For the past few months, I've been refurbishing earlier pieces in my display collection to sharpen my skill sets and upgrade the collection at the same time at minimal costs. Some figures that aren't worth keeping have been culled. At the same time, I've been re-discovering many earlier abandoned pieces that could be improved with further work. Generally, I don't throw any figure away as they get relegated to a spares box. Then, if I come across them again a later time frame, I am able to look at these pieces with fresh perspectives.
Over the years, I have really amassed a huge collection of unmade figures and spares. These are now being sorted out into various boxes in an attempt to organise the inventory. This is a really therapeutic exercise as I please the spouse (foremost consideration), rediscover many old treasures and start to plan new pieces.
The sculpting has improved greatly too. I now use only A&B putty which dries rock hard. I remove most of the older green kneadatite putty if I encounter them in my earlier pieces. The green putty dries rubbery and should only be used for producing masters for casting. Along the way, I have discovered a new confidence in slapping on putty without concern and then using hard sculpting to achieve the end result. It is always good to have a stable framework and I pin and fix all underlying structure together before further refinement.
Working with both metal and plastic figures allows a mixed media approach to sculpting. Instead of sculpting from scratch, conversions of commercial pieces allow for a faster output whilst retaining a certain homogeneity to the output in terms of consistency of scale and style.
Depending on what I found recently, I have many ideas currently swirling for attention in my head, some of which are:
A Manchu diorama
Knights at tournament
Elephant piece
Camel piece
Hopefully, these and other ideas will take physical form soon and I can post these WIP blogs.
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