The Captain America unmasked heads that I own. Surprisingly the one with the least wonky eyes is the one I paid full price for. The other two were bought at Toyfairs. I chose to use the last head because damn are those eyes not painted right.
I have doubles of Steve in his Civil War suit (the reason I decided to do this custom in the first place.) I ended up using Not So Tiny Injured Steeb just because his suit is slightly lighter than the none “battle damaged” version and I like the darker version. While he is harder to get (being part of a three pack) I bought him for less at a Toyfair.
I cut off the front of the fringe as it sticks out too much. After removing the paint with nail polish remover (I do have proper acetone but I find the nail polish remover is not as harsh and it works well enough on removing the paint on faces) I scrubbed the head clean and sculpted on it using the Tamiya Quick Dry Type Epoxy Putty. I learned the hard way NOT to use it when my heater is on as it becomes a sticky mess. I have used Aves Apoxie but I find the Tamiya Putty sticks to plastic easier and isn’t as fiddly once you get the hang of it. It also doesn’t sink down as easily. To sculpt I used a small awl. Some people use toothpicks but I find they go too blunt too quickly when I use them.
Sculpting the hair was a challenge as I’m not very good at figuring out how short hair falls.
Comparing the before and after.
I realized one side of the hair was bigger than the other so I added more volume to even it up.
Late night painting the skin.
Mixing up the skin tone was a pain but eventually I just settled on one. Then began the challenge of painting eyes.
I decided to have the eyes look slightly up so that Bearded Stee would forever be glaring up at people from under his brows.
Painting the hair was very annoying. This was just the base coat.
I attempted to dry brush the hair and added some colour to the lips as well as very, very lightly adding some shading to the cheekbones, under the eyes and in the brow furrows. Honestly he’s so tiny you can only really see them right up close but I will know it’s there.
This is awesome! I need to check out that Tamiya Putty – I agree, Apoxie can be a pain to work with!
It can be quick sticky so you have to wet all your tools a lot and I use gloves so it’s an extra pain.
But I find the Tamiya is not as brittle as the Aves Apoxie once it cures and much smoother to work with. The Aves Apoxie also had an annoying habit of splitting when I was shaping it and can absorb too much water and become a sort of liquid paste. I also found the consistency to be a bit grainy no matter how thoroughly I mixed it. With Aves you also have to wait a few minutes for it to have a nice consistency but the Tamiya had a much shorter wait time but that might be because I bought the Quick Dry version.
I tried making hair that sort of stood up in spikes on another figures and unlike the Aves it doesn’t sink down. It survived being lightly tapped against the table but when I dropped it it fell off as expected.
Tiny Bucky Life 