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.

I'm pretty new myself but I have much better speed if I use a dauber sponge with white around the eyes then clean up the outline with a wipe. Do the rest of the face red with a sponge using just the edge around the white. #6 round for line work. Don't know why I got into the dauber thing but for me it works. Hope this helps.

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!

I use a cut up car wash sponge that's more of an inch by inch squarish shape on one end for the white part and wiggle it around till I get the shape I need, then use the red to finish out the shape. The black lines end up hiding the overlapped parts.
Here's mine, I HATE doing full face spidey, so even though it makes me a couple of dollars less I try to stick with my half face spidey, and I don't know if it's just me, but I find that the younger boys (and I do SO many spidey's on 3 year old boys!) don't do well with paint on their mouths and they end up wiping it everywhere where as girls can handle it with lipstick...like they're genetically engineered to know how to wear lipstick and not smear it all over their face. There are always exceptions of course.
Here's one of my Spidey faces...not the best, but one of the only pics I have of it...

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.

I agree with Perry, take a look at some Spiderman pictures before you start. I thought I knew the right shape around the eyes but once I started really looking at them, I realized that the image in my head was not the most common/up to date Spiderman shape. The Spiderman from the animated series that came out in the late 60s (which is what I grew up watching), does have eyes that are pretty much teardrop shaped, and the black outline was thicker. Google Spiderman 67 and you'll see what I mean. That's not the one the kids want nowadays.

So this is the one I did for my board way back when, it was the first Spidey I ever did and it's the one I still do now although I do it better now and I leave out the white highlights if I'm rushed for time.
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I do usually use a sponge, especially for the eyes. Sometimes I will use a flat brush for the red and I kind of like that because I get nice clean lines down the sides where I follow the laugh lines down to the jawline. But I will often fill in with a sponge after I've outlined because I get smoother coverage.

spider man eyes I flat brush no 12 in a teardrop. spiderman red I sponge. This is on my son who is the worst kid to paint. so my line work is poor. he also has a wonky head his bones fused too early, so it makes painting a series of lines ie spiderman a challenge

Now I have two spidermans on my board with and without highlights. I charge more for highlights. basically the same picture without white.

Yes, my vote goes to masks too. I think they're faster and I love how they look. I use a sponge for the eyes, then I outline with a brush and I sponge with Snaz red and outline with black. (Btw love this pic):

Thanks so much for all your comments and suggestions ! You all rock !

Great thread! I dread Spiderman & it's all the boys seem to want! thanks for all the great tips.

This is my version of the holiday spidey from the silly farm video corner. I found this video to be very helpful for me. But I am going to google more images and study those eyes!

Hmm, I bet those sharp triangles are easier and faster to paint. Sweet!

Hello All,

I'm new to FP as well and today was my first real gig and it went over well. I was super anxious and nervous about my speed, the feed back, and overall quality of work. Needless to say, I did a lot of spidermen and none of them looked the same...I actually had to look at the photo a couple of times. Your tips and pointers are well received and appreciated.

I agree with Stacia! I much rather do just the one side. Faster, less to paint, and gets that little boy outta there. He will barely smudge it and definitely won't mess it up eating. Here's my little boy Spidey

But I always have the older boys! I loooove to paint them. They always make me laugh.


My tips are to paint only one side or half masks on younger boys. It will make you feel better. The eyes should definitely point a little outward. For the full masks, I always add silver! Also, I always make sure there are 4 vertical lines sprouting from the middle on top and bottom. For the webs I make the horizontal lines making a more "u" shape on the top part of the face and a "rainbow" shape on the bottom half EXCEPT for the middle lines that go over the nose and mouth. I make those mostly straight with a slight "u" curve.

My Spiderman rocks. It really is easy. But when I started it was tricky. At one event I did not want to paint it, so my then partner Tasja said she would. I panted two that day she did about 37!