I never notice when I don't paint eyes. I always notice when I paint eyes badly.

If you paint eyes on minis they come alive and run away. That’s why I don’t do it

I love the Darkest Dungeon style of art where the eyes are just shadow. Kinda fits the Warhammer Grimdark aesthetic too

New rule to miniature gaming “if the eyes are painted and you can see the whites of their eyes they are in range”

With all the "how to paint eyes " videos on here, this is a VERY welcome alternative!!!!

"It just never works" "Now let's look at where it does work" XD

Finally someone else with this opinion!

Thanks Uncle Atom! This video cleverly addresses "freedom of choice"" as it relates to this Hobby. This is supposed to be fun, heck, even relaxing. Practice, grow, enjoy!

i did the best eye of my life for one model and promptly spent two hours on the other eye before i gave up

I do paint eyes for my heroes and display models, small grey streak, a dot with a brown/blue/red/purple/green micron pen and a dot with a 0.2mm pen. Troops, not so much.

I feel vindicated! I'm not super experienced, but I quickly gave up painting eyes. It always gave the least return on invested effort, it wasn't fun doing it, and I never missed it when I finished painting a mini. Now, I probably won't even bother unless there's some special exception.

This is why you *always* give your models the helmet option. You don’t have to worry anymore, after that. If you can find any reason to give the model a magic/psychic feel, give them glowing eyes. Make sure to do light coats around the eyes to make it actually feel like it’s glowing.

Display, character, and sergeant figures (and very occasionally if the eyes are well enough defined on the rank and file) all get the eyes painted in my collection. Black or a very dark brown to fill the eye socket, then a dot of light grey on either side of where the pupil would be is the easiest method I have found. Great video, btw...

The only time I've ever painted eyes I actually liked when they were done was on some Lizardmen, with some nice reptilian eyes. Not too hard to do either Human eyes? Forget it.

I always wondered why I thought it was so weird to see the whites of a mini's eyes and that explanation gives me the reason and removes all the imaginary expectations I had placed on myself to do them. Thank you. Great vid!

I've tried eyes a few times with a micron pen. The pen works well, but I can never seem to avoid my model having "Marty Feldman" eyes.

RIP Fez. Until next time, friend.

Nice video! I love hearing all the different methods for painting various parts of a model.

Imagine my surprise when an image of a building at the university I went to in the UK shows up at 3:33 in this video.

I truly appreciate your insight about detailed eyes. Every time I see models with the eye's done it always looks crazy wrong. I thought maybe my perception was off so it's nice to know it's not just me. Sad to see the Fezz go but you got to do you.

I've found that using skin washes, the eye sockets look fine without any extra detail.

Perfect advice. I learnt this lesson straight away after a few attempts at doing eyes. I used wash and love the outcome.

I always appreciate your "do what you want and enjoy it" approach. Oh, and kudos on the cool fez.

This video is so liberating

I appreciate this video, I was a little frustrated as a new painter trying to paint the eyes. This video makes a lot of sense thank you

Man, you just saved me so much time and frustration, I've been working on getting good at eyes for a couple years now, and I've gotten pretty decent, but i never thought of it the way you explained it, makes perfect sense, thank you!

Watching this video was very reassuring and such a relief. After a few attempts at painting, the first miniature that I was actually proud of was a human barbarian. I used this very same technique of using wash in the eye holes and he ended up looking pretty badass.

Petition for Uncle Atom to wear the Fez during "Uncle Atom's Pro Tips" videos

Hay! New to the hobby, new subscriber. Just wanted to say I've been catching a lot of your older videos and have greatly appricated the perspective from the experiance. Keep up the content and keep that human perspective, we always need more of that in the world. :)

Sage advice n'uncle. Having agonised over eyes for weeks with poor results I will now try your method. Cheers

Been a year since this video and I've only painted eyes on some of my more expressive pieces and I sure am happier because of it Thanks Uncle Atom

As a novice painter that is still on his first space marines, I go to lenghts during building the miniatures that I won't have a visible face anywhere, one because I think the helmets look cooler and two, the bigger reason, because I have tried painting one head without a helmet on and I neither get the skin tones and highlights on the face right, nor the eyes so I do what I consider more fun and put a helmet on each and every one of the marines. In the case where a marine has strapped his helmet to his belt, sargeants for instance, I cut that helmet off, clean up the left over belt or cover it with some ornaments and put on a different helmet and it works!

A timely video. I spent a while last night painting and re-painting some microscopic eyes on an old skool Forest Goblin. I’d kinda already decided to abort, as it looked better when there was just a bit of dark wash gathered under his brow, making him look suitably ferocious - this video has given me the final permission I needed, thanks!

This makes a lot of sense. I'm going to have to study my models and think about if it matches my style. Thanks for the alternate view point. I appreciate it.

High quality video. Thanks for the effort!

Solid advice! I do exactly the same with my mass troops. When I have a character model then I usually put the detail into the eye, however I then hit it with a Wash this is to dull the white down a lot to give it detail but not make it look odd

Shep Payne used to suggest a simple brown line before the wash, personally I like the effect.

Genius!! Might actually try this in the next few days. Being completely new at this I'm kind of discouraged at trying to paint eyes on a 28mm model and for somebody to tell me that frankly it's not that important or to remind me that yeah, in real life you really can't see the whites of somebody's eyes unless you are standing right next to them or at least within 10 feet of them. This is awesome. What you're telling us is as long as you can give the suggestion of eyes being there your model will look fine no matter what. THANK YOU!!

For my kruleboyz, i usually paint the eyes white and then use a yellow contrast paint and it works great. Extra tip: always have a qtip Edit: i can't spell

Thanks for the suggestion, this will help people speed things for them on this topic.

I feel SO validated, thank you for this video!!! I only wash the eyes, I think it looks way better for all the reasons you've laid out.

I’m painting eldar after having a 25 year hiatus and looking at the tiny face yesterday I thought this is going to be fun… 3 attempts later and I move onto something else. Thinking that face looks fine as is no eyes vs what I’m capable of atm. I’ll sleep on it. Wake up this morning and fine this gem of a video. He’s remaining eyeless. The eyeless pilot.

Great advice as ever, recently did my first decent eye paint (whites and Iris only) on a Carnevale Romani Fortune Teller but this was for a special reason - I also gave her red nail varnish on the fingers and toes. I used the magnifying glasses you recommended some time back, £7 ($9) and to be honest you can only see these details using the macro setting on my camera or when wearing the glasses with the highest magnification lenses and holding the model 2 inches from my nose. I am proud of what I achieved, but won't be making a habit of it. Thanks for the tip on the magnifiers though, I'm 53 and my eyesight is awful but now I can continue with the hobby.

I kept making one passable eye and one eye that was obnoxiously bad, so a large portion of my kill team with exposed heads got a "bionic eye". A big ol' metallic ring around the blob-that-was-supposed-to-be-an-eye and a colored "lens" over the blob itself actually looks pretty fantastic. And it gives my KT a bit of a theme that I didn't intend.

I'm glad that you brought up the glowy eyes for the skaven/orks. I feel like for armies like orks especially, painting the eyes are important since they have bigger heads. But, it'll probably look fine regardless.

When you said "They look a little crazy." I lost it, I laughed so hard I hit the floor. Thank you, I needed that!

Great video. Hadn’t considered this, but you sold me

THIS WAS SO INCREDIBLY HELPFUL!

Man. I've missed the Uncle Atom disclaimer. Been a while.

Long term viewer, first time commenter. Thanks Uncle Atom for the great tips. The brown wash idea was great. Dont feel so bad about painting eyes anymore. Was always making sure I was using the helmeted version of marines.

When I was fifteen I would paint their pupils... With fourty? My own eyes find it crazy.

I agree with this. I started out years ago making Historex 54mm Napoleonic figures, occasionally a 90mm. The first thing I painted was the eyes. I was taught that the eyes are the window to the soul, and once you give your figure a soul, you've given it life, and once it has life you will be motivated to do a much better overall job. Now that I am in the 28mm realm, I mostly just use a dark wash, and at arm's length it looks just fine. Some facial expressions call for at least a black dot and that's about it. Anyone who puts one of my models under a magnifying glass must first take me to see some of his.

This guys great. For those of us coming back to hobby after a 20 year break, his advice is spot on and helps to build the ol’ confidence with painting!

Thats why I play orks, just a dot of red

Always go back in time and watch Uncle Atom before you make the mistakes.

This actually helped with my stress of painting eyes.

I've had some trouble finding reference images for miniatures with no eye paint. But thank you for including an idea of what it should look like

Great video and I totally agree!

Perfectly said Uncle Adam! I stopped painting eyes a while back now and I feel that the overall result was definitely a net positive.

I'm reminded of the Larry Leadhead comic where his friend shows him some minis he just finished and proudly mentions that he painted their eyes. After remarking that they look like dinner plates, Larry tells his friend that if he told his troops don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes, they'd be out of ammo before the enemy ever got within range.

Great tip! I always paint eyes an it looks good (because you'll always see very little white - if any). One thing about: "Wait until you see the white of their eyes!": In my opinion it's definitely NOT to save ammo. It's because a well timed and well aimed ("LOW!") salvo can be decicive in a firefight.

I collect orks and subscribe to the 'boop' of red paint on the eye technique. I once tried painting pupils on a random human mini I was painting and ended up deciding it wasn't worth it after repainting many different versions of cross-eyed or drugged out derpiness

Thank you. This was actually a big worry for me (sounds stupid, but it was keeping me from finishing a lot of mini's).

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I need. Sure it may be a year and a half late, but it's still valid, and more importantly, useful for me.

Funny thing I remembered while watching: the quote of Colonel William Prescott is also found in 1710s regulations of Swedens military infantry. They weren't supposed to give fire until they were "able to see the whites of the enemies eyes" (i.e. Unable to miss). It should be noted that it served a different purpose though, as the swedes were supposed to induce terror into their enemies and come close enough to use their swords by doing so rather than preserve ammunition.

But if you DO want to paint eyes, take the easy approach: White base coating, tiny drop of shader in the wanted eye color. Works fine, try it out! Damn commented too early. Now you're saying it too :D

I play deathwatch, got mucho compliments from how clean I did the different Chapter badges than I ever did on getting a Marine's eyes to look the same way. I'm in complete agreement, just a hit of shade and done, detail and take time with your standout items like weapons, or just the armor in general.

Great explanation, thanks!

I'm doing a Dialogus right now and will absolutely take this advice to heart. I've never managed good irises. On Saint Celestine I did white eyes with running mascara. Turned out fine.

I have been washing eyes since day one, I love the dark mysterious look

The only time you should work on the eyes is on a competition piece. And it will take you HOURS to get it right. On a gamepiece....wash is fine. What I do sometimes on Marines is put a minuscule white dot in the middle of the lenses to make the eyes pop and fake the "glare/reflection" of the lenses.

Brilliant video thanks mate

Funny that this video just came out today, I was just working on Space Marine heads yesterday and I decided to not paint the eyes like I did on previous models. And while I did a well enough job with those models to actually like how the eyes turned out, the heads with unpainted eyes still look better and were easier to do. They're way too small to do detailed eyes and painting them white with a black dot in the center takes away from the details of the sculpt, which is why they look weird. However I love painting helmet lenses (kinda the same concept as Skaven eyes), couldn't imagine not doing that.

Totally agree, I only paint eyes if I can pull off not putting an iris in, such as with red eyes or plaguey yellow/white. I also like to use the eye and mouth regions as places to put in washes of colors that pop like blue or purple. It looks especially good on my orks to put coelia green shade in those areas.

Glad Atom started the video with the most important information, status of the fez

Took my new painter tush 3 hours to try to do the face/eyes for my canoness kitbash. I ended up happy with it, but I figure I will only do eyes for character/special models. Its nice to see a different view and I appreciate it!

I always paint the eyes because I enjoy the practice and the character it adds to the model, but one of my favorite games, Darkest Dungeon, famously does not show eyes and it adds its own character. No one should criticize anyone for how they enjoy their hobby, so if you don't want to paint eyes, it's no one's place to say boo to you. And if you get "crazy eye" from trying to paint them, well, keep practicing, they'll get better and, hey, crazy eyed characters can have their own charm... or at least achieve meme status.

This vid needs more Pa-Chow! Entertaining video for real. I love the freedom this hobby affords me in choice. I can choose to go batch paint a whole mob of zomies real quick, or a couple of cultists with moderate details, or go totally hog wild on one special character. Every project is tailored to what I want from the final result and there really is no "wrong" way.

Spot on! 🧙‍♂️

I cant believe I've been lied to this whole time, not an actual uncle?! Who's gonna teach me to shave and give me my first beer now? Love your videos man you always speak da true true

I've been saying this for years. I like to call it the Kojima Method. In Metal Gear Solid the characters eyes were just shadows. If it's good enough for MGS it's good enough for me.

I appreciated this. Thanks

Another thing that tends to work is to use an extremely fine tipped felt pen to just do a mark for the eyes if they're set up to make it easy. Most of the time a good wash just makes them look like their eyes are closed at the moment. Only real time I go further is with either larger models like monsters or ones with odd eye designs that work for making it easy and/or needed. Things like Space Marines do need them in their helmets...

Wow this video was really eye opening

This is basically what I do too. Most of the eyes I paint are just shaded in with maybe one little dot of white. I have an easy trick for big monsters though. Paint the eyes with a nice off white or maybe khaki or other very light neutral color, then grab a #0 Round and place one little black dot in each as best you can. The placement of the dots will determine what it seems the monster is looking at. You can even correct that placement by making it just a tiny bit bigger with the black paint or trimming the edges back with the white, but it doesn't need to be perfectly round. The placement and size of the dot matters far more. For that matter, you could make a slit like a cat's eye if that suits the creature better than a dot. I actually use black craft paint for making the dot, because it's thicker and I find it easier to control. YMMV. Once that is dried and all set how you want, simply wash the whole eye with red ink or thinned down paint. Depending on the effect you want, you can flood the eye more or less. You can use flesh wash or other colors instead of red. For example, on a dire wolf, I used yellow. This is actually simpler than it sounds and I'm sure it would work better as a video. It's quite easy once you get it down.

Totally agree. Then again...you can learn to paint eyes well. It, just like anything else mini-hobby oriented, the more you do it, the better you get. .. What works for me, personally, is never use white. Tan, eggshell, even a grey or light gray. Then I grab my MICRON 003 fine liner and dot the eye in the middle. Using an ink pen with a hard, fine point is SOOOO much easier to control. I discovered this little trick back when I first started painting miniatures in...1982 (maybe I figured the trick out in '83, because I had been painting "Dungeon Dwellers" minis/paper-board-game mini's for a year or so by then). .. Optionally, and this is dependant upon the miniature, you can just paint the eye with a whitish-'colour' (very VERY light colour...blue or green works best, but brown is good too, with yellow/orange/red good for 'bad guys'). Then take a very small pin. Like a stick pin for use in sewing...or, better yet, a hypodermic needle. Then actually make a "hole" where the eye colour goes. Not too deep, but dep enough to notice. The light from the surrounding area will fill in the hole with shadow and it will give the illusion of a dark pupil with iris. Just like how the old sculpture masters of old used to do with their marble statues, like Venus or David. Look at pics and you'll see what I mean by "holes" or "depressions".

I tried painting eyes once or twice and that was enough! Dark wash, as you suggest, is definitely my preferred technique now.

"Fezzes are cool!" - Matt Smith - Doctor Who (before Chris Chibnall (censored) it all up). "You do you" - A slogan of Jackpot Airlines from LA To Vegas. Personally, I also use the "flood the eye area with wash" though I'll have to try Agrax Earthshade. I've been using Reikland Fleshshade.

I do something very similar, I run a bit of white into the eye and then put the wash over, usually a mix of nuln oil and agrax, works really well

@elminiaturista here! I agree what you say, but if you still wanna try I recommend: Good brush (real Marta hair), augmentation glasses X3, thin white paint (But just a little in the brush) and start the eyes looking to left or right (not center) :D

You’re taking out of my heart.

Glad I'm not the only one. I used to be able to do human eyes, but recently I've given up due to lack of a stable and fine enough point on any of my brushes, and generally not being able to see the eye well enough whilst my brush is in the area, even with a magnifier. Some of the soft detail mouldings on plastic models don't help either. Problem is, when you photograph a model, it's very obvious that it has no eyes, and kind of detracts from the overall "ta da" moment - I hate doing my best on a model, then having to explain that I purposely didn't do the eyes. Works fine though if they're wearing a hat or something and their face is in shadow.

In general, I agree. I'd say that if you do want to paint eyes use some kind of off-white. Using a bright white is just asking for trouble. And paint the pupil as a vertical line instead of a dot.

I also don't really paint eyes unless it's a monster of some sort in which case I usually use the shiny red or black eye approach. For humanoids, I take one extra step before the wash though. I usually apply just a little gray to the eyes (just the eye area itself, not the eye lids). I found that it helps make the eye area look distinct from the rest of the face as sometimes the wash doesn't do enough on its own.

I tried to paint my orruk megaboss with black & yellow eyes (black base and a yellow dot for highlight) I did the right eye spot on, it was perfect but whenever I tried to get the left eye spot on it'd look ... goofy, so I decided to paint the left side of his face (including his eye) so it looked like it was burnt (so like two-face from DC...but as an orruk). Anyways, I love your vids man, keep it up!.

Honestly eyes feel like the biggest busywork in miniature painting. I'll do it for like, a competition. But regular 28mm tabletop? Nah. Agreed 100% with the video. Unleash the crazy walleye-marines

I absolutely love your attitude to this hobby. Tried painting eyes on my crisis protocol models recently and Jesus Christ haha 😂 I don’t think I’m gonna bother in the future. Too much hassle, too stressful and it feels like an absolute crap shoot as to whether or not it’s actually gonna look even ‘ok’. Thanks atom!

This is the technique I started using recently and it really is the best thing to do, looks much more natural. My marines helmet lenses get a little color but the eyes just get a wash

I love using red wash in the eye sockets - it gives a very tired, sunken look.

This video is all the validation I needed. 😅