Thanks Gandalf! I'll try to make it right! Will practice exstensively on a practice mini first to make sure I have the techniques down, of course. If I don't feel like I can do it justice, then I'll simply paint him in TMM. This bust is actually Thomas Wentworth, a pre-Civil War Aenglish Parliamentary figure, royalist, Lord of Ireland, and Earl of Stafford. The bust is based upon a painting commissioned during his lifetime. Anyway, clearly I will use the painting as my source of reference, and in this painting Wentworth is wearing a very dark, almost black steel. Well, Scalecolour Black metal would be PERFECT for this, so TMM is not completely out of the question...especially if his face ends up looking very good, I may end up too timid to try out the gilding and ruin my efforts.
Bailey, the rivets shouldn't be a problem. I have been assured that the leaf will pick up the tiniest of details. If that's what you mean by a pain in the....I think I will use oils on his face BTW. Why not, eh? Oils also work very well on faces with a bit of oil stand added to mimic the sheen of real skin. Plus the good thing about oils is that they just wipe off if you mess up. I just need to pick up 1-2 more colors maybe. And yeah, I am starting to think that larger scales just allow one to showcase their skills in a more discernible manner.