Spiderman --- uhhh!!

Hi everyone!

I had a gig yesterday along side 3 extremely talented painters, it was great seeing their amazing work!

Apart from feeling very out of my league painting next to them, my first child wanted spiderman. I suck at spidey!

My hand was shaking and I just couldn't get into it!

Then of course, the next 25 boys I did wanted spidey too! I wanted to vomit. HAHAH !

Anyway.... by the 10 billionth spiderman I felt like I had improved !!! So, it's true. Practise makes perfect! I just feel bad for all the 'practise' victims out there....

What are your secrets? I just find doing the eyes white with a brush takes forever, but a sponge makes a mess (ruins the shape) so I ended up just outlining the eyes white and leaving them. Then the red i went from colouring it in with a #4 (what on earth was I thinking?) to using a filbert to colour it in. Is that how you do it?

Hope you all had a great weekend x

Yay for improvement! I'm glad you feel more confident with Spidy now. Not sure if you were wanting to be able to fill the eyes in completely or not, but here's how I do it. I can't sponge or brush them either.

I do spiderman eyes with a white dauber. You do some circular motions over the eyes to get a nice coverage and then flick up to create the point. It's never perfect, but I just define the the shape a little with the red.

Thanks ladies ! That spidey looks cool!

I haven't tried the dauber. Must give it a go. Thank god for wipes too !!

I think the thing that really gets me is it's not a fast design (for me anyway) so the stress of the line makes me want to go faster but if I do it's so easy to stuff it up and then if i stuff it up I get more stressed and then I try to fix it , then I take longer, then i get stressed about taking ages and then the whole process repeats LOL !!

I usually use snazaroo for the bases, unless I use starblends.

I've just started using starblends for spiderman and it works really well:



Sometimes I colour in the eyes, sometimes not - depends on the child and how much time I have.

I use Silver for the eyes, I personally find the white way too harsh...just a personal preferance though. And I use a sponge for the eyes, make a general shape, then shape it more when sponging on the red if I need to, the black outline cleans it all up in the end. Spidey is now one of my faces I use on my fast faces board...it can be done quickly, promise! Be patient!!

I use starblends white and red.

While it's not perfect, and not an original design, this was my very first full face painting & spiderman: I have pretty much stuck with it. Of course I have a quicker / smaller version that is more like a mask and for squinty boys, does not have any white in the eyes - except for the highlights.

Ok, so I use a large filbert for the eyes. I outline with the edge of the brush, then fill in. I sponge the red, then my linework is done with a #2 or #4 lowe cornell. This pic may have been a #6 round of some other brand. I didn't start with the best brushes, but I soon discovered the quality of my brushes makes a HUGE difference to the quality of my line work.

I leave the mouth unpainted. To me it looks better, and drinking/eating won't mess up the paintwork.

The other thing I discovered was that a diamond in the middle of the eyes helps to anchor the lines. From there I just follow the curves of the face, IYKWIM.

Now as I said, not an original design and I'm afraid I don't know who I borrowed this one from... but I love it and thanks!

All your tips and hints are so so appreciated !

Might have to check out the starblends too!

I only do the mask spidey because of the food / mouth potential mess issue aswell Never had a kid complain

THANKS so much for your support ! Off to get my manequin head out to have another practise. I am determined to get as good as the ladies yesterday!

before you put paint on anything, get yourself a few different pictures of Spider-Man and take a good long look at the shape of his eyes. They are NOT teardrops in ANY artist's version of him (there are different artists that have done him). They are always flat on top, they are sometimes triangular and they point OUT NOT UP.

This is my current version of Spider-Man, using the largest, triangular eyes because it means painting less webs so there's less room for error with wiggly kids and it is easier to keep the eyes from going curly on the ends.



I use sponges for the white and red. By making your black around the eyes as thick as possible, you can cover over any fuzzy sponging stuff between areas. If you get your sponging down on this one, you can pump out these faces in 3 minutes.

Oh I'm loving all the tips...I suck at spidey too!! I DREAD it, and of course as soon as you have one boy w/spidey...you're bound to have a line-up full of 'em! lol

I really don't like doing the spidey dude, but I have an ok one. I paint mine as a mask(since anything around the mouth turns to mush in 10 minutes:-)

Another mask vote here! I find that with a mask the birthday cake/heat doesn't destroy the design in 15 seconds flat! Here are some of mine:

I always do a mask, too. Mostly because it is faster.