Problems with replicating a pearlescent gold color

Didn't mean to abandon this thread...thanks for the tip Green Skin...I bought a bottle of the metallic medium last month and the color was absolutely what I needed. Flat white base, gloss clear, metallic medium, and then a clear coat and it was the exact effect I needed but it didn't work out perfectly. The paint was very thick and hard to use. It was basically impossible to make a flat layer no matter what I did and every application left tiny bumps that had to be scraped off. I tried to ignore it and fix it but the surfaces always wound up uneven. I tried to dilute the paint with a few drops of water and I made a point to stir it for at least 20 minutes but it didn't help remove the bumps at all...then I mixed in a few drops of the metallic into some Model Masters flat white and it seemed to help but it was still thick and hardly looked metallic when dry. I may try out the nail polish now but are there any other potential solutions?

Vallejo makes this stuff called 'metallic medium' that would suit your need particularly well. It's essentially a metallic white that comes out pearly.

After talking with the guy it seems he wants his custom to look more like the second figure in the above pic and I can't see how I can achieve that. Getting a gold effect would've been simple enough but I can't figure out how I'm going to make the hair metallic white for the base coat. I tried mixing Model Masters Ardent Silver and MM Flat White but it left me with a light grey color that was only slightly metallic.

This option is a bit unorthodox but I'm thinking this nail polish might work as it seems to have the exact color I need...



...though I can't really say if the coat would look metallic when dry or not, and I'm also worried it might peel very easily (a problem I rarely encounter with Model Masters). Any ideas?

This effect can be achieved as you thought of using chrome paint with clear colors on top, or you can put down a base-coat of gloss yellow and give it the lightest overspray of chrome spray paint but spraying the paint very far away from it or next to it so that all that lands on the surface is a gentle mist of paint.