Painting Pupils on Resin Eye Blanks

In my last post I failed to cast usable resin eye blanks using Little Windows resin and so bought blanks from Dreamvision Creations.In this post I will paint pupils on them. For the last furry head, I used a “Staedler Professional Combo Circle Template", from here on in known as "The Circle Thingy” to lightly trace pupils onto my resin eye blank with a black watercolor pencil, which I then carefully painted in. This time I wanted to make a stencil for the pupil, so I could fuss a little more with its placement. The resin eyes hugely magnify any errors at the center, so if the placement looks a little off from the back of the eye, it can look way off from the front!

The first order of business, however, was to decide on a diameter for the pupil. Anything in the center of the resin eye blank is greatly magnified, so it's good to try out a bunch of different sized pupils to see what looks best, knowing that the actual circle used will be smaller than how it will appear. The Circle Thingy came in handy for this- I put it down over a piece of black construction paper and simply moved the blank over each opening, until I found a size I liked.

Then to make a stencil. A craft hole punch in the size I selected (grey things in pictures) comes in handy here. I make sure the punch is nice and sharp by punching lots of holes in a sheet of aluminum foil (yes, really). Then I carefully stick a piece of Frog Tape onto a piece of wax paper. Frog Tape is supposedly a special kind of masking tape that is less prone to paint bleeding under its edges than other masking tapes, so is more likely to make sharp clean lines. Using the Circle Thingy I draw a circle on the tape/wax paper the size of the eye and then mark the center on the circle using the guides on the template (you can see some of them around large opening on the Circle Thingy in the picture to the left.)

I then cut out the circle and folded down one little edge so that I could get it centered in the hole punch, since it won't fit otherwise. I use the target to try to get the hole as close to the middle of the circle as possible. Then I peel the wax paper off the back of my new stencil and carefully position it over the back of the eye before pressing it down firmly. Even though the hole punch has been carefully positioned over the "X", and the stencil may be smack dab in the middle of the eye, the placement of the stencil may still need fiddling- again, any little error is magnified hugely by the center of the eye.

**note** it's best to use the new stencil ASAP after it's made, specifically, it's best to remove the tape promptly from the wax paper, as the longer the tape sits on the paper the more firmly it gets stuck.

Then I rub the edges of the stencil down to make sure they're firmly attached to the eye.  Then I use a fluid body acrylic (aka bottled, not tubed) such as Golden, and a wide, flat wash  brush to apply the paint. The wash brush tends to leave fewer  brushstrokes in my experience. I try to pat the paint on as much as possible, and try not to stroke the paint up under the edges of the stencil.

 When the paint is dry I remove the stencil. I **do not** use a hair dryer to speed drying as I sometimes do, as I've found it can cause a skin to form between the stencil and the eye, which can make the paint on the eye peel off when I remove the stencil. I scrape off any little spots that managed to get up under the tape anyway with my fingernail. In case of a total disaster, it's possible to wash the paint off the eye and start over again, though it's best to do this sooner rather than later- the paint is easiest to get off  before it has fully cured, usually within 24 hours. And, the finished pupil!

UPDATE 11/15/16: I want to share some good tips I got from Furaffinity, Livejournal and Facebook after I posted this article there. Some suggestions: Try using a paint marker, with a metal washer for a template; use spraypaint or an airbrush to get a better edge with the stencil; use frisket film for the stencil. I had tried to use frisket film previously but the punches can't handle it. However I might try putting the frisket film directly on the eye, drawing the circle on the film and cutting away the hole from there with an exacto knife.