Alt. Kup - WIP

I need some help with this one, I've got about 3/4 of an idea here.

the other day I did some parts swapping to break up the mostly black deco of my custom Trailbreaker. When I put the extra parts back together I was left with a bot that reminded me of Kup

The colors and alt. mode made me think him. Then I started to look at the Prime head mold and with a bit of tweaking I got what I think is a good start.

Now I felt like I was on to something but I'm having trouble with the facial details. I also can't really decide on a paint scheme for either mode. I'd like to keep the bot mode more G1ish light blues and gray but have something more traditional but still complimentary for the truck.

So who's good with colors? I'd prefer not to have to mix anything and I'm more comfortable with spray paints when I can get away with it. And any tips on making facial details stand out? Alt. Kup is something of a grail for me so I don't want to slouch on this one. Thanks for helping.

PS I threw in a pic of Trailbreaker bc he got me started on this road

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Kup could use a new body, it certainly would shave off a few hundred years!

Kup's alt. mode could simply be a darker turquoise than his G1 toy, but maybe you could have a simple stripe run across the truck bed sides like most modern trucks do in a lighter teal color. As long as the finished figure is generally in the balpark of coloration in comparison to the original figure, you can't really go wrong with him IMO.

Life kinda got in the way here, and I had to put this aside for a bit, but I could really use some ideas on making facial features (the mouth and age lines mostly) stand out. Someone must have a trick or two they can share...

From the pic, it looks like the face could use bit more smoothing. Since it's pretty much impossible to sand faces like that, I scrape the surface with an exacto blade at a 90% angle to the surface. For puppet lines next to the mouth, you can cut a line with the knife and then scrape out along one side of it. That will give a nice step down with a sharp edge on one side. For lines drag a new blade along it's thicker side. This will gouge a nice "V" shaped groove that the paint won't fill in as easily.
A coat of silver will tell you instantly if there are any major imperfections. If so, let dry and scrape again. At this scale, paint will act as a filler too. For a real filler I recommend Quikwood epoxy putty. It's good for getting into little areas. It's good on it's own, but if you use Bursh-On Krazy glue over it, it, it makes it much tougher. Brush On Krazy glue is also a good way of returning a nice shiny surface to plastic. Just brush it on and let it dry for about ten minutes.
As far as making the features stand out- here's what I do. For lots of definition, I paint the whole thing flat black and then paint in the highlights with silver or gray- the front of the nose, cheeks, eyebrow ridge, eyeballs.
I did a Kup recently and I painted him with a combination of Rust-Oleum fFat Wildflower blue, Flat Slate Blue, and Gloss Spa Blue.
Classics Kup 2.0
(Not trying to thread-jack, I swear! I just love Kup! )

not sure if its the direction you want to take, but an actual G1 Kup head is split the same way as an alt head, allowing you to fit his face to the rear part of an existing Alts head. I did it with the wrangler mold and the scales near perfect. I know the Ram mold is a bit more 'chunky', but i think it could work.
Of course, this is assuming you have a junker Kup lying around!!!