an ethical dilemma (or perhaps just a matter of poor taste...)

I've examined and priced various paints, reclaimed those of my brother's old model paints that are appropriate to my color scheme & still might work, and got a couple things to start out with. And it was a lovely day, but I didn't take the little alien apart to start spraying him with sealant for three reasons.

First, I'm having so much fun with his mobility, and I don't quite want to take him apart before I've sorted out how to put him back together again, for which I really ought to have/make a proper re-stringing buttonhook thing, as my usual string & bead methods are going to be even more irritating than usual with all his little pieces.

Second, I really ought to do the wing-sculpt with the necessary shoulder drilling involved before I paint his shoulders...

and third, which is another part of the same problem really... well, he's going to be a little mechanized creature in brass and copper and verdigris and glazed porcelain. Not actually alive, or rather, no moving parts except for his joints. A doll, not a doll pretending to be human. And so there's no reason for him to have any embarrassingly personal details like genitalia, really, and it would probably be far more convenient to have a sexless doll who needn't worry about clothing if it doesn't suit him, right? But I'm having a slight conceptual difficulty in just scaring up a dremel and, er... smoothing him out. Clearly I need to cultivate a man-hating lesbian side for moments like these.

...but I did find some "contour putty" in with the old model paints to smooth out his little backside. Um... don't you wish I hadn't told you that?