WIP Liberty Valance

[S1LVERBACK]

Thats right! 'Liberty Valance'! As in Lee Marvin in 'The man who shot Liberty Valance'.
'The Shootist' as Andrea Miniatures claim this figure it to be (or at least call it) was John Wayne in a entirly diffrent movie.
To further dazzle their costumers Andrea's catalogue picture shows us a baseplate which holds the name of...Liberty Valance.
So why do they give out this 'false' information? I do not know. Couldn't have anything to do with 'copyrights' or whatever because they also have several pieces named the character they depict. One of them being Valance's counterpart from the same movie, named by it's correct name 'Tom Doniphan' which is indeed...John Wayne.(The John Wayne figure 'Ethan Edward' from 'The Searchers' is another example.)

So as far as Andreas naming their figures goes: in this case I would like to say: 'Objection your honour!' There are also some details which are 'off' to the movie character. This figure spots Valance toting two guns in a crossdraw rig instead of one, but lacks the charastaristic riding whip dangling from his wrist. Ah well, I can live with that. (I would prefer 'two guns' instead of 'one and a riding whip' also).

Sorry for my ranting and raving...I just think Lee Marvin (Liberty Valance) deserves credit for this character he played in the movie classic 'The man who shot Liberty Valance'. I mean come on! Gene Pitney even sang a song about this guy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKrsIXWz5gI

So with thát well out of the way here's my progress attempting to Andrea Miniatures' (and I'm a great fan of their Golden West series) The Shootist.....I mean Liberty Valance!

I removed the flash still visible here.

Bit of basecoating.
Im still poundering if i will or won't attempt the stripes trousers as I think it will be very hard to do.

 

[gordy]

That is a great figure, thanks for sharing your WIP

 

[TWOMOONS]

Interesting and cool rant...I'm getting one and coverting it to Kid Shileen.

 

[DaveG]

Looks like a good start to me. Great subject too. Will look forward to seeing him finished.

DG

 

[chippy]

I like the Golden West range as well and have thought about getting this piece myself , great idea from Twomoons about converting it to Kid Shileen . I think if you realy want to show this as Liberty you need to make the wipe as this was pretty much his trade mark . Look forward to the progress on this .
chippy

 

[S1LVERBACK]

sorry double posted it.

 

[S1LVERBACK]

Interesting and cool rant...I'm getting one and coverting it to Kid Shileen.

Haha, Thats a great idea

I think I might look into the ridingwhip Chippy, but I'm to much of a wimp to cut down one of the two revolvers.

 

[S1LVERBACK]

Well it took me a while to get my ‘Figure Painting Mojo’ up again but I have reached the point where I’m entering the finishing stages of this great Andreas figurine of Liberty Valance (photo’s will follow soon). I will have to make a decision on the shirt he’s wearing. Although often depicted as being a white shirt in coloured film posters and photo’s (which isn’t a big surprise as the movie in self was a black and white one and the shirt looked white) The shirt however was actually a red/pinkish one with a fine, white dot or diamond pattern.

I’m wondering if I should attempt this pattern or leave it the red/pinkish I have painted it now? Can it be done by just dotting away with an off white? Is there a blending technique to make the dots blend into the shirt? A wash waybe? But how would I go about this if so? Or would the dotted shirt come out clashing with the black and grey striped trousers he is wearing? Making Valance look (even more) like a circus clown?

Another question that keeps haunting me is that leaving the shirt without dots might be the better option as the real life shirt looks like a solid coloured shirt form a distance as well and the dots would scale down to much to paint anyway?

I’d love to get feedback from you to these questions.

In doing research I stumbled across this auction picture of the characteristic vest worn by Lee Marvin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance…

Turns out be a dark brown suede vest with gold piping instead of the black vest with silver piping as shown in ALL coloured pictures of Liberty Valance.
I’m afraid I will have to repaint the vest again.

 

[megroot]

Eric,
I really would see that you paint the pattern on the vest. Looks like a great challenge.

Marc

 

[S1LVERBACK]

Hello Marc,

I did the piping in a copper enamel instead of gold in a somewhat simplistic way which worked out pretty OK (at least to my taste).
It tones the brightness that gold paint would have down nicely but still leaves a bit of shine.

I was a bit impacient yesterday and glued the figurine to the base already using waterthin superglue to the backpart which rest against te post and to the heel of the boot which rests in the assigned 'possitioning cavity.' Only to find out this morning that the original vest was dark brown instead of black.

I need to learn to do things in the right order (darnit!)
Now I'm afraid I'll damage the figurine when I try to remove it. I'll have to see if I can paint it like it is now and redo the piping in the process.
It's either that or chicken out and leave the vest black.

Any thoughts on the shirt 'problem' ?

 

[S1LVERBACK]

Here's a little preview:

 

[megroot]

Hello Eric,
I do it in dutch:
Er is geen enkel probleem om het over te schilderen ook al staat hij vastgelijmd. Acryl is zo dun dat je het gewoon tussen het vest en de paal kunt schilderen. Michael Volqarts zet alles in elkaar en gaat dan schilderen.
Hij gaat van het principe uit: wat je niet kunt zien kun je ook niet schilderen.
Je zou het ook zo kunnen laten en je volgende figuur beter doen.
Kijk nog eens naar de laarzen. Het ziet er niet natuurlijk uit die zwarte neus op een voor de rest stoffige laars.

Marc

 

[S1LVERBACK]

Haha, nee die laarzen kunnen echt niet
Ik ga me er eens aan wagen, ook aan het vest.

 

[pipetrepid]

eric, very well done!

 

[S1LVERBACK]

Thank you William, much Appreciated

I tried a different medium for showcasing this piece by making a short youTube clip.
Here you can see more pictures which I mixed with movie screenshots.
Hope ya'll like it.
http://youtu.be/JxrgWeWb2u8