Convincing face paint is a crucial part of dressing up as a tiger for Halloween, school spirit week or a play. Following this basic design gives you everything you need to create an impressive tiger face or it can serve as a jumping off point to make your own creative design. You can also use this design for a face painting table or booth at a birthday party, fundraiser or other event.
Face
Cover your entire face with background color before you start any of the features or details; it is very difficult to fill in background colors later. Using a makeup sponge, blot white paint on the "mustache" area above your upper lip, a bit just below your lower lip and on your eyelids up to your eyebrows. Next, use the sponge to cover the inside area of your face -- nose, cheeks, lower forehead and chin -- with yellow paint. Finish up the background by using orange all around the outside of the face, blending the orange inward toward the yellow where they meet.
Eyes
Paint thick black lines around your eyes to make oval cat eyes. Extend a line from the outer corner of each eye, curving upward. Make the lines thick at the eyes' outer corners and thin at their inner corners.
Nose
Use a paint brush to paint a black line straight across the tip of your nose, from one side to the other. Fill in everything below the line and around your nostrils black to make the nose.
Mouth
Paint a black line from the bottom of your nose to the center of your upper lip with a paint brush. Fill in your upper lip with black paint and draw black lines curling upward from each corner of your mouth. Fill in your lower lip with either black or red.
Details
Paint on black stripes with a paint brush. Start at the sides of your nose and sweep your brush in an arc, down then up, across each cheek bone. Use lighter pressure at the start and finish of the stroke so the stripes come to a point at each end. Two or three stripes should be enough for the cheeks. Sweep stripes diagonally downward around the sides of the chin and diagonally upward for a few stripes on each side of the forehead. Add three small black marks like apostrophes in the center of your forehead, just above eyebrow level. Use a fine paint brush to make several black marks in the white area above your upper lip and extend whiskers from them across your cheeks if desired.
