Glowing skull eyes Tutorial

Morning Ladies and Gents.

     After my release of the Hexwraiths some of you asked me about those glowing eyes on the champion. So I decided to make a tutorial about how I did that. I'm not saying that my way is the best or even correct for that matter. If you want to try painting it the way I did then you need to follow these steps.

1. First you need to paint your skull. I mean everything from the jaw to the tip, get all the highlights done etc. Painting the glow effect of eye sockets will be the final touch. It's preferred that the skull is not pure "skull white" so the light will be more noticeable to the viewer.


2. Paint the holes pure white. Don't overextend too much from the sockets' edges.  Just fill it white. For this I used Skull White.


3. Prepare a mix of Skull White and Sunburst Yellow 1:1. Paint it around the edges of the holes .


4. At this point you need to give your skull some green glasses :) Mix Sunburst Yellow with Dark Angels Green 3:1 and  paint the high areas around the sockets. Fuse them together to create a type of swimming goggles. The important part is to leave the yellow showing and don't get any paint in the holes!


5.We are almost done. Now take some Sunburst Yellow and drybrush the line between the green areas and the brighter yellow at the inner edges. The dry brush must be smooth and not to thick. You can cover most of the green area but it must be visible through the yellow paint.


6. Now repeat the same thing from step 5. but at the outer edges of the green highlight. You can extend the final highlight to the forehead but you need to figure out what works best with your particular model.


   

 This is my end result

Summary:
     I'm pleased with the effect but remember there is always room for improvement. I think you can use this technique with a different paint combinations:

Green Glow     Skull White    Sunburst Yellow   Dark Angels Green
Blue Glow        Skull White    Ice Blue                Enchanted Blue
Red Glow         Skull White    Blazing Orange    Blood Red
Purple Glow    Skull White    Tentacle Pink        Liche Purple

When it comes to those other sets of paints, I haven't tested them but you need to watch out at step 4 and mix it differently. Change the ratio from 3:1 to 1:1.

     I hope that this tutorial will help. Oh and sorry for the low quality skull, it's a fast gimp mouse sketch ;p. Would love to see what you guys will come up with. If you do, it would be awesome if you leave a link down in the comments. Cheers!