Introduction
This started with me wanting to improve the standard of my driver faces, but knowing that I’m never going to be able to achieve the expert level of that shown in “Painting Model Drivers” (Daniel Cockersell & James French, 10th Scalin’, 2009), for example, I found the Vallejo 70.119 Face Painting set.
This led down a rabbit-hole of paint types, sets, compatibility testing, painting multiple face types, airbrushing vs brush. Attempting to document it all became a rambling mess, so this is my fourth try at making something useful out of it all – a worked example of painting a Wild Willy driver face.
It's going to be pic intensive so I will try to keep the word count down, but before we start, a few bullet points:
- Vallejo makes an awful lot of paint shades - way more than Tamiya;
- Anything with “Air” in the product name (“Model Air”, “Game Air”, etc) is formulated to go straight through an airbrush as is. It can be used with a brush, but many colours need an unreasonable number of coats;
- “Model Color” paints are formulated for brushing and come out of the bottle really thick - I found I had to thin them for use;
- You can use Vallejo paints over most other sorts of paints, but not the other way around. For example, you can paint Vallejo acrylics over Tamiya “hybrid” X/XF paints, but using Tamiya paints (spray or brush, or Hycote, or Halfords) over Vallejo is a disaster;
- On a similar note, Tamiya X-20A thinners turn Vallejo paints into putty, so use water, Vallejo Airbrush Thinner or Airbrush Cleaner as appropriate;
- However, the Vallejo primers don’t mind Tamiya X/XF acrylics;
- I’m still having trouble with the Vallejo clears, but I don’t think the paints are really robust enough without them.
- At times I’ve painted a number of heads in the name of efficiency – but just as one can feel like you’re spending far too much too time on cleanup and not enough on actual painting, many can become quite a chore. This is a note to myself as much as anything – five at once is the absolute upper limit on what’s still fun.
What You’ll Need
The 70.119 Face Painting Set is available at innumerable model and hobby shops, price at the time of writing (November 2024) is around the 20 GBP mark.
In the set are eight 17ml dropper bottles, one each of 70.804 Beige Red, 70.928 Light Flesh, 70.859 Black Red, 70.812 Violet Red, 70.876 Brown Sand, 70.815 Basic Skin Tone, 70.814 Burnt Red, and 70.950 Black. There’s also a guide showing the steps to paint “fair” and “brown” faces, which equate to white northwest European skin (types I and II on the Fitzpatrick Scale – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzpatrick_scale) and more Mediterranean skin (types III and IV). I have followed the “fair” guide on a number of faces but found a slightly more cartoonish look works better for me at the sort of distances you usually see an RC car from, so my method does deviate from it – and I’ve shown it in considerably more detail.
Unless you want the eyes to be some shade of brown, I’d suggest you also need to buy some additional shades suitable for irises, along with white. The face painting set is also a bit light on hair colours, so you might also want to look at getting some extras yellows and browns. There’s also nothing in the way of primary colours for helmet painting … I’d suggest the 70.140 Model Color Set - Basic Colors (USA), a set of sixteen colours for 37 GBP or so which will expand your palette considerably.
It's not over yet though, I’d suggest you also need the 70.520 Matt Varnish, 70.510 Gloss Varnish and possibly even the 71.161 Airbrush Thinner, or at least some deionised water. I also used a number of 3ml paint cups for mixing.
As for brushes, I like the Humbrol AG4050 “Coloro” Brushes set, which gives you one each of 00, 1, 4 and 8 sizes for around 6 GBP, not including post). Of these sizes, the #1 is a good candidate for the base face colour, with the 00 ok for the details, and the #4 being useful for larger areas, such as the helmet. Using finer brushes (such as a 000, 4/0, or even 5/0) will not necessarily give a better result, for instance, I don’t find that “real” hair, sable etc are pointy or stiff enough to use with acrylic paints and often give thicker lines than nominally larger brushes. It also depends on technique, quality of the brushes, and confidence. Humbrol, Italeri and AK Interactive all make smaller synthetic brushes that aren’t too expensive.
I used to be quite lazy with brush cleaning and amassed enough brushes that I could completely fill a mug of water before cleaning any, which then became quite a chore. Since buying a couple of pots of “The Masters” Brush Cleaner and Preserver I’m much more likely to clean up as I go – and use many fewer brushes.
I’ll be the first to admit that’s quite a commitment to a single brand of paint, I’m not suggesting for a minute that anyone should spend an extra 85 GBP on top of the cost of an RC kit, bearings, radio gear, batteries, charger etc just to paint one face.
Method
Assembly & Primer
This is covered in detail in https://tamiyabase.com/articles/54-painting/117-part-4-painting-preparations-12 and https://tamiyabase.com/articles/54-painting/118-part-5-painting-preparations-2-of-2, but the short version is stick the parts together, fill & sand so any gaps/holes are filled & any join lines removed, then give it a going over with primer.
I’ve tried Hycote White Plastic Primer aerosol, Vallejo 73.601 “Grey” Surface primer, and in the worked example here, Hycote Grey Plastic Primer. My preference would be the Hycote white, but the Vallejo “grey” is almost stink free, if you have to spray indoors. Whatever you use, it ideally needs a very light tickle with a fine grit wet & dry paper (like previously used 1200 grit paper, or new 1500 grit) on the helmet portion of the head.
Helmet Colour?
There’s an argument for painting the helmet first – usually it’s a small number of solid colours, and they are going to be a lot easier to touch up if you get an inadvertent bit of face colour on them, as compared to having to repaint a face because you made a slip up with a primary colour …
In most cases I’ve painted the helmets until much later, as I really didn’t know what direction I’d be going with, most of the time. The advantage of that is that you don’t have to wait for any gloss paint or clear to cure to avoid risking fingerprints.
H3 Base Flesh Colour
Paint two or three coats of 70.804 Beige Red over the whole of the face, excluding the eyes if possible. This is darker and thicker than Tamiya XF-15 Flat Flesh – 5 “drops” of Vallejo paint from the bottle plus 1 drop of deionised water gave a better consistency.
You really do need multiple coats, although some people think that the variation in tones/thickness from only one coat is a shortcut. These pics show the progression in getting an even colour.
Whites Of The Eyes
Multiple coats of 70.951 White. On figures wearing a Nomex balaclava (Willys, Rough Rider drivers, Frog/Hornet/Grasshopper drivers etc) it’s worth probably worth doing those at the same time, even if they need touching in later.
Irises
I used 70.808 Blue Green, which seems extreme when you look at the bottle, but shows up better than, say, 70.962 Flat Blue.
Pupils
A black spot in 70.950 Black.
Pupil Highlights
Back to 70.951 White again. I used a cocktail stick as my brushwork really isn’t up to work this fine.
“Wetting” The Eyes
I think Willy’s eyes should have a twinkle, so put on a layer of 70.510 Gloss Varnish. Vallejo paints are very good at not remelting what’s been put on before, but I’d still make sure that the whites, iris colour, pupils and highlights have had adequate curing time.
Eye & Face Outlines, Deepest Wrinkles/Shadows
Carefully outline the eyes in 70.859 Black Red, followed by outlining the face as a whole, and marking the points that will be in deepest shadow & have the deepest wrinkles (underside of the cheekbones into the sides of the nose and eyes, & so on).
As this point you’ll probably observe two things: I’m not very good at this (and/or need a much finer brush); and as a result the “wrinkles” look heavy handed and cartoonish at best. Try to trust the process, the idea is that they are structure that will mostly be hidden by later steps…
Skin Highlights IV
These next four steps are about the highlights – mixing 70.804 Beige Red with increasing amounts of 70.928 Light Flesh over slightly smaller areas, then using just the lighter colour on its own for the smallest area – something like a relief map where the highest ground gets the lightest colour.
Think about the areas of the face that you want to see get more “light” – the top of the nose, maybe some of the sides, cheekbones, forehead, maybe the upper portion of the chin if it’s especially pronounced, outer edge of ears & so on. Obviously not all areas are visible on all Tamiya driver heads. For the Willy face here it’s going to be just the upper cheekbones and a touch on the nose.
This first step is a 2:1-ish mix of Beige Red and Light Flesh, put on over fairly large areas. Along with the next two steps it turned out a bit more subtle than I’d have liked for photographic purposes, so I’ve highlighted the painted areas in orange in the second picture to show them better. Obviously, don’t paint your driver face orange.
Skin Highlights III
This is a 1:1 mix of Beige Red and Light Flesh, put on over a smaller area than that of the previous step.
Skin Highlights II
Here we move on to a 1:2 mix of Beige Red and Light Flesh on a smaller still area.
Skin Highlights I
A final thin line of Light Flesh at the very lightest points.
Shadows II
These next few steps are similar to the preceding four, but this time dealing with creases and shadows, and in order of darkest to lightest, expanding outwards. We already used 70.859 Black Red as the very deepest shadows/creases earlier on, so now use a 2:1 mix of Black Red and 70.804 Beige Red around the darkest crease lines.
Shadows III
Next, use a 1:1 mix of Black Red and Beige Red to go around the existing shadows.
H3 Shadows IV
Here a 1:2 mix of Black Red and Beige Red gives a final graduation between the existing shadows and any remaining base flesh colour.
Glaze For Final Skin Tone
The idea here is to add a hint of translucency and dial back the somewhat cartoony painting thus far.
It’s easy to go too far, and too fast, so I’d start with a small amount of Beige Red mixed into the 70.520 Flat Varnish, you can always put on a second coat, or use a denser mixture if necessary.
This I think gives a “tanned” finish, but there are other options: 70.928 Light Skin, 70.815 Basic Skin Tone or 70.876 Brown Sand are all in the Face Painting set, and 70.955 Flat Flesh or 70.984 Flat Brown is in the 70.140 Model Color Set – see examples below. In all cases they could easily have stood a slightly denser glaze, or a second coat.
You might also think about very thin glazes of 70.814 Burnt Red or 70.859 Black Red (Face Painting set), or 70.976 Buff (Model Color set), but I haven’t shown examples of them.
Eyebrows
Dry brush at least two colours e.g. Black followed by Flat Brown, or Flat Brown followed by Buff – the idea is to only get a tiny amount of paint on the brush in the first place, and then take most of that off on some pard or card so the brush is almost dry.
Rubber Seal
This was done with black paint, and I touched up the odd error on the balaclava with white afterwards.
Other Bits
Depending on the head you’re painting there may well be other bits you need to finish off. For example:
Hair (4x4 without helmet, Cheetah, F-150 Ranger/Blackfoot, Brat etc) – base colour followed by 2 or 3 dry brushes in different colours;
Lips (pretty much the same list) – put a touch of 70.812 Violet Red mixed in to some Beige Red;
Straps, Buckles (the James French “Albert” Sand Scorcher head is all I can think of ATM);
Helmet, if you haven’t already done it.
Body
It’s a number of years since I penned it, but at present I’ve got nothing further to add to the methods shown in the Painting series, Part 6: Painting Driver Figures - Plaid Shirts & Jeans (https://tamiyabase.com/articles/54-painting/119-part-6-painting-driver-figures-plaid-shirts-a-jeans).
Tamiya Alternatives?
I’m sure it would be possible to use Tamiya XF brush paints to achieve similar results, but with the exception of the number of Tamiya black options, you’d be starting with a much smaller palette of colours and would have to make up a whole load of shades from the single flesh tone available.
My basic shopping list would probably be XF-1 Flat Black, XF-2 Flat White, XF-7 Flat Red, XF-9 Hull Red, XF-8 Flat Blue, XF-15 Flat Flesh, X-22 Clear,XF-85 Rubber Black and XF-86 flat clear.
I may try that at some point, but my next experiment will be using finer (000, 4/0, 5/0) brushes.
Comparison of Methods
At the time of writing the series on painting, and specifically Part 7: Painting Driver faces (https://tamiyabase.com/articles/54-painting/124-part-7-painting-driver-faces) I thought I’d done really well to improve over the most basic coat of flesh and dots of black for the pupils.
However, a direct comparison of the “old” vs the “new” makes me feel that the extra effort is definitely worth it for me, and there’s still room for improvement.
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Written by TB member Jonny Retro
