from the pastels. So, what I could do from here now is take a paintbrush, uh, dip it into the powder, and go around and actually apply it and do some shading with it. It works really well, like I mentioned, for doing entire models. If you don't have an airbrush, you can use pastels and a paintbrush and go around and get similar results to an airbrush. So, that's what we're doing for the eye makeup to add some eyeshadow around her eyes. Uh, right now, we just have the eyeliner, and then we want like a faded shadowy look, which we'll be using with the pastels and a paintbrush.
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And, uh, just to give you a quick look, uh, we're just getting started still, but, uh, if you look at the top of her eyebrow, it's giving me off a little bit of a, a shadow appearance, and basically, that's what we're going for, very,
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subtle with the, uh, the eyeshadow for the makeup, and it's looking good. So, I'm going to continue going around, uh, with the pastels. You don't need to wet it, you, you want to put it on dry, and then afterwards, we'll seal it in with some clear coat. So, let me get around to doing this, and I'll show you the final look.
All right, so here's how she is looking after the pastels were applied for the eyeshadow. It's very subtle, but it should be showing up on camera if you can see it on top of her eyebrow and a little bit under her eyelid on the bottom there. So, gives off a nice cool effect without having to use the airbrush. And that was all done with just some pastel powder and a paintbrush. Some Q-tips to clean around the area. Her face was clear coated so I can clean off, uh, the area if I'm unhappy with the way it's looking. That's another great thing about using pastels is they easily wipe off, as long as you, uh, protected the paint underneath with the clear coat first. So, very easy to work with, and, uh, very easy to remove if you're not happy with the results. So, again, that was a pastel powder with a paintbrush, just went around, dabbed the area to shade it, give her some eyeshadow. Uh, so from here, I'm going to clear coat her, this way we can lock it into place because it is pastels. It's for the most part in place, but you can still smudge it, which we don't want to do because unlike paint, it's not going to dry, it's just going to sit in place. So, we're going to clear coat that to lock it into place, and then start working on the eyebrows, and that'll be it for her face, and then we can move on to, uh, painting the rest of the cowl and her goggles.
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Okay, here's how she is looking so far. Up next, I'm going to start blocking in the strands of hair that cover her face. Also, I'm going to start blocking in the outline of the cowl around her face. Uh, this way, we can get ready for some putty. We're going to putty off the face area. I'm going to do the area around the face by regular brush, and then, like I said, with the, the putty, putty off the face, and then come in with the airbrush gun and add some subtle highlights and start working on these goggles. So, that's the next step.
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All right, so here's how she is looking so far. Went around and added all the black to the cowl, did all the hash strands. A lot of that was done off camera because I need to get up close and really get in there and finally detail it with magnifying glasses. So, it's kind of hard to capture all that on camera because my head is usually in the way. But anyway, here's how she is looking. Uh, just a, a base coat for now with the black. Uh, as for the cowl, you know, her, her Catwoman mask that wraps around her head, from here, I'm going to go back in, add some subtle highlights with a bluish gray. If you watch my Batman video that I did on one of these, uh, similar steps for that. So, we'll add some subtle blue highlights to the actual cowl. The hair strands, I'll probably just leave. I kind of want to leave her hair jet black. Uh, as for the goggles, this has been also base coated with black. The reason for that is, the goggles on the render are pink. They have a pink lens. Uh, I spoke to the collector that I'm painting this for, we decided to keep the, the lenses a little bit more traditional looking, and we're going to use red instead. So, for the lenses, I'm going to do like a candy red. And one way to achieve that effect is to add an aluminum metal color first, and then put a clear red over that, and it kind of gives you like this candy looking red. So, that's what we're doing. So, uh, anytime you're painting, you know, metallics, you want to base coat it with black first. So, I'll probably just go in by hand and base coat the, the aluminum over the lens real quick. Uh, let everything dry, seal her with some clear coat, and then come back the next day and come back with that clear red and try to get, you know, that, that shiny candy apple red look to the lenses. Uh, and then far as the lenses go, I'll add a, a brighter, you know, shinier finish to the, the actual goggles, this way they kind of look a little bit more like glass. So, we'll go in with maybe like a satin finish on the goggles, this way they, they stand out, look like glass. Uh, same with the straps, give it a little bit more of like a rubbery look. And then for the cowl itself, that'll remain more of like a matte finish. And then for the cowl, uh, if you watch my Batman video on one of these portraits, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to go in and add some subtle gray highlights throughout the cowl for Catwoman.
All right, so, uh, moving forward, going to start blocking in the aluminum silver, uh, to prepare for that candy apple looking red.
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And here's a final look at Catwoman.
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St
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Every morning I wake up obsessed and everything I do I do the best and with my mind you know I'll always try
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