[Tom Edgerton]

Usually when an artist tells me they won't do teeth, it's because they haven't done it much and are afraid to. There is no tenet for "appropriateness" of teeth in a portrait. If it's central to the subject's character, just do it. Everything comes with practice.

I try to obtain a relaxed, "in-between" expression, however, with some subtlety, as it wears better over time. The 500-watt, public relations grin is better suited to photographic portraits and short-term viewing.

One method I use for teeth and for the whites of eyes is to paint them the same value as the surrounding skin tone first, and adjust slightly as needed. This keeps me from painting them too light and brilliant. (Most of the time with eyes, I paint the whites at the same time as the surrounding skin, with the same skin color value, and then gray them only slightly to correct color.

For teeth, I draw them very individually and carefully first--teeth are never perfect and are as individual as fingerprints--and then blur the divisions between them slightly, especially between the front two, to avoid the impression of a row of perfect little tombstones or "chicklets."