Painting advice for Venus bust

[Keith]

Hi all,
I have an old plaster Venus de Milo bust that was cast off the original statue.
The bust is already painted in a light grey colour and I want to repaint it to match the original statue.
I'm looking for some advice on painting it, from base colours to final weathering. I'll be using the airbrush on it. My weathering method is usually airbrushing the colour on and the dabbing it with thinners on a cloth. That's worked best for me over the years anyway.
Sometimes it seems pure white, white over grey and other times beige.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

You going for the statue as it looks now, or will you attempt the look it possibly had in antiquity?

Sorry, don't have any painting advice. There are a few marble bust painting tutorials on youtube.

 

[Keith]

As it looks now.

 

[yaris]

There's many different ways to paint and weather, if you've done something that worked in the past , go with that.

I'd hand paint it in white acrylic matt and add a very light black or a terracotta wash.......

 

[Too Much Garlic]

I know it's not ivory, but hand brushing on ivory white and then doing loads of different kinds of washes with heavily thinned out browns and blues and greens, maybe even yellows and red and then drybrushing with the ivory white should generate a close result to marble.

Though, there are marble white colors out there.

You can use the cheapest paints for this and you have to thin them to the point where it doesn't really look like it adds any color. You want to go random, even clean it off with a rag, and let it build in areas it would naturally occur - creases, sunken in areas, etc. Just go wild and try to follow the splitches of weathering and colors you see on the original.

And this is a kind of paint job where you can just switch colors immediately and not wait for each coat to dry. The only one you need to let dry completely are the first white coats.

At least that's how I would paint this.

Some seal at different steps, so it is easier to remove an error. Though... with this... any error can just be painted over, softened, or blended in by later coats.