Next, prime, then paint in your favorite schemes. A suggestion of something to try here: paint the plug black, then fog the belly with Createx Chamilion blue. Hit a shot of red on the chin to complete it. The plug goes from metallic blue on the belly to black on the back. Simple, but looks pretty cool! The chamilion lilac also looks pretty good over the black too
After the paint has dried for at least 24 hours, I’ll add the eyes, red in this case. Add a touch of epoxy in the eyehole, then insert the eye. I do this even on the eyes with adhesive backing. Helps keep them in place when they get knocked about.
You can add the lip and grommet before, or after clear coating. To get the grommet to match the curve of the plug, I use a section of a dowel close to the diameter of the plug with a hole in the center (same diameter as the grommet hole on the plug). Another piece of scrap wood is cut to match this. Place a grommet in the hole, hold the other wood on the head of the grommet and hit with a hammer. The edges of the grommet are now curved to match the plug.