Faces Page 1

The key to most miniatures, and what can make or break a paintjob, is the face. Over the last few years, the quality of sculptures has been changing dramatically and this is most evident in the expressiveness of the faces. To provide some examples here are some close ups of faces from a number of my recently painted miniatures.

All of these faces have a sculpted expression, which is what is making the difference in the miniature. Steve Buddle’s sculpture of the Amazon for Coolminiornot’s Competition is a very fine example of a face that could be painted in a number of ways. I ended up painting it looking somewhat fierce, as both the angle of the head and the body posture has a somewhat challenging demeanour.

We are used to looking at the faces of our Family, Friends and Colleagues and recognise all their different facial postures, but what differentiates the living face from that of the miniature is exactly the same thing we see in photographs. They are both frozen permanently in time. We are used to seeing, but not noticing, the minute changes in a persons face as they talk, breathe and go about their daily routine.

The miniatures we are now seeing, from sculptors such as Steve Buddle, Werner Klocke, Juan Diaz etc., show faces in varying emotional states. So this article is about how I go about emphasising the sculpture to reflect those emotional states. (There are a wealth of other sculptors, to whom I apologise for not mentioning at this time.)