Tyrant Progress

Here's some proof that I actually am working on a Hive Tyrant.

This is his top right talon as it currently sits:

This is the previous shot, when it was just a base coat and shading wash:

That second shot is more for my personal edification, as I'm not sure how much I like the paint work. Right now the arm has six or seven color layers on it. My concern is that it might lack definition, a contrast between dark and light. What do you folks think?

Here's a shot of his head:

I like this a bit better, as the lines around his jaw help with the contrast of shading to highlight.
I'm torn as to whether I should go back in and darken some areas or not. I have a temptation to blast it with Dullcote before I go on, as Dullcote has a tendency to help blend transitions. Not sure how it does it, but it does. Of course, you also lose some of your highest highlights when you do this. It's why I now try to highlight as close to white as is feasible and appropriate. I don't think white would be appropriate here.

Do you think the colors might pop a bit more once I get the talons and the ribbed flesh painted in? I'm thinking maybe a tan-to-ivory transition for the talon blades, and either a flesh tone or pink color for the ribbed flesh parts. I also considered a sickly yellow. I'm really stumped, honestly. I might go with a dark blue-green for the carapace armor, though. My reasoning is that I'm using a yellow-green for the main body chitin shell, and blue is the complimentary color to yellow. So having a blue/yellow contrast in my greens feels like a good plan. It also helps me stick a little closer to my original plan of "green crab theme". I actually almost started painting this guy in a tan/ivory scheme with a mahogany shell.

The final shot is of his body:

You can see all the fiddling about I did trying to fill gaps with Liquid Greenstuff. I did some more last night and will have to sand it back to smooth tonight.
One of the reasons I haven't started on the body yet is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to mount this sucker for painting!

As you all know, I normally put a pin in one of the model's feet and clamp it into an old Dremel. I did this with my metal Dreadnoughts, and it worked just fine. The problem here is that the only part of him that touches the ground is that little tiny section of tail and sculpted-on rock. There's just not enough there to drill for a pin. I could drill in at an angle (20-30 degrees), and bend the pin downward after it clears the tail. But the rest of the model is so top-heavy that I'm afraid it would pull through the glue bond and just spin around the pin. The top-heaviness is also the reason I can't just grab that sculpted rock area in a vice or clamp and hold it that way. I tried with a couple clamps, and it kept tipping out due to the weight of the torso.
Anyone have any suggestions? My last resort will be to glue him lightly to his 60mm base with either a tiny amount of plastic glue, or a bit of superglue. I can use an Xacto to separate the former or just break the latter.

As a tiny bit of pointless trivia to end this post: the assembled Tyrant body pictured above actually stands freely on its own on that little sculpted-in rock section under the tail. Once I add the head and arms it won't but for now it sits proudly on my desk, daring me to finish it.