Drummer, 59th Regiment of Foot

Here's one of my finished winter projects. It's a commission piece depicting a drummer from the 59th Regiment of Foot around the time of Lexington and Concord. Since this is a repeat subject, I thought adding a "scarecrow" or efigy would add some punch to the scene. The drum is scratchbuilt. I'll set up an SBS on how I do these later on. All painted with acrylic.

Up next is Historic Art Miniatures 70mm 82nd Airborne based on the image by famed photographer Robert Capa. It will be painted in black and white. Stay tuned.

Lutzen painted!

The most yellow I've ever painted! It was a great project to work on. This period of military history is very appealing but hasn't been explored much in the hobby. I hope to do another such subject sometime later. Everything was painted with acrylics. Sorry for the harsh pics.

Overall view.

Here's the right side of the vignette. Note the upper leg armor panels on the pikemen are made of putty which were formed on a brass dowel and allowed to cure. A thin coat of Vaseline was brushed on the dowel to keep the putty from sticking. One cured, the panels were then carefully pried off the dowel and carved to shape. Each armored "plate" was carved on the panel. Some filing and sanding was needed to finish them up. These pieces were also all done at the same time.

The helmets were all made in a similar manner. I started with the brim and shaping it to a pointed or sharp ridge front and back. This was let to cure then the dome was sculpted. Again, allowed to cure then the crest formed. Once cured, some carving were needed to give it a sharper edge. ALL helmets were built at the same time and checked for uniformity. Lastly, the rivets were added with Duro balls. These were made by tediously rolling between the fingers then allowed to cure. Each was fixed to the helm with slow drying super glue. The slow drying glue allowed me to move the rivet about to get a somewhat even space between each.

Close-up of wounded officer and pikeman.

With this many figures in an action vignette there has to be some contact between subjects. Joining these two engages the viewer and make the whole scene more alive.

close-up detail of the musketeer. The powder flask flying about are from a ECW Airfix kit. The heads I'm using for this vignette are a mix of Hornet and Historex with some facial modifications being done to fit the pose/subject.

Lutzen 1632

Here's the mock-up of my Lutzen dio/vignette.

More pics to follow.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope to be more productive in regards to blog postings. Last year was a busy time for modeling so there's a lot of catching up to do.

As you may have noticed, I changed the name of my blog. The reason being, I can barely keep up to-date with one, so I've taken the name of my other blog, "Minutia". This way I can share other interest I have, be it miniatures, art or historical reenacting (something that was a passion of mine for a good ten years). With that being said, all things historical that appeals to me, no matter the subject, will be here...Not just miniatures.

Stay tuned.

Sidd painted!

Here's "Sidd" painted (acrylics). Sorry for the long delay. This was a real treat to sculpt and paint, not only to sculpt a "baseball" figure, but to do a figure that has a connection with our hobby. It was also awesome to actually talk to the person behind "Sidd", long-time MMSI member and MFCA Grandmaster, Joe Berton. He even gave me an autographed baseball card of him!

In the photo below (L-R) is collector, Dutch Allen, Joe "Sidd" Berton and myself.