There are many ways to paint a piece like this, so the first decision you have to make is how do you want him to look. Spectral Motion provides you with hair to customize Alex, so you could go for a younger, "Lost Boys" kind of feel to the character, of you could leave him bald, and go for more of a "classic" Nosferatu design. I decided to go the Nosferatu route, but with a twist. Alex has prominent veining on the sculpture, so I wanted to give him a translucent skin effect, one where the veins are visible through the skin. This is an effect that would work on all sorts of undead characters.

After cleaning, building and puttying the bust, I give it a couple of coats of Floquil figure primer. I always stress that priming a kit is very important, it seals the surface and gives the paint something to 'bite' into. This is not a step you want to cut corners on. If you don't prime the surface, your paint will eventually begin to rub off with average handling. Priming this kit with light gray primer also serves a dual purpose, I use the light gray color as my basecoat. I want to give a translucent/dead effect to the skin so I mix a base skin tone of Raw Siena and White with Burnt Umber, a touch of Payne's Gray and a touch of Purple. The combination of Raw Siena and White gives you a golden/beige color, adding Burnt Umber makes the color "smoky", the Payne's Gray makes the color "cooler" in tone, and Purple gives the color a death-like pallor. You could also use blue or green in place of purple. Normally I work from dark to light with skin tones, but doing a translucent technique requires a different approach.

I take this color and airbrush a fine line all over the surface of the skin. You want this line to be an even pattern, almost like a "scribble" to represent the deepest veining under the skin. The deeper the veins, the harder they would be to see, so keep the color subtle, close to the beginning skin tone. The idea is to see the deep veining, but not have it overwhelm the piece.

The next step is to repeat the the same procedure, but with a slightly different color. I take the basic skin tone once again and add a touch more of Payne's Gray and a touch of blue. I then add another layer of veining over the surface of the bust. This time, I take more care in the placement of the veins.

As the veins get closer to the surface of the skin they become darker and more visible, so I spray the color in more of a veining pattern of longer, "spidery" strokes.

There are a series of raised veins sculpted by the artist, so I make them the ones closest to the surface of the skin. They will be the darkest veins, so I add a touch more gray and blue to the mix and take care to spray directly on top them. Once the veining is done, I take the "master" skin tone color and slightly mist over the raised veins to blend them down to give the impression they lie under the skin.

Once the veining and skin tones are complete, I combine a small amount of Burnt Umber and Payne's Gray with a larger than usual amount of Polly-S Airbrush Thinner to make a dark, "smoky" transparent color. I lightly airbrush this color underneath the muscles, around the temples, eyes, hollows of the cheekbones and the edge of the bust itself. This brings out subtle shading, but don't use too much!

After I've achieved the look I want, I spray the bust down with about three coats of Testor's flat lacquer to protect and seal the work done up to this point. Now comes the fun part! I make a wash using the same combination of Burnt Umber and Payne's Gray with Polly-S thinner and begin to shade around the eyes. I work the wash into the creases of the skin around the eyes, the folds and wrinkles of the face, in the ears, nostrils and wherever else I want to add shading. Washes give you more control in the fine details than you would make. To help blend the edge of the wash out, I use the Polly-S thinner on a clean brush to feather the edges before they dry. You have to work fairly fast with washes, if they dry on you before you get a chance to blend them you will get an unsightly edge. Work in small areas one at a time to keep this from happening. Another trick is to brush a thin layer of plain thinner on the area first to dampen it before adding the colored washes. This helps the colors to blend and spread a little easier. If an area of wash painting accidentally gets wet you'll ruin all of your work, so when you get a look you like, seal it with a couple of coats of flat lacquer before proceeding. You can also build up layers of color this way.

The next step is to bring Alex to life by giving him realistic eyes and teeth. For the eyes I paint a basecoat the orb of the eye with a warm oyster-gray color made with White, Burnt Umber, and Raw Siena. I then lighten the color slightly and highlight the center of the orb a bit more. I line the bottom edge of the eye with pink/red, made from Red Oxide and the eye basecoat color. Next, I position the Iris of the eye with black to give me a guide.

For the mouth, I paint the inside dark brown using Burnt Umber, and fade the color to a reddish shade as it gets to the outer edge by adding Red Oxide and a touch of White to the mix. I darken the lips with washes of
Burnt Umber, Red Oxide and Payne's Gray. Using the Red Oxide/White color I paint the Vampire's gums. I then basecoat his teeth with the same color I used to basecoat the eyes. Next, I highlight the tips of the teeth by adding white to the basecoat color. After the teeth have dried, I add washes of Raw Siena to make them more ivory in color, and a Burnt Umber wash to darken them along the gum line. My guess is Alex isn't too concerned with flossing! I take the pink resin tongue and give it a light wash of the Burnt Umber to bring out the details.

After everything is dry, I glue in the mouth assembly- wicked! I brush Testor's Gloss Coat over the eyes, teeth and tongue to give a realistic wet appearance.

As a final touch of realism I decide to add a bit of spittle between the upper teeth and tongue. This is a technique I constantly get questions about, and there are many ways to achieve it, but the easiest is to use a clear five minute epoxy glue.

For the base, I chose to go with a weathered brown/gray marble effect. Now just attach the brass nameplate provided by Spectral Motion and you have one heck of an impressive piece to add to your collection. Alex is a disturbing, frightening vision, one that's a "must have" for Vampire fans!