Fet Paints

When I was at Figureworld last week I picked up a great wee model from Elan 13, which is a little boutique sort of operation run by Rob Lane, who sculpts a lot of the stuff he sells. He’s pretty good.

The piece I got was an English Civil War sergeant with a halberd in a really nice pose, sculpted by Ian Succamore. I was a little uncertain because the last chap I got from Elan 13 with a similar hat was a real pain due to how thin the hat brim was (and the incredible breakability of the sword). Mercifully, they’ve figured out a better way of casting the hats now, so this doesn’t suffer from the same problem.

So, I was pretty excited to paint this guy because the uniforms in the ECW are pretty neat – basically, everyone wore whatever they owned, and then strapped on a sash to tell people which side they were on: red for monarchists, a dark sort of orange for parliamentarians (generally – apparently some regiments wore other colours, or had actual uniforms supplied). I can only imagine that these colours weren’t actually terribly useful in the heat of the battle because, really, dark orange and red aren’t too obviously different when you’re covered in mud and gore.

Anyway, I decided to go with a monarchist because fuck Cromwell. For those who don’t know, Oliver Cromwell led the parliamentarians and ended up dictator (or Lord Protector, or whatever his silly aggrandising title ended up being), and he was a bit of a dick. Just ask the Irish. Or don’t – you might get quite a justified lecture on just how much of a dick Cromwell was.

So, that’s why this guy has a red sash instead of an orange one (also, the box art is a parliamentarian, and I was also keen to use more greens on the model, so monarchist was the obvious choice).

Unfortunately, the pictures don’t really capture the red particularly well – it’s a nice rich scarlet in person – but the buff coat is about right.

The actual assembly was also a complete doddle. He’s only four parts, one of which is the sword that I haven’t put on his belt yet, and they fit together really nicely without much trimming or fiddling. I did need to add a little extra hair around where the halberd pushes it aside, but that’s not something you’d need to bother with if you’re not taking him to a show.

I will be repainting his face, too – it just wasn’t working out for me and it came out a little shinier than I’d like.

In other news, I’ve finally finished sculpting Abe Lincoln’s head (quite terribly), so I just need to batter that a wee bit, and then I can finish Frank up, which is pretty exciting as I’m very pleased with how Frank’s come out so far.

I am just returned from Figureworld, which is a nice little show I head to every year run by the guys who used to run the Basement forum. It’s in Oundle, which is a ridiculously named market town near Peterborough. Peterborough isn’t really worth seeing (except, perhaps, for the pretty magnificent cathedral), but Oundle is reasonably famous as a picturesque English town.

Figureworld is not a competition, just somewhere that people get their models out to show them off, go shopping and chat with friends. I usually go with a couple of shopping objectives (i.e. buy more plinths), take a couple of my latest models, and see who’s about. It’s a pretty chilled event.

Because it’s not a competition, there are people from across the skill spectrum who bring their work, right from people who are just beginning through to acknowledged masters. You also get to see pieces that you might not normally see at competitions – this year, for instance, I saw some naval flats, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before (unfortunately, they were behind glass and I couldn’t get anything approaching a decent shot of them).

Some highlights:

 

 

The autopsy continues, and quite productively. I was treating this model as something that would end up a flawed work and I probably wouldn’t take it to any shows, but today a lot of it came together. In particular, I’d been having issues with the larger pustules, but I decided to try to make them actually quite different from the smaller ones, which had been working quite well.

It turns out that was quite a good decision.

I also added a brand, and then blasted through most of the rest of the piece, and now he’s almost finished. The cushions on the gurney were especially enjoyable, because I wanted a lot of texture to them, which meant that I didn’t need to blend anything: lots of rough brushstrokes and stippling, with a bit of glazing to bring it all together. Just the gurney itself to finish off now.

I’ll be at Figureworld in Oundle next weekend, which is where I buy about half my plinths each year and I’ll be hoping to find a good one for this piece. I think I just need one the right shape for this and suitable for a coat of black. A plinth with interesting colours or textures would be wasted here.

 

The current project I’m working on is a bust from Mr Lee’s Minis, sculpted by the excellent Oleksandr Bilibov (who is more recently responsible for a fantastic totally-not-Skeletor bust commissioned by my friend Martin). It’s a bit of an odd one, being just a guy with some sort of really bad flu, or something.

I’d realised that his arms were drawn in against the torso, which I thought looked like his arms were bound, so I went with that and came up with a basic sort of scene for a bust I’m inclined to call ‘Autopsy’.

It’s still obviously a work in progress, and he refuses to photograph particularly well, but I’m quite pleased with all the colour in the skin and how that works against the pustules and the tentacle sticking out of his mouth. The eye in his forehead also needs a bit more done to it, and plenty of ooze added all over the place.

He should be deliciously awful when he’s done.

As many have heard me say over the years, I do not like sculpting. I am not a good sculptor. I would rather pluck out my toenails than sculpt most of the time. Sometimes, however, this is not an option. Sometimes I have a Good Idea. I made just such a mistake with Frank von Stein.

Frank is what I call a Space Nazi monster of sorts. You’ve probably seen him before – he’s a popular piece from Terrible Kids Stuff. Anyway, I had the brilliant idea that he’d look good in an American setting. Then I thought Washington DC. Then I thought of the Great Emancipator. Now I’m forced to sculpt. Who knew that even tourist tat of Abe Lincoln was hideously expensive?

Anyway, this is where I am. Abe only needs a little hair and some beating up, and then we’ll have the head of the Abe Lincoln memorial at Frank’s feet.

I have great ideas sometimes, but I am a terrible sculptor.