Painting a Head

A few years ago I repainted a Big Chief Studios 4th Doctor head for myself as I felt it was a very poor representation of the Doctor as played by Tom Baker.  The eyes boggled too much and they gave him rather clownish 'hobo' stubble/five o'clock shadow... why?  Bit strange.
Anyway, I repainted the head (my first) and it turned out okay.  I'm no Darren Carnall (Facebook page) but it looked fine to me.
I painted a couple of others with varying degrees of success.
I was later asked to repaint a smiling head for the same figure which seemed okay, although it received some criticism from some quarters.
I don't fool myself, when it comes to painting heads I am strictly a hobby painter and that's it... even so I still have the odd person asking for a repaint.  I normally say no as I can't guarantee it'll turn out okay, but recently I buckled and agreed to repaint another 4th Doctor head.

The head as is comes like this:

This image is from Michael Crawford's review of the figure... I don't have a 'before' photo sadly.

http://www.mwctoys.com/images2/review_drwho_3.jpg

So, biting the bullet I mixed up a basic skin tone and covered the head (minus the hair).

As you can see the underlying sculpt is clearly very good and captures Tom Baker's likeness to a T.

I then applied another layer in a mix of colours with some general shading - I did this to allow for some skin texture as PVC heads seem rather smooth... I may have overdone it but the final results look okay.

Next came the final skin tone... more shading and some lighter tones to add a bit more life.  At this point I also painted in Tom's 1970s Noddy Holder style sideburns...

Finally I touched in the lips, added some more colour to the skin and painted the eyes... the latter could have been neater but my eyes aren't what they used to be...

I also tried it out with my own figure's hair to see how it looked... and it looks okay to me.

All I need to do now is touch in the eyebrows and that's it.  The chap I painted it for seems happy enough with it, and that's good enough for me.

If I can do it I think any competent model maker with experience in painting larger figures could do it... with a likeness this good painting it is a pleasurable experience.