The putty was hard, and I was delicately scraping wisps of hard epoxy off with the end of a hobby blade. It's small, tight work but things are going OK... until after one little flick of the knife, I saw a small metallic sliver spiral through the air. Oh, god! Oh, no! It's his whole upper eyelid and a chunk of eyeball!
Thoughts were racing through my head:
"If I order another figure from Alpha today, I'll have it in about a week, will that leave me enough time to paint?"
"Should I just bow out of the contest?"
"Would a nice mask be historical?"
I decided to try and re-sculpt the eye, but I couldn't get it to match its un-mangled twin. This was when I decided to take the big plunge. I filed off both eyes and hoped I could at least make two eyes I sculpted match.
(Oh, and did I mention I've never sculpted an eye before...)
I printed out pictures from the Alpha site, trying to get a sense of the proportions the original sculptor used. I mixed small batches of Apoxie Sculpt and built up the eyes in three sessions: eyeball, upper eyelid, and lower eyelid.
Fortunately, Apoxie Sculpt has a one-to-three-hour work time, because it took a lot of fiddling to get something acceptable. Picture an hour-and-a-half making micro-adjustments to bits of putty about the size of two pinheads.
I also spent a fourth session lightly sanding with 400-grit wet-dry to get the lids to feather smoothly with the rest of the face. Some extra putty was used to smooth the transition from the washer base to the molded on figure base.
My advice: indented pupils are not really that bad....
Okay, four days later, our leader has eyes again! Glad I wasn't planning to sculpt a suebian knot!
The painting of the eyes started with the whites of the eyes, using a mix of Oyster White:White:MW (Magic Wash) in the ratio 1:2:1. This mix lets a little of the gray primer show through. Never go for a solid pure white – it leads to a bug-eyed look.
The iris was based with Charcoal:MW 2:1. Inside the Charcoal circle, dab small circles of Drizzle Grey:Blue Heaven:MW 1:1:2 and circles of Drizzle Grey:Blue Heaven:White:MW 1:1:1:5. This helps to give some texture to the iris.
Finish things off with a dot of black as the pupil. At this time, fill in the mouth with Medium Flesh:Burnt Sienna:MW 1:2:2, followed by a wash of Burnt Sienna on the upper mouth.
