Almost there

Firstly thanks for all the positive feedback, It's good to know that this blog is of some use/interest.

Having done the initial assembly that I detailed in the last post, I decided that I didn't quite like the musket position on the shoulder. I felt it looked like it was about to fall off his shoulder, so I have re-aligned it slightly more towards the head.

In respect to this, I fine that the human eye is a good guide when scuplting figures, this may be a somewhat obvious point, but things that aren't quite right tend to jar on the eye, somehow they just look wrong.


The next stage with the figure was to add the cuffs (including the linear vents) and collar on the coat. I also added the belt for the cartridge box. In addittion to this, I added a little extra length to the tips of the fingers under the musket butt, as I felt they didn't look like they were really holding it properly prior to this. At this stage he looked like the first photo, I then left him to harden.


Once this work had hardened, I added the cartridge box, the bayonet (which is made from bits of paperclip, suitably flattened and pointed where appropriate) attached to the cartridge box belt, the shoulder straps and the back of his hair and pigtail. I also "filled up" any small gaps between anything I've added to the basic figure, i.e. underneath the bayonet, the small area between the palm of the hand and the musket butt. This is to prevent the final mould having small voids/slivers, which won't work properly during casting and will ultimately lead to the demise of the mould. In essence you need to create a fairly "solid" figure avoiding small gaps between elements of it. At this stage this first figure is almost finished, I still need to add a few small details, mainly buttons etc, but don't intend to add any more equipment. He currently therefore looks like the second photo. Next time, should see this first figure complete!