Croatian Soldier 915 A.D.

[pokrad]

I'm struggling with the M-48 (not "showable" results yet), and as relaxation started this bust. Historians say that man of 10th century should look pretty old and tired at age 30-35, so this is what I'm trying to get:

overall look should be something like this:

Critis please

 

[Ferris]

Looks convincing to me, Darko.

Cheers,
Adrian

 

[housecarl]

Looks good to me too.
Carl.

 

[TWOMOONS]

Looks really good...interesting take on the age and condition at that time in history.
I guess if you lived into your sixties, you had a face that looked like a road map. Positively fascinating aspect.

 

[Renéduret]

keep going Darko!

this is good....


René

 

[pokrad]

 

[pinsel]

hello
good start.you might add cheekpeices to your semented helmet.all known helmets of this type had cheekguards.there are some found in italy and one in germany and those did have cheekguards.
i think the man did look normal like today too the only thing was that they had the look like seamen and old farmers which spent lots of time in bright sunlight.,so the skin gets after some years this wrinkled look special in face and neck.thats due the high Uv rays in the sunlight.but if you man is an noble and this can be asumed because he is wearing an costly helmet he would be looking quite like an today 40 year old man.maybe some teeth would be missing but the nobles did not work hard and so did not age so drastic like low class labourers or peseants.
in any case you can add an rich fibula on the cloak the wore rich inlayed ones in cloisonne with red stones often in silver or gold.an good source are the THEISS catalogues of this time.here you find helmets wepaonry and juwellry you could use as guide.
an interesting subject your bust
cheers

 

[pokrad]

Thx for the info about cheek guards.
I'm not targeting any noble man (first Croatian king Tomislav ruled at that time, but he was not crowned as a king until 925). I want to do something similar to that "Tigar" figure, just a simple man, exposed to sun and hard conditions for a long time-just as You described-and what I meant when said that soldier of that time would look much older than really is.
It is common thinking that people of 10th century did not live for long, they did, but mortality was much worse than today-especially in the child age.

If that helmet will not fit cause to expensive for simple soldier to wear, I'll rather change the helmet ?
In any case, my research did not result in much real data, just a few illustrations, and this type of helmet and a simple clothing is shown on most of them...

 

[pokrad]

Hmm, I digged this out:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/kirpichnikov_helmets/gallery.htm#01_gnezdovo
http://www.battlemerchant.com/product_info.php?language=en&products_id=647

and it shows some of the helmets without nasal or cheek protection (similar to this one on the illustration).
Simple 4 iron plates connected with copper...

 

[pokrad]

I think it is ready for the owen:

 

[Einion]

Darko, this might help on the structure of the ear:

Einion

 

[pokrad]

Thx, I obviously needed that.
This is "Save picture as..." material

 

[pokrad]

Not much better, this "ear thing" will require more practice:

 

[pinsel]

hello
the time you want to render is from the finds of helmets and very thin one.of the time beetween 400-900 with the exeption of the Vendel periode only about 20-30 helmets have been found till today.from around 1100 one does know the GIEZ HELMET and the helmet of SAINT VENZESLAW which.the first is an segmented helmet like the one you want depict.i has ar top of helmet an holder for an horsehair plume.the latter helmet is much more plain and is made in one piece.it had never cheekguards as well.
so if you want do an segmentated helmet you should add cheekguards.if you go for an helmet made from an single piece you might leave them off
cheers

 

[pinsel]

hello
here is an pic of the wencelslav monument.he wears this single piece concial helmet without cheekguards.that was worn in all slavic regions and might be introduced by the vikings.the wenceslav helmet itself is called so but was surely not the posession of the saint itself.neverless it would suit the timeframe well
so one could say it would suit your figure.it would be possible that an normal soldier did posess one.you could add some dents and rust to show that its not the fisrt rate piece of equipment but neverless serves an lower class soldier well.
cheers

 

[Einion]

Big improvement on the ear Darko, glad the references helped.

...this "ear thing" will require more practice

Yep, they are maybe the hardest part of the head to do well. The 'secret' to sculpting them better, if you can call it that, is just to do a lot of them from numerous references (to get an idea of the possible variation as well as to help in how to do the actual sculpting work).

Einion

 

[TorMag]

Here is a great little tutorial by Katherine Dewey on sculpting ears.

 

[gordy]

Nice improvements

 

[pokrad]

Interesting, I did it completely different way-I was "carving" it.
I'll give this method a try on the next head...this one is already swimming in the rubber bath

 

[pokrad]

Mold-making: