Vincent Van Gogh, in 3-D!

I am working on a whimsical sculpture.  I thought it would be fun to make a statue of one of my favorite painters, Vincent Van Gogh, and then paint him like he painted himself.  I posted pictures of the beginning of the project a few posts ago, here's the link: http://whatercolorit.blogspot.com/2013/10/chickens-with-their-heads-cut-off-do.html

Well, Vincent has proven to be more difficult than I thought he would.  I'm making him out of papier mache.  I began sanding him down yesterday in preparation for a coat of gesso, an acyrlic primer and ran into problems.  So, I'll add more paper to his "holes" and hopefully get him primed and ready to paint- fast.  I'm running out of semester!

In self portraits, Vincent always painted himself as gaunt and solemn.  I've made his head large in proportion to his body, which is elongated and thin.  Vincent often distorted things in his paintings, so this is my way of nodding to that feature of some of his work.

I've used newspaper dipped in a flour and water mixture for most of this piece.  The parts I wanted to mold with my fingers were done with a papier mache product I bought at the local art store.  

This is probably the painting I will use as my reference for the skin colors:

Hopefully, this won't be as troublesome to paint as it was to shape.