Reindeer Face Painting: Holiday Fun Ideas

Here is a super cute Christmas reindeer design that I have prepared especially for the holiday season!

The key to creating an animal design with a good placement is to look at the space you actually have available to paint on — it is not always necessary to fill the whole facial area with your design.

Sometimes, scaling down the size of the design, so that you can fit it in better with the features of your models face will give you a more correct and effective result. 😉

Get Your Beginner Reindeer Face Paint Kit Here

Materials used:

• Paint pal luxe swirl #3
• Loew Cornell American painter angled brush 3/4 (Alternative: The Face Painting Shop Brush – 3/4″ LONG Angled)
• Cameleon short blending brush #1
• I used a homemade one stroke for this, made from:
  • TAG skin color, beige
  • TAG gold
  • Global rose brown
  • Cameleon coffee brown
• If you don’t want to make your own one stroke, then “Red fox” or “Tigress” from Natalee Davies will also look great
• Gold glitter
• DFX White
• DFX Black

Step 1: The Main Shape

First, I start by outlining the main shape of the design. If you are a confident painter you may find that you don´t need to do this, but I find it very helpful — especially when painting new designs.

For this reindeer face paint, it is important to place the eyes as far out on the sides as possible, as this is the way they are placed on a real deer.

Are you a beginner? Check out our Free Guide for Beginner Face Painter and learn where to start, what tools to buy and how to face paint many amazing popular designs! 😍

Step 2: The White Areas

To continue with my reindeer face paint, I then move on to painting the main white areas, which is the muzzle area, the eyes and the inside of the ears. As you can see, I am not too accurate at this stage, with the exception of the area over the eyes.

The placement of the eye area is quite important for the symmetry and shape of the design – but as you will go over this area with your one stroke in the next step you will be able to blend the colors a bit more then.

Step 3: Coloring Your Deer Face Paint

Loading a ¾ inch angled brush, I proceed with painting the main shape of the deer. Note that I have the lightest color on the outside all the way.

I then fill in the missing gaps on the forehead with a reddish brown color as well as the ears. I load a round brush with a more neutral brown and paint some cute little antlers as well.

If you don’t have a different brown to use for this, don’t worry — you can use the same as you used on the rest of the head and it will still look great! 😉

Step 4: The Outline

For the black line work, I use a round brush #3. I vary the pressure I use in order to create those thin to thick lines, but try to keep them quite delicate so that the eye shape will pop more.

Over the white eyes, I use more pressure to create that distinct eye shape more prominent.

I have also added some cute eyelashes here — if you are painting this reindeer face paint on a boy you can skip this part.

Step 5: Reindeer Face Paint Details

With a round brush #4, I add the characteristic white dots to the forehead. As you can see the dots and the curve of the eye shape are all leading the eye towards the center focal point between the eyes — this helps to give your reindeer face paint design a good flow and a balanced look.

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Step 6: Shading for Your Deer Face Paint

You can leave your design like it is in the previous step — or, if you have time, you can add a little dry brushing to soften the black and put some gold glitter on in selected places and you have a super cute Christmas or Halloween deer makeup that is sure to impress your little customers!

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Break out your kit! Show us your take on Kristin’s design below! 👇🎨🦌