smudger1960
PlanetFigure Supporter
After a hectic September and a Great Euro Militaire I've finally managed to complete this fabulous bust sculpted by Carl Reid and purchased from Mitches Military Models at Folkestone.
The sculpt is titled USAAF - POW but the bust is based on the Steve McQueen Character Virgil Hilts from the movie The Great Escape 1963,i would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Carl on a superb likeness to McQueen, the facial features are very good and the sculpting of the leather jacket is really great, also the baseball glove needs a special mention as well,carl has managed to capture the rugged look and has also sculpted the seems and threads into the glove, this piece really cries out to be painted and I wanted to try and do this piece some justice with my limited painting skills.
The kit is cast in resin with minimal clean up and filler required, I then primed the piece with Grey Auto Primer from Halfords and allowed 24hr to dry, all the flesh areas were undercoated with GW Cadian Fleshtone in 3 thin coats, once this was dry I completed all flesh painting with WN oil paints.
For the leather jacket I looked up quite a lot of photos from the movie and watched it as well, I couldn't really tell even now what the exact colour was as some of the photos differed, what I decided on was brownish to ochre colour with bits of black added to the deeper areas of the jacket, it was just a matter of experimenting somewhat to get the effect I was looking for,i was originally going to opt for a real worn out look but I wasn't getting the effect I wanted,.
The blue shirt which McQueen wears in the movie was done with Cerulean Blue and small amounts of white to lighten it and small amounts of burnt umber for the shading, I dirtied the shirt a little with umber and ochre mixes.
The glove was undercoated using Humbrol Acrylic sand No63,on top of this was laid umbers,siennas,ochre's and white mixed with the ochre, again it was just a matter of playing around with it.
I managed to find a photo very similar to the sculpt which I've added and it shows McQueen outside one of the prisoner huts, these huts were numbered as well so I thought I'd add a backdrop of the hut with the number 105 added, I chose this number as Richard Attenbourgh's character 'Bartlett' refers to it in the film as one of the tunnels runs from this hut, the backdrop was just made out of balsa and balsa
strip and painted in acrylics and oils.
Its a lovely bust and I would highly recommend it.
I hope you like the piece and all comments and criticism welcome
Brian
The sculpt is titled USAAF - POW but the bust is based on the Steve McQueen Character Virgil Hilts from the movie The Great Escape 1963,i would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Carl on a superb likeness to McQueen, the facial features are very good and the sculpting of the leather jacket is really great, also the baseball glove needs a special mention as well,carl has managed to capture the rugged look and has also sculpted the seems and threads into the glove, this piece really cries out to be painted and I wanted to try and do this piece some justice with my limited painting skills.
The kit is cast in resin with minimal clean up and filler required, I then primed the piece with Grey Auto Primer from Halfords and allowed 24hr to dry, all the flesh areas were undercoated with GW Cadian Fleshtone in 3 thin coats, once this was dry I completed all flesh painting with WN oil paints.
For the leather jacket I looked up quite a lot of photos from the movie and watched it as well, I couldn't really tell even now what the exact colour was as some of the photos differed, what I decided on was brownish to ochre colour with bits of black added to the deeper areas of the jacket, it was just a matter of experimenting somewhat to get the effect I was looking for,i was originally going to opt for a real worn out look but I wasn't getting the effect I wanted,.
The blue shirt which McQueen wears in the movie was done with Cerulean Blue and small amounts of white to lighten it and small amounts of burnt umber for the shading, I dirtied the shirt a little with umber and ochre mixes.
The glove was undercoated using Humbrol Acrylic sand No63,on top of this was laid umbers,siennas,ochre's and white mixed with the ochre, again it was just a matter of playing around with it.
I managed to find a photo very similar to the sculpt which I've added and it shows McQueen outside one of the prisoner huts, these huts were numbered as well so I thought I'd add a backdrop of the hut with the number 105 added, I chose this number as Richard Attenbourgh's character 'Bartlett' refers to it in the film as one of the tunnels runs from this hut, the backdrop was just made out of balsa and balsa
strip and painted in acrylics and oils.
Its a lovely bust and I would highly recommend it.
I hope you like the piece and all comments and criticism welcome
Brian
