what do I need to paint?

Okay, so it's about time I get around to finishing Felicia's elf ears.

 

The tamiya putty ears have been primed and smoothed out in tamiya lacquer primer.

 

I have an airbrush and no other materials. I'd like to use acrylic paints because of the ease of cleaning.

 

I will need to match to normal skin, and later match another set of ears to semi white.

 

To accomplish this, I'm thinking of starting with the tamiya xf15 flat flesh as a base and adjusting it with flat white, and mixing in blue/red as I need, possibly yellow, doing it oldschool. Do I need the thinner to shoot it from an airbrush?

 

I'll need some sort of clear coat as well for when I'm done the color match.

 

Should I stick with lacquers to match with the primer? Is it ok to pain acrylic over lacquer? I'm worried about the bonding properties being different, given that the laquer is a glossy finish.

 

I may be limited in what clear coats I can use, since the postal service is not supposed to ship aerosol cans without all the hazardous materials protocols. Would any matte finish be ok or do people prefer a specific one?

hi, how about some MSC (mistersuperclear) Spray in FLAT?

i used it very often for seal face ups from vinyl dolls and it stays on very great

You definitely need to use thin coats of a flat/matte spray, not a glossy spray. The spray gets tacky, swiftly, if you build it up too much, so you must be patient. It won't stop the ears from being scratched, though. If you want to protect them more, you could use a 'brush on' clear coat that would be thicker, on JUST the ears, then tone it down with the matte spray afterwards.

here's where I'm at right now:

 

 

 

Under indirect light from the led bulbs in my house, the match is pretty close, but you can see finish differences in the pvc vs the epoxy putty the ears are made of... the normal skin greys out in the shadow, where the painted ears reflect a more true color and they have a livelier shading.

 

The difference in this shading is super evident when I use a flash or bright light:

 

 

 

Does anyone have any tips to resolve this? I feel that if I add a tiny bit of black to the ears to deaden/grey it, the ear will just end up looking grey.

 

I'm going to wait a few days before shooting the clear, maybe the clear will help refract/diffuse the light and deaden the shadows.