The Eyes Have It

My sister-in-law is making monster roller derby dolls.

She asked me to paint a pair of eyes on her latest doll. I figured it might be a good opportunity to archive the way I normally paint eyes on figures. (Note that this is at a much larger scale than the figures I'd normally be painting, but the process is much the same.)

Step 1: Generate an assortment of eyes. She decided that the bottom right ones would be good.

 Close up of the head.

Step 2: Blacken in the outlines of the eyes.

Step 3: Eyes the colour of a dead television screen (or at least we used to have dead screens like that, now the screen's just black or blue so we don't have to see the ugly static). The shading of the eyes is darker at the top and lighter at the bottom to show the natural reflections within the eye.

 Step 4: The pupils are added in. In this case slits like a cat's eye. Adding in a bit of shading to the lips as well.

 Step 5: Some highlighting is added to provide reflections that give the eye a more liquid look.

Side view of dolls head, that's a hell of an undercut.

Step 6: A bit more shading and detailing, and she's pretty much good to go. The client is happy.