Build the base
I spray-painted each white bust dark bronze. That gave the recessed areas depth and kept the finished statues from looking like brightly painted plastic.
Hand-painted garage art
The KISS Composers.
Bach, Mozart and Beethoven got a little louder.
Classical music · arena-rock makeup
Three little busts needed a louder identity.
I started with small white busts of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, then turned them into a set of KISS statues for the garage. The faces are only a few inches tall, so the makeup had to read clearly without losing the sculpted details underneath.
The ridiculous combination was exactly the point: dead-serious classical composers finished like a tiny rock band.
The build
Dark bronze first. Gold last.
Paint under magnification
I used acrylic paint and special magnifying glasses to work the tiny black, white, red and silver face details. At this scale, every line feels like lettering on a grain of rice.
Bring back the sculpture
After the acrylic cured, I worked Rub ’n Buff gold over the dark-bronze base. The gold catches the high points while the bronze stays in the shadows.
The original spark
It started with Dazed and Confused.
The idea came from a quick visual gag in Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused: a statue is transformed into Gene Simmons of KISS. That image stuck with me. Years later, three cheap composer busts gave me the chance to take the joke further and build the whole band into a matching garage display.
Finished and on display