It takes two

Decided on reflection it was probably best to do the chasseur and grenadier while I was on a roll, and before I resumed on painting, so here they are.








That's going to be the end of sculpting for a while, I need to get these masters cast up and some units cast and painted, I'll post these up as they get done, but it will probably be a while (too many other distractions)

Cheers

John

Back in Command

A significant delay in progress with sculpting, as I've been sidetracked onto painting for a while. However I've taken a break from that for a couple of days and finished off the next figure, another officer. The swords probably a little bit too thin for effective casting/longevity in lead, but this doesn't matter as I replace these on gaming figures with flattened paper clips, which are much stronger than lead in such dimensions.

This little project has now produced a fusilier, drummer, standard bearer and two officers. Sufficient now to start producing units, hurrah. I think the next couple of figures will be simple conversions of the fusilier into a Chasseur and Grenadier in the same pose.

I'll post again, once I've done these, might be a while, depending on progress on the painting front!

Flying the Flag

Firstly thanks for the feedback on the big issue, namely the with/without sculpted lace debate, in the end I went without and I think this was the right direction. Anyway, its been a long time since the last post, which is probably how things will continue from now on. The original intention of the Blog was to show how to sculpt and make miniatures, and I hope this has largely been achieved.

A few kind souls did however indicate that they would like to see the other sculpts as they are completed, and to that end I shall continue to put up some photo's as each one is finished. So without further ado, here is the next edition, a standard bearer/ensign or Sous-lieutenant as the french would say!

Opinions Sought

Bit of a dilemma with the drummer. I've basically finished the figure, however I'm not sure about how much of the lace I want to add to the sculpt, as opposed to just painting this on the final figures. At present I've added the shoulder "swallows nests" or whatever you like to call them, but not the lace running down the sleeves. I'm a bit concerned that if I do this it will make the figure a bit clunky. After all in "real life" this would not have been raised up, which it will be, at least to some extent if I add it to the sculpt. Doing this however would make it a lot easier and more consistent to paint. The nub of this dilemma is the old school vs new style figure debate, and this is a good illustration of this point in action. New style would have all this sort of thing in high relief making it easy to pick out, but it would be an artificial look and the figure could potentially look like a gorilla, though hopefully not! Old style figures either wouldn't have it, or it would be very lightly "etched" on. Not sure how to go on this one, interested in people's views, do you think I should add or not, some photos attached to get an idea of how he looks presently.

Marching in Time

Mainly Photo's this time, The first officer is now complete, and I'm making good progress on the drummer. I have to say that the drummer is quite awkward to get right, its a bit of a challenge to get everything to line up (angle of arms, drum etc) and look ok, whilst making a figure that's reasonably robust. Anyway happy enough with him so far, cuffs, hands and fine detail still to add.

Query on who I'd used for the casting of the master, it was Griffin Moulds (link opposite) who I found very prompt and helpful for an amateur like me.

Hopefully I'll get the drummer finished soon and will move on to another officer.

Officer almost commissioned

Made some progress on the first officer this weekend, he's just about there now, one more session on the detail and he should be complete. Here's how he looks at present.


For interest I've also included a comparison photo of a casting of the fusilier alongside and RSM 95 Prussian Grenadier figure (Neither figure cleaned up in this photo). As you may recall at the start of the blog, I'm making figures which will hopefully fit in with this range and the likes of the Hinchliffe X-range AWI, figures which I use a lot and really love.

Now I'm certainly not claiming that my figures are as good as the one's which Steve produced, but I'm quite pleased with the end result, I think its a reasonably good fit in respect to heft and height.

I must confess in respect to the fusilier, that this is not a figure I have cast myself. Because I will require quite a lot of these particular figures (I use 40+ figure units) I decided it wasn't worthwhile drop casting them individually. Don't get me wrong, as I've already illustrated you could drop cast this figure, and if I wanted 40 or 50 of them only, that's exactly what I would do. However as I probably want several hundred, I've had the master figure used to make up a master figure mould, from which the figure in the photo was professionally cast. These metal master figures will then be used to make a production mould for a centrifuge based casting machine. In terms of cost, even doing it this way, assuming that you are going to get a few hundred cast, its very competitive with buying commercial figures.

Whilst this approach will be fine for the "high volume" figures, I think I'll stick to drop casting for the more specialist type figures.

Next time, hopefully finishing the officer and starting the next, probably a drummer.

Order in the Ranks!

With the Fusilier master now complete, its time to move on to other figures which will be required. Clearly our man will not be led to the path of glory without adequate direction, so its time for the first officer.

As initially assembled from a selection of the previously made components, he looks like this, at this stage he's had a few bits of greenstuff added as per the previous figure. I've also remodelled the hands to accept the pistol and into a pointing pose.

At the next stage I've added the coat sleeves and collar as well as the waistbelt for the sword, and associated attachments on the sword itself. You could put the waistbelt on flat, but I've added an area of greenstuff to the waistcoat and then drawn up the belt etc. This leaves a little bit of greenstuff on the original waistcoat, which I've given a little texture to. This will hopefully make it look like the belt is "pulling in" the waistcoat a little, rather than just sitting on top of it. Its fairly subtle, so we'll see how it comes out in the end.

There was a query about how I do buttons and other "detail" areas like cartridge box plates. For buttons I use a little tool that I have made from a plastic golf tee/peg. All I have done is take a plastic golf tee, cut the pointed end flat and drilled a very small hole in the end. Making buttons with this is simple, similar to cookie cutting in dough. I apply a small quantity of greenstuff to the area in question and flatten to roughly the required height. Next apply the tool and press lightly. This effectively "cuts out" the button shape. Then simply remove the excess greenstuff from around the button and there you have it. You can subsequently tidy up the edges/shape if its slightly incorrect, its also worth very lightly pressing the button down to make sure its stuck down well to the figure. I'm sure there are other ways of doing this, but this technique works for me.

For other areas of detail I just try to create a raised surface that's a bit similar to the design in question and then roughen it a little to create a surface for painting. I don't try to recreate the exact detail, lets face it, its unlikely you will paint it anyway and even if you could it would be lost at anything more that very close inspection. Figures with too much detail in a restricted area can look a bit busy when viewed at any kind of distance and the overall impact is lessened, well in my view at least.