Model Museum: Ceasar Romero Joker by Keith Cousins

Joker Bust
Ceasar Romero
sculpted by Chris Elizardo
Scale 1/3 Resin
handpainted by
Keith Cousins
"Cous3"

This bust came to me already painted with no clean up done on it at all. The seams were not touched, there was still a chunk of resin on the base which had not been squared off, various parts had very rough puttied areas, and most of the bust was covered in fine pin holes. My first action was to strip the bust, as it turned out this wasn't too much of a chore as the paint hadn't been sealed and so with the use
of a worn scouring pad and a big helping of elbow grease
I got to work.

Once most of the paint was off I set about the clean up, seams were filed, sanded and puttied. The rough areas were Dremmeled away and Milliput
used to resculpt and fill. The fine pin holes were actually more difficult,
here I used Artists Acrylic Paste....A LOT of it! At last after many hours of
prep work it was ready to be primed and the more rewarding part of
actually painting was about to begin.

I started with the face, base coated with
4 light coats of Matt White. This was then
sealed and a light Grey pastel used to add
shadows to the creases and sunken areas,
then again sealed. I tried a White pastel to
blend the shaded areas into the face but
with no success, so for this I had to drybrush White into the Grey. Whilst not as subtle as blending with another pastel, as one
would with flesh tones, the drybrushing did achieve the effect I wanted.
Eyes, mouth, teeth, lips were next, no
problem there, but something didn't look
right to me......Time to check out some
reference pics, it was the eyes, Romero
had Dark Green eye liner, so out with the
'00' brush to add the lines.
The hair was basecoated with very Dark Green and then drybrushed with 4 different Greens, each one a shade lighter than the last

Onto the clothes, his shirt was given a base
of Medium Green & drybrushed with light Green to pick up the collar & other raised areas.
The bow tie is Midnight blue drybrushed with
Sea Blue, again to pick up the raised edges.

For the Jacket, Waistcoat & Trousers I wanted
the same colour but in different shades to
break up what would otherwise be just one
mass of the same shade. First I base coated
with a Matt Red and then mixed up my own
base colour using Americana Alizarin Crimson
and Humbrol Matt Magenta. By adding a small amount of Ivory I got the shades I wanted, not
a huge difference in the 3 items of clothing but enough to notice. Matt Magenta was used to drybrush and a deep Red/Brown pastel used for shading the cloths.

The base was basecoated in Matt Black
and then drybrushed with a mixture of
Citadel Gunmetal and Chainmail

I would just like to add that the actual SCULPT by Chris Elizardo is excellent and that Chris had NOTHING to do with the very poor casting of the bust I got.
Chris's work is ALWAYS of the highest standard.