Neo-uk - The best source for the original construction and colour I found when I was building the X-Plus kit recently was
this web-article, which references a direct conversation with the family of Walter Schulze-Mittendorff, the original creator of the maschinenmensch. A small website devoted to him can be found
here.
The suit was constructed from a relatively new material at the time - plastic wood - over plaster forms taken directly from casts of Brigitte Helm's body. The plastic wood was softened, rolled into sheets and heat-formed over the plaster. The finish was achieved by spraying it with several coats of cello varnish with a mixture of silver gilt and aluminium powder in it to provide the metallic look. The aluminium powder was obviously silver. The silver gilt powder, though, was gold in appearance. The cello varnish also took on a slight amber tone after several coats. So the final finish would probably have been an intermediate colour somewhere between silver and gold.
For mine, I went with a basecoat of Alclad II metallic lacquers - 3 parts 'polished brass' to 1 part 'copper' over gloss black. This gave the metal plates a nice warm golden colour. Once assembled, the entire figure was given a light misting of Alclad II 'stainless steel', building up very thin applications until I was happy with the colour.
The final result is a look that varies from warm silver to white gold depending on the light and the angle of viewing.
It's worth pointing out (since it's a detail that's missed occasionally) that the eyes were painted white with very pale grey/silver irises around the tiny 'pupils' that allowed Brigitte Helm to see. They were also outlined with dark grey eye-liner.
Hope this helps.
