In days of old, if you had a princess and a dragon, you certainly needed a brave knight around as well. In this case, our knight looks fairly brave, or at least determined, although I suppose there were plenty of knights who were scared stiff in the medieval times. (Who wouldn't be, going up against an occasional fire-breathing dragon?)
Materials
• Pearl white face paint (TAG)
• Light or sky blue face paint (TAG or Mehron Paradise)
• Pearl Lilac or light purple face paint (Kryvaline)
• Skin tone face paint (TAG skin tone palette)
• Silver face paint (Mehron Paradise)
• Black face paint (Diamond FX)
• White face paint (Wolfe)
• Small cloud stencil (Lea Selley graffiti eyes stencils)
• Sponge
• #2 round brush
• #4 or #5 round brush
• Small filbert brush
• Optional: cosmetic grade glitter
Tutorial
Load a filbert brush with your choice of skin tone from the skin tone palette. After you create the general face and a generous nose in the center of the forehead just above the eyebrows, put a slightly darker skin tone on the edge of the brush and add a little shadow to the bottom of the nose and the jawline.
Sponge the background and eyelids with a combination of pearl white and light blue. As you get toward the hair line, add a little of the pearl lilac/light purple. (This color gradation keeps the blue from becoming monotonous.) Also put a little of this purple on the outer edge of the eyes. Load a round brush with silver to create a helmet shape around the face of the knight.
With a small cloud stencil, add white cloud shapes around the knight. I used Lea Selley's graffiti eyes stencils for this, but you could use any cloud stencil instead. To give it a mask feel, also add white teardrops at the corners of the eyes with a round brush.
Use a small round brush to create a small wedge-shape right under the nose. After this, use a #2 round brush to add the eyes and black outlines. To complete the design, add dots and stars throughout the background, as well as highlights to the knight's face and helmet.
Beth MacKinney is the owner of and primary face painter for Face Paint Pizzazz in Elgin, Illinois, and her artwork has appeared in The Colored Palette and SkinMarkz magazines. She services Elgin, Illinois, the NW Chicago suburbs, and northern Chicago, as well as the eastern suburbs of Rockford. Stop by Facepaint.com to check out her other face painting blog posts and tutorials.