The head has been going through a long process of changing, trying to improve, such as these:

Same with the main body, legs and torso (hence the uniform, gun holster, belt, parachute harness, etc.) .

Things have been improving, changing, there's the drying time factor, time waiting, now I've been using very thinned glazes over main areas, the uniform basically (not easily visible on the last pic sadly, will try better pics later on Sun light) .

Head, face are now done:

And that is where I am now:

Cheers!

Dolf

Thank you Jeff (@mikegolf) .

Ace is a cool name/nickname, I'm fine with that 🙂

Cheers!

Dolf

Jeff (@mikegolf) ,

Ace it is then 🙂

Ace is being the experimental test with my adventures with oil paints.
I know already that I made a beginner's usual mistake, by applying too much paint to the overall uniform area (which is the larger part of the figure, legs + torso), which is resulting in two problems that I'm now in the process of trying to solve/save...
The drying time of that uniform paint is taking a too long time, and also IMO it looks too shinny (cloth, especially uniforms' cloth, shouldn't look shinny, not even in the Southern Pacific Sea, right?), so have been trying to correct these two issues.
Applying a thinnier "shadowing" darker colors on the lows on the pleats (both the pants and the shirt), to which I mixed a good amount of "águarrás" (a kind of "white spirit") and a couple of drops of Liquin Original - which is supposed to help increase the drying time, making the process go faster, but also tends to give a Satin varnish look where applied, and I don't want that, I want the uniform to be as matt as possible; probably now only much later, when in a few months all oils are fully dry and hardened, may I apply a coat of a final matt varnish; in the meantime, as the oils go drying, in some cases former shinnier areas tend to become more kind of matt - ) .
I may have to apply various glazes of thinnier & thinnier tones over the dried ones, as time goes by.

Funny enough, the Mae West, which at some point was pretty shinny (as it shold look like in reality, because of the kind of tissues involved on its fabric), after a few new tones (looking for the best yellowish-orangish look they have, based on the photos poste above), became a bit matt. I may have solved this too, in this case by just applying a dilluted bit of Liquin, mixed with a tiny old remaining of the original color, to the Mae West (giving it again a final more glossy look, which is what I want to achieve here) .
Will have to wait a couple of days more and see how this goes.

So yes, in a sense Ace has been a teacher... and a guinea pig... lol...

Cheers!

Dolf

It looks great but I understand where you're coming from. The differences between matte and shiny fabrics or rubberised materials is evident when you see them in person. I never wore a Mae West, but I have had uniform pieces or seperate parts that were made of new space-age materials. For instance, our NOMEX tanker suits which are made to be fire resistant, come from the factory with almost a satin sheen, and are much less matte looking. However, as they get worn and more importantly - get washed, they take on a much more matte finish. (It also causes them to lose their fire resistance - NOT GOOD) These NOMEX suits are a Tanker's version of the flight suit pilots wear, just a different color and somewhat different pockets arrangement. It also includes a jacket, gloves (the exact same as pilot's gloves) and a hood. It's all wonderful ... until you have it all on, then put the NBC suit on OVER it (protection against chemical agents - NBC means Nuclear,Biological, & Chemical) and it happens to be 112 degrees F because you're in the Iraqi desert! PLUS, you're in an M1 series tank that has a jet engine for power which has an exhaust temperature of nearly 1000 degrees F! Believe you me, we were miserable! I miss being in my tank and that life but I sure don't miss the lack of comfort! But I apologise for getting off the subject of YOUR great figure of our buddy Ace!

I wish I had some help for you, but I have exactly ZERO experience with any oil paint that doesn't go on part of a house! (And precious little experience there, either - we mostly use acrylic paints in our homes these days - it's MUCH easier to work with.)

My point? You're doing great, 'Dolf! The amount of experimenting and thought you're putting into this figure is going to all work out to a great figure in the end. Well done, Amigo!

Don’t have any idea how I missed this. A great thread with terrific information, a brilliant build at it’s heart, and a lot of fun. What more could you want? Fantastic.

Great stuff, Dolf.

I really cannot wait to see your Lawrence of Arabia build. That looks an amazing bust!

David (@dirtylittlefokker)

"I really cannot wait to see your Lawrence of Arabia build. That looks an amazing bust!"

I may have to change my original suggestion.
As I've noticed with this fellow Ace (the US Navy pilot, which I believe is approximately the same scale as the Lawrence of Arabia bust), this scale may be a bit too small for both my eyes and in a certain way also the formness of my hands...

I know of some other larger scale busts out there. related to movies, that I may pick instead.

I do love Lawrence of Arabia (the character on the film, most certainly because it's Peter O'Toole), and I like this bust a lot, but I may need some more practice on larger pieces first, before I do this Lawrence.

There's for instance this Taxi Driver/Robert de Niro bust (a 200mm 1/9 bust is easier for the eyes and the hands 🙂 ) :

http://www.pegasomodels.it/productdetails_en.asp?id=753#

There are plenty more, Marilyn Monroe (a 1/10th bust: https://www.elgrecominiatures.co.uk/collections/life-miniatures/products/bye-bye-baby-marilyn-monroe-in-korea-uso-tour1954 ), Laurel & Hardy (a beautiful duo set, in 1/10 scale : https://scale75.com/en/busts-to-scale/87-laurel-and-hardy.html ; I've seen it both painted in "b&w", as well as in color), and so many more...

Cheers!

Dolf