Some more progress

Lately I can spend a bit more time on modelling. So I made some good progress with the horse rider.

I finished the upper part of the surcoat and sculpted the mail on the arms and neck. I have made a new  needle for sculpting the mail because I wasn't very satisfied with the other one. Still need to have a look at the mail of the left arm. I also added the pole for the flag to his right hand, the thumb is still missing. The next steps are adding the missing part of the surcoat of the right leg and adding the details. I also started to clean the horse which also will receive a nice cloth around him.

Here the pictures of the current status.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Sculpting the surcoat

 I have made some more progress on the knight. First the belt was cut out from a lead sheet and fixed around the waist. Then electrical wire was used to create a rope which is positioned a bit higher. With magic sculp the folds between the belt and the rope were created. Then a thin sheet of magic sculp was rolled out to create the part of the surcoat below the belt. The next steps are finishing the upper part and the right side of the surcoat and adding the chain mail to the arms.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Celt

Here another figure I started a while ago. I wanted to see if I could sculpt the human body and a half naked Celt warrior was a perfect subject for this. First a wire frame was created and then the body was build up using Magic Sculp. The pose I took from an Osprey issue but isn't very original because most available figures have a raised hand. But instead of the usual sword I'm going for a axe in his raised hand and a shield in the other. A spare head was used with some adjustments. The upper body is more or less finished, the trousers still need a lot of work.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Working on the horseman

I continued to work on the knight on the horse. First I sculpted a basic saddle and afterwards I started sculpting the chain mail with a mixture of Duro and Magic Sculp. Impressing the C shape into putty with a needle is time consuming but worth the effort. This is my second try the first one was too bulky. After that I sculpted the knee caps and the protection cloth under the surcoat. Next steps will be completing the saddle and working on the surcoat and belts. Still a lot of work to do.

Cheers,

Marcel. 

Choosing the groundwork

The last weeks I had so much other things to do and very little time to spend on modeling but I managed to get some progress. After trying out different scenery's I found this groundwork from Pegaso fitting the best with the figure. The nose of the figure was damaged due to a fall from the table. First I wanted to change the head for another one but then I decided to see if I could fix the nose. Next I added the hat and started sculpting the right hand. And I did some work on the lower part of the boots. Now I'm busy making a sword. Furthermore I have to add some more details and buttons and refine some parts. Here are the photo's.

Cheers,
Marcel.

Working on the second figure

The last days I worked on the anatomy of the second figure in the scene. He will be holding a flag in his right hand and holding the reins with his left hand. I tried to give him a bit a surpised body language. Still have to do a bit of refining. Afterwards I will start with the clothes and chainmail. Still a lot of work to do.

Cheers,

Marcel.

Joachim Murat 1767-1815

Here is the next figure I cleaned the last week.
It's Joachim Murat, or Gioacchino Murat in Italian. The best commander of Napoleons cavalry. In 1808 he became king of Naples. He was head of the staff during the Russia campaign in 1813 and joined the side of Napoleon during the hundred days campaign. After the fall of Napoleon he escaped to Corsica and tried from there to win back his kingdom but he was captured when he landed in Calabria. On 13 October 1815 he was eventually executed by firing squad at the Castello di Pizzo.

The figure is from the 54mm range and produced by Romeo Models. A beautiful posed figure sculpted by the talented hands of Maurizio Bruno. The casting of the figure  is very good with great details and minimal mold lines to remove. Also it has a perfect dry fit, so no or minimal filling is required when gluing the figure together and this saves already some work and frustration. Here some pictures of the figure before priming.

Cheers,
Marcel.

Adding the details

Now with the Templar finished I can dedicate some time to sculpting again. This is one of the figures I working on for the last weekend. I sculpted the eagle on the cartridge box. The endings on the turnbacks, added some buttons and did a bit of work on the boots. I also finished the right hand were I added the thumb and did some adjustments. After a long search I found a suitable basework for the figure, which I will show in the next update. Here are the pictures.

Cheers,
Marcel.

Templar Knight Finished

Yesterday I painted the last details on the figure. I finished the surcoat, axe and spear and did some weathering of the figure. Also some blood stains were added. I still see several points for improvement but I will leave it like this for the moment. I changed my photo setup, and the initial photo's were a bit too light so I had to decreased the brightness. Hopefully with a bit of more practice and adjustmens I will be able to make better pictures in the future. Here than the photo of the figure.

Cheers,
Marcel.

Almost finished

I'm very busy lately but I could find a bit of time to continue painting this figure. I added the red cross on the chest of the figure. And the front side is now finished, I only have to add some weathering on the surcoat and chain mail. The surcoat on the backside still needs a bit more work. The shield is added to the back of the figure and painted in a slightly different white mixture with a black stripe on top to preventing a monotone look. I was working on the white part when my oldest pulled me away from my painting stuff to play with his trains. So the last things I have to do before finishing this figure is adding some more slash marks and weather the shield. Finish the gloves, spear and axe and the ground work on the sides were the paint is gone now because of touching the base.

Cheers,

Marcel.