Here are the before and after images of my custom 1:6 scale ninja figure. Click the images for a large version.

Before

1. This is the raw untouched photo.

2. Removed the stand by cutting out the background.

3. Created a black-to-gray gradient background and added a little noise to help prevent unwanted banding when exporting the compressed image.

4. Painted the shadows on the ground.

5. Touched up around the edges of the figure, especially the right side of the skull mask. I also darkened the underside of his gauntlet.

Final Image

6. The final step was to adjust the image's overall color levels to add more contrast and (hopefully) emotion.