Melpa Man, Ndika dancer, Papua New Guinea

The Melpa men wore elaborate head dress and covered their upper bodies in black soot and tigaso oil. The head dress arrangement is the most formal and is colloquially termed the koi wal headdress. He carries a large drum carved out of a trunk - these drums could vary considerably in size. A heavier drum could have a carved handle for ease of carrying it.

Melpa Woman, Papua New Guinea

This was the next figure that I built representing the Melpa tribe. During a Moka (exhange) festival, the roles are divided into donors and recipients. The donors are usually adorned  in more elaborate and towering headdress. This figure represents a donor's wife and she wears red feather plumes in her headdress. Some feathers were made from sheet metal. Other fluffier feathers represented with real feathers. Once the figure was sculpted, it was painted carefully in oils. Then the feathers were carefully trimmed and applied singly with a daub of glue. The foliage was made from sheet metal and dried flowers.

Huli Wigman, Papua New Guinea

I had gathered quite a lot of visual reference material on the PNG tribes. This is my first model of a Huli tribesman. At Exchange festivals (moka), the different clans would gather and exchange gifts of pigs. This model depicts one such tribesman who is trying to recover his dancing cloth from a pet.

The Huli men wore yellow face paint, had towering headdress and the upper parts of their bodies were covered with red paint and oil. Model was scratchbuilt, pig converted from a toy.

A couple of Mandarins for the Chinese New Year 2014

Aptly named title. These pieces were based on Qing Dynasty officials. Bodies were sculpted over wire armatures. For the standing Qing Dynasty official, once the basic standing upright pose was established, additional folds were made by sticking thin fillets of cone shaped putty, and blending these into the figure to create folds in the robe. Hence the underside of this figure is solid putty.

The stone lion monument is a souvenir piece.

This piece is now in a private collection.

Horse Dancers from India

Moving away from military subjects, here are a couple of horse dancers sculpted with epoxy putty and some commercial heads and arms. Inspiration for this piece came from a book "Spirit of the Dance".

This piece is now in a private collection.