WWII Personalities 8

I finally completed painting the deGaulle figure. I also finished sculpting the fancy boots with spurs for the Goering figure and have started the final painting as well.

Louis XIV 20

I finalised the  groundwork and completed the painting on the figure. The figure was then epoxied to the base and I am now painting the drum.

Manchu Emperor 4

After the spike was removed, the hat was filed down and the spike was replaced, checking the alignment. The tassels were resculpted. Upon rechecking my references, this is a hat for a prince or noble based on the shape of the spike, and the robe will be painted accordingly. The face was resculpted. The cape was made from copper sheet.

Manchu Emperor 3

After the paint had completely dried, I sanded down the figure thoroughly, then I build up in areas with putty where the new folds should be. At this stage, I have to decide what type of dragon robe it will be, as the cut of the cloth does vary.

Louis XIV 19

The basic colours for the base are completed. I plan to add ivy and foliage in the background.

EB3

More pics of work in progress. Cloth edging on shabraque almost completed. Neck collar completed.

WWII Personalities 7

I lettered the names and glossed over the bases. This is the effect that I want for this series. Rommel and Dowding are the first two figures completed here. The three others are still to be painted and there are other figures in the planning stages.

EB 2

I decided to go all out on this conversion. The figure was re-animated to really lean forward and to the side. Metal wire was used to simulate the arm positions. The right arm was animated at all its joints. I avoid the straight arm pose as it is always boring, stiff and looks unnatural. Hands were added to the ends. In a series of previous sculpting exercises several years back, I had resculpted several right hands to grip various swords. A suitable right hand was selected for this piece.

I removed the strange "shark-tooth" edging on the pantherskin shabraque. All my references indicate that the edging was scalloped cloth lacing and I have started to resculpt this feature.

Eugene Beauharnais

Following a trawl through my stash of figures, I came across this unfinished piece after about 15 years ago. It was a poor conversion of a Historex kit. What drew me to try this conversion then was the double saddle cloth apparently used by EB when he was acting as commander of the Chasseurs au Cheval Guard. The double saddle was created by cutting up the lower saddle and sticking parts of it to the pantherskin saddle. However, the horse conversion and pose with the rear legs kicking out then was unsatisfactory and I abandoned the piece then.

Recently, I did a different conversion of the horse and I liked the pose (see my recent post under Napoleonic Horse). This showed a frisky animal and I decided to carry on with the conversion. The saddlecloth was fitted to the horse. Substantial parts of the upper part of the horse had to be removed to accommodate the saddle. The mane sculpted originally in Duro green putty, was removed and a new mane was resculpted in A&B putty.

The original stiff Historex figure was also disappointing. I realised that parts of the original kit had to be substantially altered. Hence the legs and boots were substantially bulked up with putty. Quite a bit of putty was added and the figure was gently pressed onto the saddle cloth to test for fit.

I also substituted my own metal cast sculpted hussar torso for the original Historex torso. The latter seems to lack definition. I converted the stiff hussar pose to be more lively as he tries to balance himself on the frisky horse. Note the off-centre pose. The left rear hoof had broken off and was fixed back into position in the last photo. However, this changed the alignment of the horse, causing the figure to appear to be sitting straight up when I had wanted a forward leaning position.

WWII Personalities 6

For the German general, thin copper sheet was added to the lower half and some putty was added to bulk out the figure.

The pose of Goering was finalised. Some additional sculpting was done to the left arm. The head was repositioned to look upwards. The coat was repainted.

DeGaulle was given a basic undercoat of paint.

Manchu emperor 2

The lower part of the figure was sawn off, and about 1 cm was removed. The boots were relocated to create a more uplifted pose. The fur trim was completely removed. The face was shortened and all facial features removed.

I resculpted the face and ears. The hat spike was removed and refitted after the crown was filed down. Thin copper sheet was glued to the lower part to represent an overhang of the gown.

Hugh Dowding 3

I finished painting this figure. I stained the matt blue with a wash of darker blue. This created a nice satin finish and I added details such as underpainting and highlights.

Manchu Emperor

I have been working on and off on this figure for several years now. More recently, following a critical look at this piece, I decided to rework it substantially. The scale bothered me. The figure stands about 70mm in height (1/28 scale), making it larger than the other figures in my 1/32 scale. The facial features were too elongated. The helmet was too tall and the spike was slightly off-centre. The pose was not right for me. Finally, a yellow imperial robe would be much brighter than the sombre red robe.

I cut the figure off at the knees, cut off the hat spike, and filed down the height of the hat. I am now working on the facial features. The figure was trimmed about 1 cm off at the knees and the boots were reattached to create a different pose.

Napoleonic horse

I picked up this Historex horse from my stash and decided to radically alter its pose. This has been achieved and the double saddlecloth harness indicates this is to be a mount for Eugene Beauharnais. One of the rear hoof has been broken off.

Louis XIV Drummer 18

I drilled holes in the base to plug in the drummer. The base was then painted in basic colours.

WWII Personalities 5

Starting to do the final painting on the Hugh Dowding figure. The Dowding figure was originally the same height as its companion 1/35 Goering figure. The pictures below shows a comparison in height now between the two figures.

Also completed the boots on the German Officer. The next step is to add the overhang on the coat to the figure.

WW2 Personalities 4

I had made this piece several years back. I decided that the legs were not sufficiently well-done and the figure had to be heightened.

Louis XIV 17

This is the start of the base for the figure. The pillar is from some 1/35 resin kit, and needed to be built up at the base to fit 1/32 scale. Bricks were glued to form the foundation for the Historex fence.

Samurai 9

I added some twigs and bushes to balance the composition, and glued maple leaves here and there.
This piece is completed. A vast improvement on the original piece, I think.

Samurai 7, 8

8/31/14
I painted the shaved pate of his head with a translucent purple, and gave the scabbard some flower designs.


The rough finish was smoothed out and the figure was allowed to dry out.



I have finished this piece. The painted mon is the Hollyhock of the Tokugawa shogun. As the figure still appeared static, I came up with the idea of having some Ukiyo-e prints blowing in the wind, to create some movement to an otherwise static figure. I may add some autumn leaves at a later stage.