lethyry
Active Member
I thought I'd share something I have been working on for the last few months in my spare time.
I stumbled across this Howard S Nicholson Joker Bust basically on a complete fluke.
It was being sold for next to nothing and was fairly local to me so I made the necessary arrangements to snag this beauty.
The above photo is not how I received it as it was in pretty rough shape, This photo was taken after I did some re sculpting to the ears, several teeth, the back of the jacket, a layer of primer and a sanding with various grits. This was also a very rough fit of the eyes I was going to use.
Once I was happy with the textures and all the areas I had to fix, then came painting. I started with a base coat of basic flat white, nothing too special with this just regular rattle can paint from Home Depot. I did a couple coats of this with a quick wet sand using some 3000 in various areas to get the white to lay smoother in between coats.
Then came one of the more tricky parts of this paint up... getting the right colour for the jacket. I looked at as much reference as I could of both promo shots of Nicholson and some other people's paint ups and spent a lot of time trying to find a colour I felt looked the closest. I landed on this one after days and days of research, which I feel looks quite nice.
Jumping forward a little bit I got the shirt painted up which was very straight forward and started on the mouth. I roughed out the lips with a pencil and did a few coats with some red. The inside of the mouth consisted of two colours; a lighter pink for the gums and a darker pink I mixed up using light pink, red, brown, and purple for the inside of the mouth behind the teeth. I really liked the way the two different colours looked as it gave the mouth some depth, and feathering the two colours together was very easy.
For the teeth I just used the Ivory colour from Vallejo and a top coat of gloss nail polish to give it a nice shine that isn't overbearing.
The hair again was pretty tricky for me as I didn't want it to look too cartoony. After spending a few hours in various paint stores I decided on two greens that I would alter for the hair, a lighter one and a darker one. The darker green was mixed with a hint of the lighter green, brown, and black, which gave me a solid base for the hair that I was able to build upon. Once this was dry I used the lighter green mixed with the smallest bit of black and brown to get the green a little less vibrant. This was then dry brushed over the darker green and came out fantastic in my opinion.
The brows were done separate, by very lightly dry brushing them on in very light coats, slowly building them up with the lighter green and a couple light passes with the light brown. I then did a white dry brush layer over them to tone the green down a bit more.
One thing I knew I was going to do from the outset was use eyes instead of trying to paint them on. I don't think even with hours of practice I'd be satisfied with the results if I tried to paint them. I found a decent set of 27MM eyes that were the colour I wanted so before starting to paint I did a lot of sanding/refining of the eye sockets so the eyes would fit as flush as possible and use the least amount of filler. Once I had the eyes in the desired position I taped them from the inside and carefully used plastic weld around them so they would be permanently fixed in that position.
This photo is from after I set the eyes. I'm overall pretty happy with the results. There was a couple tiny gaps I had to fill in with plastic weld on the outside but they were very easy to do.
For anyone else who is completing one of these busts here is the paints I used for reference if desired
Above is the most up to date photo I have of the bust, more work has been completed since the photo was taken (Eye sockets and buttons have been painted, tie has been made and final weathering has been done) But I will wait until the stand is finished and all put together to upload photos. I'm hoping to get some nice photos of this completed this Saturday when I bring this to the Toronto Prop Expo along with some of the other pieces I've worked on I've shared on here.
I stumbled across this Howard S Nicholson Joker Bust basically on a complete fluke.
It was being sold for next to nothing and was fairly local to me so I made the necessary arrangements to snag this beauty.
The above photo is not how I received it as it was in pretty rough shape, This photo was taken after I did some re sculpting to the ears, several teeth, the back of the jacket, a layer of primer and a sanding with various grits. This was also a very rough fit of the eyes I was going to use.
Once I was happy with the textures and all the areas I had to fix, then came painting. I started with a base coat of basic flat white, nothing too special with this just regular rattle can paint from Home Depot. I did a couple coats of this with a quick wet sand using some 3000 in various areas to get the white to lay smoother in between coats.
Then came one of the more tricky parts of this paint up... getting the right colour for the jacket. I looked at as much reference as I could of both promo shots of Nicholson and some other people's paint ups and spent a lot of time trying to find a colour I felt looked the closest. I landed on this one after days and days of research, which I feel looks quite nice.
Jumping forward a little bit I got the shirt painted up which was very straight forward and started on the mouth. I roughed out the lips with a pencil and did a few coats with some red. The inside of the mouth consisted of two colours; a lighter pink for the gums and a darker pink I mixed up using light pink, red, brown, and purple for the inside of the mouth behind the teeth. I really liked the way the two different colours looked as it gave the mouth some depth, and feathering the two colours together was very easy.
For the teeth I just used the Ivory colour from Vallejo and a top coat of gloss nail polish to give it a nice shine that isn't overbearing.
The hair again was pretty tricky for me as I didn't want it to look too cartoony. After spending a few hours in various paint stores I decided on two greens that I would alter for the hair, a lighter one and a darker one. The darker green was mixed with a hint of the lighter green, brown, and black, which gave me a solid base for the hair that I was able to build upon. Once this was dry I used the lighter green mixed with the smallest bit of black and brown to get the green a little less vibrant. This was then dry brushed over the darker green and came out fantastic in my opinion.
The brows were done separate, by very lightly dry brushing them on in very light coats, slowly building them up with the lighter green and a couple light passes with the light brown. I then did a white dry brush layer over them to tone the green down a bit more.
One thing I knew I was going to do from the outset was use eyes instead of trying to paint them on. I don't think even with hours of practice I'd be satisfied with the results if I tried to paint them. I found a decent set of 27MM eyes that were the colour I wanted so before starting to paint I did a lot of sanding/refining of the eye sockets so the eyes would fit as flush as possible and use the least amount of filler. Once I had the eyes in the desired position I taped them from the inside and carefully used plastic weld around them so they would be permanently fixed in that position.
This photo is from after I set the eyes. I'm overall pretty happy with the results. There was a couple tiny gaps I had to fill in with plastic weld on the outside but they were very easy to do.
For anyone else who is completing one of these busts here is the paints I used for reference if desired
Above is the most up to date photo I have of the bust, more work has been completed since the photo was taken (Eye sockets and buttons have been painted, tie has been made and final weathering has been done) But I will wait until the stand is finished and all put together to upload photos. I'm hoping to get some nice photos of this completed this Saturday when I bring this to the Toronto Prop Expo along with some of the other pieces I've worked on I've shared on here.
