11 Field Ambulance Stretcher Bearer, Passchendale 1917

[tonydawe]

Hi Marc,

I'll be looking for you on the Saturday. I'm looking forward to catching up with you and all my mates on pF at Euro.

 

[John Belcher]

Hi Tony, very nice work,you have captured the moment with an excellent conversion.Your weathering effects are great.Nice to see someone do a conversion with one of Phil's figures.Im sure Phil will be interested in what you have done.

Regards,John

 

[tonydawe]

Thanks very much John. I've spoken to Phil a few times in recent weeks and I know he likes to keep a close eye on what I do with his figues. I'm sure he'll like this conversion, but he'll probably complain that it's too clean. How are you going with the New Guinea figure mate?

 

[pmfs]

Hello Tony,

Beautiful like always
YOU MANAGED TO REPRODUCE VERY WELL THE TRENCHES OF WWI, CONGRATULATIONS

 

[tonydawe]

Thank you Pedro. I really wanted to convey something of the misery of the trenches by making it entirely out of dirt and mud. I'm really pleased that you liked it.

 

[unknown01]

Great work as usual！
An expression of mud is very wonderful.
The wonderful atmosphere is being transmitted.
The soldier's state of the severe situation is expressed wonderfully.
I congratulate completion.

Mitsutaka

 

[slaj]

Tony, I like what you've done. It gives an eery feeling. BDW, you're as good as me in taking pics

Stephen

 

[tonydawe]

Hi Mitsutaka, thank you for your comments.

Hi Stephen thanks for your comments about my figure and my photographic skills.

 

[eissteban]

hi Tony
what incredible work

really really nice, i think you find the best way between the mud necessary and the uniform (finally, not easy to do a scene like this !)

PS:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Steven HOOKER did a very bad joke last week ...[/FONT]​

 

[Anders Heintz]

Awesome work! The mud is very convincing!

 

[tonydawe]

Hi Seb, thanks very much for your comments mate. I'm pleased you like it. I missed Steve Hooker's joke, but I did see him win the Pole Vault championships in Berlin.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie Oi, Oi, Oi

Hi Anders, thanks very much for your comments. As you can tell, I love dirtying up my figures, and a scene like this really called for a lot of wet, sloppy mud.

 

[1969]

Exellent result with this one Tony, the mud is just right to portray a very misserable scene which it must have been to these guys.

great job mate,

Steve

 

[gothicgeek]

hi Tony ... just noticed this was the finished figure. top work!

daring use of the mud but it's worked beatifully

Mark

 

[davidmitchell]

Good to see this finished Tony, you have certainly captured the period look .

Cheers David

 

[eissteban]

I missed Steve Hooker's joke, but I did see him win the Pole Vault championships in Berlin.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie Oi, Oi, Oi

this is the (bad) joke / aussie 1st , frenchies 2nd & 3rd

 

[RFL]

Great finish to this one Tony. Wet/Mud is tough to pull off and I never would have thought to drop him in a trench with a wet wall behind but it`s a great way to focus on the conditions.

 

[John Bowery]

Tony,
Very nicely done and looks really miserable.
Cheers
John

 

[rodrigrinch]

hi Tony, impressive work!!! how do yo do the mud??? it was made whit pigments?? mig´s resin?? its that technique?? woow looks really cool, congrats
saludos
Rodrigo

 

[tonydawe]

Hi Steve, thanks for your comments mate. I was hoping to recreate just a little piece of the misery that must have come from living and working in those dreadful conditions.

Thanks Mark, the mud was intrinsic to the story of the failure of Passchendale and this was my attempt to try to capture some of the horror and futility of that battle. By converting the figure from a soldier carrying a machine gun over his shoulder, to an unarmed stretcher bearer carrying a stretcher over his shoulder I also wanted to show the bravery, courage and determination of these "khaki angels" who tried to save their mates lives in the middle of such carnage.

Hi David, thanks very much for your comment mate. I'm very pleased you like it.

Hi Seb, now I get it. Very funny Gold medal humour

Hi Richard, once I decided to do the figure knee deep in mud I wanted to do a trench scene to make it look like he's trapped or enclosed in mud. I deliberately decided against adding any vegetation or battelfield debris so that the whole scene was about the man in the mud.

Thanks John, I greatly appreciate your comments mate. I was trying to portray misery and I'm pleased you think I've done that.

Hi Rodrigo, thanks for your comments my friend.

The mud was made from celluclay mixed with water, white glue, acrylic gloss lacquer and Vallejo acrylics and pastels. I can't give you the exact recipe but bascically I mixed everything together until the mixture was "gloopy" and "shiny" and then just slapped it on.

The mud mixtures on the figure were added in layers with dried lighter coloured mud underneath and wet darker brown mud on top. I used a paint brush to apply the mud to the figure and a spatula to apply the mud to the base. For the wet mud, I added a few drops of Woodland Scenics Water Effects to give the mixture a more watery appearance and some glossy shine.

Once the mud was in place, I then flicked the bristles of my paint brush with my finger over the figure to create a random splatter pattern, then sprayed a fine mist of water over the entire scene with a water spray bottle to create rain effects.

 

[rheath]

11 Field Amb.

Nice one Tony, very good face and stretcher, web gear and of course mud, as we all know if we put on too much mud, it becomes an unattractive project, you have done just right here, super old friend.

Thanks for posting RobH .