Big ol' pile of heads and armatures for the St. Privat project.

New Project- Structure Layout

This is the rough layout of the St. Privat Cemetery/Courtyard. A structure diorama builder I am not. I'm going to try and keep it as simple as possible. Not all elements and details in Neuville's painting will be shown in this diorama. Some figures will have to be omitted and composition tweaked here and there. I will do my best rendering to keep it Neuville-esq however.

Self-imposed art, model and crafting challenge wrap-up.

I've been quiet with the blog the past couple days, but stayed busy at the workbench. Priming miniatures, more game terrain and managed to have an actual game (I might do a battle report later). There were a few more projects I didn't post, but will add to the challenge record later on.

Day 12 of the self-imposed art, model and crafting challenge.

All kinds of work going on. Besides basecoating a ton of 1/72 ACW's, I've been plugging away at more wargame scatter terrain. Some river/stream and road sections. Those are made of plastic "FOR SALE" signs with acrylic caulking for the banks. The stream is painted a dark brown color with Liquitex gloss medium for the water. A modular section for  Islandlwana  mountain. Even on top of an existing hill, its way out of scale. Experimented with Fall type trees. Still not sure about those, maybe mixed with bare trees it will work or have several in a group?

Breaking out books for reference and inspiration for various subjects. Lots of time on my hands makes a mess of the "library". Having blast doing it all.

Day 10 of the self-imposed art, model and crafting challenge.

A little bit of everything of everything today. Making some river sections for the game table. More work on the Bunker Hill vignette and starting to paint Captain " Slim".

Day 8 of the self-imposed art, model , craft challenge.

Not a lot of progress today. Mostly cleaning and organizing my workspace, taking it easy. I dont want to burn out, I'm only half way through! The "plowed field" scatter terrain piece looks pretty good for the game table. The rocks I made some time ago. They're made of aluminum foil, crumpled up and lightly hammered into shape. Painted with grey mixed with Mod Podge. Hopefully, a little more active tomorrow.

Day 7 of my self-imposed modeling challenge afternoon update.

This morning's and afternoon's work. Mostly priming. Dullcoted some Zulus. Primed some Nap 28's and a couple cannon. Gave a couple coats of black primer to Captain "Slim". I noticed some bare spots that need another coat. Making a plowed field for the gaming table. I'm using a cheap vinyl floor tile for the base. A hand made comb is used to make the furrows. So far, a fulfilling hobby day.

Day Four of the self-imposed art, model, crafting challenge.

Seeing light at the end of this project. A few things I've learned from this if I decide to do another of such scale. One, use heavy gauge wire for the armature! I underestimated the weight of this dude. Thankfully, I didn't start sculpting from the bottom up, the constant tilting would have cracked or snapped at the ankles. Two, compensate for shrinkage. Das clay, or any air dry clay, will shrink considerably. Three, is pretty much the same but more careful observation of proportions. I pretty much winged this one, which really didn't matter because I went into it knowing I was doing a rough sculpture. Right now it looks like something you'd buy in a tourist trinket shop, but maybe with with a good faux bronze paint job, it might pass a smell test. Anyway, I had a blast sculpting him and learned a lot. Todavia estoy aprendiendo.

Day 2 of self imposed art challenge.

Worked into the late hours last night and a few this afternoon. I've gotten quite a bit done since starting this project yesterday. But, still far to go. I think I'll stop here for now, while I'm still hungry to continue, and start something else. Even though I started this piece knowing it was designed to be a quick project, I dont want to continue this losing motivation.

Day 1 of self-imposed "art" challenge.

I am using a Frederic Remington study of a Indian Wars cavalry officer as the subject. This will be more of a gestural sculpture, rough and unpolished. I'll be using Das air dry clay.

At the remote workbench cleaning up and shiming horses. I have an idea for a large mounted vignette down the road. The good thing about having a workbench away from my current projects, is that I can walk away any time, leaving a mess and manageable clutter.

Bits, bobs and spare parts

I love these hardware type organizers. I may have to upgrade to a larger one though, my bits are starting to overflow.

New Paint Rack

Time for a change. As you can see there is not much elbow room with my paint carousel in the way. While I endured the necessary obstacle for years, I decided to make something more display functional and still easy to reach. Some cheap lumber ($15-$20) and an afternoon of constructing, I came up with this. I had to cut down on the amount of bottles (many duplicates) but this makes a paint selection much easier.

Good Times

My little homage to Airfix. As a kid in the late 70's to early 80's, hundreds of hours were spent playing and painting these wonderful models. Esci 1/72 scale figures comes to a close second but Airfix will always be a first love. Particularly the American Civil War range. Though hideously inaccurate, along with some crazy strange poses, there is something about them...Maybe it's nostalgia. Donno, whenever I see that round red, white and black Airfix logo, it brings back some very fond memories. I played with other toy soldier/playsets but these "little men" from the UK will always be number one.

Keep'em clean!

I may have posted on this subject before but it's worth repeating. Keeping my brushes clean is a never ending battle. Being primarily an acrylic painter, I know the havoc those paints can play on brushes. To clean my brushes, I use "The Masters" Brush Cleaner and Preserver. I use this cleaner after each paint session, sometimes more than once, depending how long I sit at the workbench. I can paint a dozen or more figures with a few "work horse" brushes before they start to show wear. Combined with an obsessive cleaning routine and painting with above normal dilution rates, adds life to a quality brush.

"Turkenlouis"

A classic Puchala figure in the queue to be painted. I bought this fella a few years ago because the subject and pose is so elegant, it's just screaming to have color. The subject I'm not familiar with, but the title is Ludwig Wilhelm I, Margrave of Baden. Anyway, he's been primed.

Future Vignette

I started this project a couple years ago. I don't like having unfinished sculpts laying around so I may get back at this soon. At least finish sculpting the figures. The vignette is inspired by a drawing done by our hero, Edouard Detaille.

More Historex "Conversion"

This is a figure I built a while back and is just waiting to be primed. The upper torso, knapsack and water gord are from Historex. The head is from Nemrod. Legs and arms are scratch-built. If I have time, I may have him painted up by MFCA this spring.

On the workbench-APG auction piece 2013

My drawer full of Historex bits and bobs were screaming for attention. The piece was inspired by a Edouard Detaille study of a French Infantry Officer late 1700's. This was a fairly easy "conversion" with most of the scratch build work being done on the hat and arms. With a little imagination and elbow grease, Historex body parts can still make a decent figure.

Nothing new...

...but I'll keep the blog rolling with a pic of my main reference library that I keep close to the workbench. "Yippie skippy", you say!

This is only a 1/4 of my collection. The rest is on cheap book cases in the family room or in totes.

Just finishing up painting a stock figure and also digging up ideas for one or two more projects before the MFCA show in May.

Thanks for browsing.