Painting Mannequins (By Request!)

[NZMark]

Holy MOTHER!
That is fantastic!!! My wife just looked over my shoulder and said exactly what I was thinking - That looks better than the original. (In an unbroken condition!)
Now he has his own character, and if you paint as well as you sculpt, then we need to start up a business, as Glenn says.
SERIOUSLY impressed.
Mark.

[JK1945]

Thanks Mark, my missus likes it as well, shes asked me if i can fill in her wrinkles with some putty!

[Ostfries]

paintbrush,

A big Thank You, guys.
John, I do have mannequins whose arms I've jointed at the elbow with ball joints so as to move. These are extremely useful, as you'd imagine, but you must place a shirt under whatever is being display to stop abrasion or catching on the actions.
Ostfries - It would be a pleasure to paint your display backdrops! You have a fantastic collection, truely inspiring.
Regards to all,
Mark.

You could always consider a holiday to Friesland my friend, free lodging and food, you are always welcome but don’t forget to bring your aerosol and paintbrush.

[Ostfries]

forensic detective,

Hi Mark,

This mannequin was about to loose his head until i read this thread last year, unfortunately I had some bog left over from a fender bender so i thought id give it ago. He needs a little more tidying before i attempt to splash some paint on him but im glad now i didn't settle for my first option, cheers for a great thread

Regards,

Jeremy.

Great job Jeremy, you should consider a job as forensic detective reconstructing faces like this.

[Sturmgeist]

Wow! That really is impressive! Its like "Back from the Dead" mannequin style.

[NZMark]

Jeremy emailed me a photo of his progress this morning - all I can say is he'd better post photos here to share - it's magnificent
I've been painting the house over my Christmas break, so while my hands were dirty I decided to also do some chop and change to a spare torso I had lying about. As it matches a sitting guy I already have all I wanted to do was alter the way the head is facing. Nip/Tuck, here we go...
First step was to cut off the head and completely remove the neck (the muscles would be wrong), then re-attach with internal support and car body filler. This was then filed and sanded down.

[NZMark]

That was then checked for pitting and air holes, which were filled/sanded. After that I undercoated the whole thing with sandable primer which shows up any defects I've missed.

[NZMark]

Once happy with that I put down an overall base colour and let that dry thoroughly for a day in the sun.

[NZMark]

Next day I went into final skin tone mode. That is just the process I've described previously - paint a small section (eyebrows/eyes/nose for example) with your base 'skin' colour then WHILE WET, add a touch of the base colour red.

[NZMark]

Simply blend the red into the wet base colour...

[NZMark]

Remember - only on the highlights!

[NZMark]

One side down...

[NZMark]

Experimant with the amounts of red, and time to wait before the paint becomes too tacky to work with.

[NZMark]

Using a flash in this photo accentuates what I'm driving at.

[NZMark]

Here's the size brush I use for the whole process.