The Six Million Dollar Sculpt PART 2

In spite of all the sanding you do when you're working with the now baked Sculpey, you are bound to miss lots of little nubs and imperfections present in the sculpt. Therefore it is helpful to shoot a coat of primer over the head in order to highlight these flaws.

I like to start with a simple coat of a single color. I airbrush a coat of Tamiya Flat Flesh acrylic. Once it is dry you can then examine the surface. 

Using progressively finer grained sandpaper I work down the surfaces to be nice and smooth. Meanwhile alternating with my Dremel tool using grinding bits and sanding wheels to get in the nooks and cranny's and remove burrs left over from sculpting. Also I take this opportunity to sharpen any areas like the edges of lips and eyelids. 

 Once the sculpt has been sanded down to my satisfaction I use a pad of synthetic steel wool to burnish the surface smooth as possible and then a cloth, usually old t-shirt material, to finally polish the surface of the head.

It is important to wash your hands frequently in these final stages so as not to have any grease from your hands present on the Sculpey, this can cause paint adhesion problems later on.

Once satisfied with the smoothness I mix together the basic flesh tones that I am looking for and airbrush first a light overall flesh tone, then a highlighting one. The highlights go on the elevated surfaces of the face, bridge of the nose, forehead, chin, cheekbones etc. The figure at this point looks very pale and lifeless but toning the skin will come later.

Next I mix for brush painting a dark brown/red color to sink into the deep parts of the face- eyelids, inner ears, nostrils, lips, and deep skin folds.

I also begin painting in the eyes. I use Model Master Acrylic sand for the whites of the eyes since the whites are REALLY off white. I then apply the colored parts of the eye by making the dark ring around the iris, then the iris color, finally the pupil.
I decided not to paint a tiny white catch light on this eye and instead sealed them up with a heavy coat of gloss clear. This gives them a much better, more realistic look.

 The lips are picked out in a darker flesh color, but not in broad flat tones the darker color is used to paint in ridges vertically along the length of the lips. I also add in the eyebrows at this stage. It's beginning to look more and more human.

Once the detail brush painting is done, its time to bust the airbrush back out. This time I mix a very thins blend of gloss clear orange and gloss clear red.
 This will be used as a filter to spray over the surface and darken the skin as one see's fit, much like applying a spray tan. This also helps to smooth and blend together the brush painted detailing.

The final thing to be added in is Steve's hair. It is based in a lightened brown tone. Once that dries, the hair is brushed with golden yellow to highlight the strands and then I bring back the sand color to add some high points here and there throughout the head. Finally a dark brown is brought back in as a wash to add into some of the crevasses and deepen the hair.

All in all I think the sculpt turned out pretty damn good and the paint came out great. Now he just needs a body and some clothing. There will definitely be more to come!

Where am I gonna find a blue leisure suit in 1/6th scale?