Although unknown member carefully packaged Maria in bubble-pack before sending her across the Atlantic, the gremlins of bad fortune saw to it that she emerged from her cocoon and bounced around the inside of the box. Though the box arrived without even a dent, Maria arrived snapped from her base, and with a few small paint dings.
I was terrified at the prospect of touching unknown member's beautiful paint job, but the repairs turned out to be easy.
First, I used black paint to cover up some imperfections on the boots where they had broken loose from the base. I then re-cemented the figure back to its base.
I needed to fix some "sparkles" where paint had been knocked off the raised points of the hands, but didn't have the specific paints unknown member had used. Instead, I brushed on the lightest possible strokes of Americana Mississippi Mud - and to my eye, that worked fine.
The hair was the area I was most worried about, as there was a good-sized chip at the back of the head, and more paint had been scuffed away at the crown. I wasn't sure whether to try to re-prime the chip, or just go for color.
What I finally did was to dab on a light coat of Americana Mink Tan, which I thought would be a good match for the darker hair color. I was wrong - it was much too light, and a better match for the highlights! So I went back to the Mississippi Mud, and carefully put a few strokes in places where I thought a shadow was needed. To my surprise, the "fix" seemed to work.
Here are some pictures of the "slightly repaired" Maria:
unknown member is available for commission work. He normally charges around £50.00 GBP for painting a figure of this type and complexity.