This is the Horizon vinyl figure of Steve Wang's The Gillman.  Only the third vinyl figure I've ever done, the results were surprisingly successful.  Finished a few days before the contest the figure tied for First Place!

The kit is two pieces:  the pedestal, and the bust.  This was purely a painting exercise.  Using acrylic paints, it was more like sculpting with paint as layer after layer was built up to achieve the final effect.  One thing of note to the painters out there, no washes were used.  Except for the brush painting done on the eyes, veins, and spots everything was done strictly by airbrush.

The eyes were first basecoated with a mixture of yellow and gold for a slightly sparkled effect.  Then cat's eye shaped black pupils were painted so that they would focus at a point about 10" in front of the figure (about where someone might be if they were taking a close look).  Over this thinned yellow was speckled allowing it to fuzz the edges of the pupils (look at your eye in the mirror some time and you will see why).  Lastly, clear epoxy was brushed over everything to give that watery/glassy look.

The gills, front and back, were given a multi-toned shading to add a subtle interest once the viewer got over the creature staring back at him.

One more subtle detail added is the blue veining in the chest.  This was bruch painted with a bit of thinned blue and then overcoated with several layers of slightly varying shades of the chest tone to sink the veins below the surface.  They are most easily seen on the left side of this picture.

The Gillman