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Gordon Highlander, Waterloo 1815, 1/10 scale bust


Eludia

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Hi all,

With all great intentions I was going to build a plane as my next project but it wasn't long before the interest vanished so I plucked this one from my Grey Army to, hopefully, restore my modelling mojo.

He is from Young Miniatures and, as usual from this company, it is an excellently sculpted piece. The kit comes in 6 parts, I love the simplicity of figure modelling :), the head, bonnet, torso, Trotter pack, bonnet ties and a support pillar. Detail is excellent throughout but I spent a bit of time with a scriber and scalpel cleaning out the deeper areas and adding a bit more definition to the the strap edges etc. I also drilled out the holes in the straps to add a bit more depth.

To make painting easier I decided to paint the head and bonnet as one piece, I also attached the support pillar to the torso to paint as another sub-assembly, the pack and bonnet tails will also be painted seperately and, with a bit of luck, everything will all come together nicely at the end (famous last words).

So far, I've put together the sub-assemblies (filling and cleaning up as required), mounted them on various handles and got some primer onto them. I've got a club night tomorrow and won't be at my bench on Thursday either (probably.....maybe) so the primer should be nicely cooked by the time I revisit him on Friday. Then it'll be time to crack open the oils :)

Gordon%20Highlander-3.jpg

Gordon%20Highlander-1.jpg

Gordon%20Highlander-2.jpg

Stay tuned for more :)

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Oh yes, a Young bust, I love them! I have one in my stash, but I feel like I need to practice more before cracking on it. I'll be watching ... :popcorn::popcorn:

Ciao

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Hi again all,

My day at the bench yesterday never quite panned out the way I hoped (does it ever?) so I never got much done.

Basically all I did was lay an acrylic undercoat onto the red areas, I use Jo Sonja craft acrylics almost exclusively now for undercoating as it dries very flat so gives a good surface for the subsequent oil coats to "bite". In this case I used Brown Madder as it is pretty close to the brick red colour of OR tunics (SNCO and Officer tunics used better quality material and dyes I believe, and so were brighter, a bit more like scarlet).

I've decided to try and paint this piece using a limited palette, not as a money saving exercise (too late for that), but just to prove to myself that it can be done. My palette is shown below, it is based loosely on the famous limited palette used by the Swedish artist Anders Zorn (http://michaellynnadams.com/zorn-palette/). I'm using Paynes Grey as my "blue" rather than Ivory Black but I still have that on standby ;)

Gordon%20Highlander-4.jpg

This morning I managed to get the first red blending layer on over the undercoat. I mixed a nice green from Yellow Ochre (YO) and Paynes Grey (PG) and then used it to "knock back" the brightness of the Cad Red (CR) to a make it more like a brick red. This was applied as a scrub coat over the acrylic undercoat. Initial shading was done using a bit more of the green to darken the red further. Once all the initial wet-on-wet shading was done then it was off to the drying cabinet till tomorrow (after taking a few pics of course). I'll deepen the shadows and add some highlights when this first layer is fully dry. This is how he looks so far (the yellow facing on the collar and epaulettes is just YO mixed with (a lot of) Titanium White(TW)):

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Gordon%20Highlander-8.jpg

Stay tuned for more, the next test of the limited palette will be skin tones (maybe later today).

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Really looking good; I only use acrylics for figure painting, so your way to reproduce brick red with oils is totally new for me. Watching with interest :popcorn:

Ciao

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Smashing! I used to do all my figures with oils - even 28mm. The blending potential with "normal" oils is fantastic. I've never used the water-mixable/alkyds though. What are these like? How much blending time do you get?

I'll be watching with interest - I know there's no way I could manage without a burnt sienna/burnt umber though!

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Aparently the WMO behave just like normal oils and drying/blending times are comparable but I'm not best placed to make a comment as I haven't really used normal oils. I can confirm that unless you "help" the drying process by leaching out the oil carrier or using a drying cabinet (hot box) for example, you have hours, if not days, of working/blending time depending on the pigment (some dry a lot faster than others).

I suspect the pigment load is a bit less based purely on the price, (the Artisan Cad Red is £3.42 at the minute in Jacksons whereas the same paint from the Artists range is £11.17). The quality of the WMO however is certainly good enough for a biff like me, and the benefits of not working in an environment heavy with white spirit (or turps) fumes cannot be underestimated ;)

I will add that, although they are water mixable, its best not to use water to thin them. The Artisan thinner works far better. Water is only used for cleanup.

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Often the way of things with pigment loading. Although, if you're using a limited palette, you can get artists' rather than students' grade and still not break the bank. I used to cheat with "real" oils and use white enamel in the mixes which used to chivvy things along a bit!

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Billy,,

It is looking EXCELLENT... good work so far... :mike:

you have chosen a very highly detailed bust which is awesome...

200 Years Anniversary of the WATERLOO this year , this is quite a tribute ...

GOOD LUCK... :thumbsup:

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Hey again folks :)

I spent a bit of time this morning sorting out my photography setup, so hopefully you'll find these photos a bit better looking, I'm certainly a lot happier with them. Its surprising how much you can hide with a decent photo setup ;)

I played about with some skin tones last night till I stumbled upon something I was happy with. The face has come out somewhat flat in the photos though, there is a lot more contrast when viewed in the flesh (pardon the pun).

The good news is I still haven't deviated from my limited palette - YO + CR +TW for the basic skin tone, highlighted with a bit more TW and darkened with CR and PG for warm and cool shadows respectively. Not the normal skin tones I'm used to but if we did the same thing all the time life would soon get boring ;) I normally just add white to Burnt Sienna then shade with more BS and highlight with more white (this is a good approach for that "fresh spraytan" look)

I also went back over the red tunic to smooth out and deepen the shadows (no pics yet though, I took these before I reworked the tunic). I also added some highlights using neat CR (in very small quantities). Highlighting red is always a problem area as it is very difficult to do wet-on-wet, if you add white you get pink highlights and if you add yellow you get orange highlights (both options are not realistic in my eyes). My method for this piece was to highlight with the brighter CR once the first coat was dry, blending the highlights into the base coat. Another option would be to start off with the brightest colour as your base coat then add shadows wet-on-wet.

Anyhoo, I've bored you enough, here are some pics:

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Thanks for looking in :)

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Just realised that I will have to deviate from my plan at some point. I failed to take notice of the elephant in the room i.e. the stonking great big brass buckle in the middle of his chest, and also the various smaller metal buckles and buttons. NMM scares me a little and I don't fancy going down that road, even with a full palette, so it looks like I'll have to crack open the metallics at some stage.

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Nice work thus far.

Never been a fan of the NMM finish. I find it always looks flat and lifeless.

Who makes that little jig/clamp that you are using to hold the figure with?

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it's made by Sphere Products, based near Ipswich. They sell it as a small scale aircraft stand.

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Thank you.

Just ordered one.

Not sure if you have noticed or if it is an artefact of the photo, but it looks like you have missed a spot under his chin. I am sure I can see what looks like white primer.

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Well spotted Crayons, there are a couple of spots like that. It's where my clumsy fingers/thumbs have brushed against the model whilst working. I've since touched these bits up but I'm bound to have missed some somewhere. I don't seem to notice them whilst working, even wearing an Optivisor, but the old saying is true, the camera never lies ;)

Edited by Eludia
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I know the feeling....

I entered a figure painting comp about 5 years ago, laboured long and hard on the figure. Come comp day, wrapped it all up and off I set. As I was placing it on the display table, my wife looks at me and asks if the big white spot on the inside of the figure's coat was part of the colour scheme. Nope, I had just missed that spot entirely.

I now get another set of eyes to look over my work before I say it is finished.

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Great skin tones Billy, I love them! I like the red too, and I agree with you, not easy to work on that color and get "real" effects.

Ciao

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A bit more progress :)

I've given him some hair colour, I was going for a stereotypical ginger jock but I think I've overdone the yellow in the highlights so when the paint is dry I will try and gingify it a little more with a reddish glaze. Base for the hair is YO with a spot of PG and CR, highlights are YO + TW with a tiny spot of CR.

The eyes aren't done yet I might add, I just popped a dab of paint in each to act as a marker for later and to reduce the "zombie" look a little.

I have to admit I'm feeling a bit chuffed at the minute that I'm still managing to stick with my limited palette, it is surprisingly versatile and somewhat liberating. I think I'll be able to forgive myself if the only deviation I make is the addition of some metallic printers' inks :)

Thanks again for tuning in and, as always, comments and critique are most welcome.

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Superb job! He looks as tough as a woodpecker's lips! Congrats on sticking to your palette: that is something I've never been any good at!

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I would be very careful about gingering the hair, especially as you have used red in your skin tone. Might end up making the poor chap look like he fell asleep under the sun lamp.

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I've been rethinking the hair tbh. The more I look at it, in the pics and irl, the more I'm thinking that it actually looks ok so the jury's still out on this one. I'll leave it for now and revisit when I've done some more "colouring in", it'll have a bit more framework to compare it against then.

Thanks for the replies guys :)

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If the red gets a little to much at any point, you can use a thin green wash to help neutralize some of the intensity.

I would be careful in doing that however as your limited pallete will only give you a muddy/dirty green.

Edited by Crayons
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I am watching this with intrest, having just found it, I am awaiting delivery of my Waterloo Anthology book and this will compliment it like a glove, are there any other busts of Waterloo soldiers as I can see me having a go at this, something that has come out of the blue. Cracking build by the way.

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Have a look at companies like Model Cellar, CGS, Mitches Military Models and Young Miniatures to name but a few. You could spend your whole modelling life building and painting the Waterloo pieces that are available and you'd still not get them all finished, its a very popular period. Jump forward 40 years to the 1850s and you'll find just as much interesting material from the Crimean War and The Indian Mutiny. The Victorian period is my favourite modelling era, so many colourful uniforms, and characters. It makes a refreshing change from painting everything green and brown :)

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