One down, two to go

[DaddyO]

Afternoon all

Following on from an earlier thread I've now completed the RAF Battle of Britain pilot bust.

https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/some-new-work-on-the-bench.412026/#post-1214920

This is one done for a mate who donated a couple of airbrushes and an old compressor when I asked so in return I painted this bust for him. Sadly I've no idea of the provenance, but I do know it was the last of a batch produced since the shop it was sold from was closing down. Cast in resin it came to me primed in Citadel black and I added a quick coat of Tamiya light grey to get an idea of what was what before getting stuck in with the painting. I'd also been given a couple of reference pictures of the pilot it was supposed to represent which can be found on the earlier thread.

It was quickly apparent that the detail and general sculpting was slightly 'rough' so I decided to paint much more wet on wet than usual which certainly speeded up the process and had a liberating effect - I really enjoyed this one
(I did take a lot of work in progress shots if anyone is interested)
I did try to capture some of the character of the pilot who it was supposed to represent using just paint (so no cheeky little Magic sculpt changes) and when it was finished I went back and removed a couple of prominent cast lines which had been missed and really bugged me; once done I retouched the paintwork. All painted in acrylics as usual. I've ordered some green baize to finish the base off nicely and hopefully the new owner will be pleased with the result

Toodlepip
Paul

ps - final image is the other thing on the workbench at the moment just to ring the changes. It's a 1/72nd Fokker Dr1 and I decided to carve a prop for this one which is made of laminated plywood (Still got to finish this off with the boss details and makers name)

 

[MoboSchreuder]

Excellent work

Mobo

 

[Ferris]

Very nice Paul!

 

[Airkid]

Nice work Paul. The bust is vaguely familiar but I couldn't put a sculptor/manufacturer name to it. Been around a while methinks.
I like the Dr.I too. Carving a 1/72 prop is a real labour of love. Hats off!

Phil

 

[Chris Oldfield]

Lovely paintwork, Paul. The eyes in particular stand out, & I love The Saint cartoon on his Mae West lifejacket!

 

[DaddyO]

Thank you gents

Nice work Paul. The bust is vaguely familiar but I couldn't put a sculptor/manufacturer name to it. Been around a while methinks.
I like the Dr.I too. Carving a 1/72 prop is a real labour of love. Hats off!

Phil

Got to say Phil this is the smallest prop I've carved (Made a lot of freeflight ones, but they are in the 12-18" diameter range usually) Initially I'd intended just to try it out and see how difficult it was, but when blowing the dust away I managed to make the original plastic kit propeller disappear as if by magic and I can't find it anywhere

Lovely paintwork, Paul. The eyes in particular stand out, & I love The Saint cartoon on his Mae West lifejacket!

Cheers Chris here are the pictures which I was given for reference (I'll find out the chaps name next week to keep things nice and tidy)

Right off to do some aeroplaney stuff
Paul

 

[franck edet]

bery nice painting Paul, love the faded green on the jacket

 

[KenBoyle]

Great job Paul!

Cheers,
Ken

 

[DaddyO]

Thanks Franck and Ken

 

[Nap]

Hi Leggy

So proud of you .....thought this might have been the old Benito WM bust from a long time ago but it's not , however you've painted it well and feel all liberated

Interesting the figure on the life jkt as well ...looks good , nice fleshtones as well , hope I can see this at a Poole show when the lucky owner fellow brings it !

I would have been tempted to extend the arms enough to add the rank

Why not vote in previous months FOTM as well as entering in the class of your choice in this months

Thanks for sharing

Look forward to seeing more

Happy benchtime , enjoy the propeller as well

Nap

 

[DaddyO]

Sadly the owner has now been posted oop north now K. and the bust has gone with him . . . .

Her by way of recompense are a series of pics I took during the painting which might be of interest and give a clue of how I work on these this. The model was painted over 3 or 4 days in sessions of about 40 - minutes to an hour and took about 7 hours in total (including tidying up the base to remove a few mould lines after I'd finished the painting and adding a layer of baize to the bottom to finish him off)
Pretty much all Vallejo paints on a wet pallet.

Cheers for now
Paul

 

[Mike - The Kiwi]

Nice to see structure come together Paul.
Much less slapdash than my approach admittedly.
Really keen to learn more about this chap.
Photo of him with blond curly hair & “The Saint” logo is amazing.
MikeTheKiwi

 

[DaddyO]

Nice to see structure come together Paul.
Much less slapdash than my approach admittedly.
Really keen to learn more about this chap.
Photo of him with blond curly hair & “The Saint” logo is amazing.
MikeTheKiwi

Cheers Mike

Alex (the chap I painted the bust for) did the research on this pilot and I hope he doesn't mind if I quote him directly to tell you a little bit about him -

The story of Sergeant John Hugh Mortimer Ellis of 85 Squadron, known to all as Hugh, or indeed the 'Cockney Sparrow', has unusual elements that somehow make it even more poignant, as Hugh was not laid fully to rest for more than five decades after his brave death.
Born on 2nd April 1919 and growing up in Cambridgeshire, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 28th September 1938 as an Airman under training Pilot and had only just completed his elementary flying training before he was called to full-time service at the outbreak of War.
On completion of further instruction at Bexhill, Brize Norton and Sutton Bridge, he joined 85 Squadron equipped with Hawker Hurricanes at Debden on 24th May 1940. With a little boomerang lucky mascot around his neck sent from Australia by his favourite Aunt Stella to keep him safe, Hugh went into action during the Battle of Britain.
On 6th August he shared in the destruction of a Do17 and then on the 18th damaged a Me110 and also destroyed a Me109. His final credited success came during the mid-afternoon of the 26th, when he destroyed a Do17 over the Thames Estuary.
But on 29th August Hugh’s luck began to falter. Whilst in combat over the Channel, his aircraft caught fire; though he managed to glide back in order to bale out over land, his Hurricane Mk1 L1915 VY-B crashed at Ashburnham in East Sussex, and his lucky mascot was lost. Since his first scramble, Hugh had sworn that like his little boomerang, he would always come back. It was a thought most comforting to his childhood sweetheart, Peggy Owen, but now, like Hugh’s good fortune, the boomerang was gone.
Three days later, he was back in the air in his new Hurricane Mk1 P2673 VY-E. What exactly happened next to this brave man with the enormous smile remained a mystery for the following five decades. Hugh’s parents Fred and Ethel were told simply that their only son was missing in action. It was not until 1993 that the story was at last pieced together by three very determined interested parties: historian Andy Saunders, Hugh’s cousin Peter Mortimer and Metropolitan Police coroner’s Officer Martin Gibbs.
The confusion began on 1st September 1940 when enemy aircraft were staining the skies over Court Road, Orpington, just south east of London, and as so often that summer, the RAF were making superhuman efforts to repel them. A Hurricane seemed to peel off from the melee and begin a terrifying descent; as it approached the ground, one witness saw the pilot slumped over his controls, just before the fighter plane drilled with unimaginable force into the Kent soil of a farmer’s field at Chelsfield to the south of Orpington.
When a single foot in a flying boot was found by a civilian salvage team some days later, the confusion of war caused this to have been buried in an 'Unknown Airman’s' grave at Star Lane Cemetery in St. Marys Cray. This process was repeated only weeks later, when a group of travellers combing the area for scrap metal found further small body parts and handed them to police; the unidentified remains went into a second 'Unknown Airman’s' grave at Star Lane two plots along from the first and no one connected the two discoveries.
Unbeknown to a living soul, the lion-hearted Cockney Sparrow now had fragments of himself buried in separate plots at Star Lane, but the greater part of his remains lay unofficially buried deep under the earth, surrounded by the wreckage of his Hurricane, for the next fifty years. It is moving to reflect how Hugh’s great fear was always that if he were shot down, it would be into the sea, since one of his middle names was Mortimer, which is a corruption of the French for ‘died in the sea’. For so long no one knew where Hugh’s Hurricane had come down, for no trace of it had ever been officially acknowledged, and so a watery grave was not actually out of the question.
It was 1992 before an unauthorised archaeological dig at the site uncovered the cowling of the doomed plane, and the exact identity of the pilot’s remains then found therein could be confirmed. Among his personal effects were the photographs of two ladies, Peggy Owen, Hugh’s heartbroken sweetheart, and the aunt who had sent her gallant nephew the little boomerang from Australia. In 1993, after the remains had been formally identified, Sgt. John Hugh Mortimer Ellis was buried at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey with full military honours.
For many years, a burnt flying glove that once clothed a hand of Sgt. Ellis and recovered at the time of the crash has been on display in the Shoreham Aircraft Museum near Sevenoaks, as a token but thought-provoking exhibit to help keep alive the memory of a brave young pilot. On a dreadfully wet Saturday 17th May 2008, well over 200 people gathered together and tried to keep dry under a colourful multitude of umbrellas on Chelsfield Green to remember Sgt Ellis and to see a memorial unveiled in his honour.

 

[Mike - The Kiwi]

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Cheers Mike

Alex (the chap I painted the bust for) did the research on this pilot and I hope he doesn't mind if I quote him directly to tell you a little bit about him -

The story of Sergeant John Hugh Mortimer Ellis of 85 Squadron, known to all as Hugh, or indeed the 'Cockney Sparrow', has unusual elements that somehow make it even more poignant, as Hugh was not laid fully to rest for more than five decades after his brave death...

Paul

So tragic Paul.
Thanks for sharing Hugh’s story & you must be proud to have helped to commemorate his short life.
A sombre tale to go with this special bust.
Stay safe mate,
MikeTheKiwi

 

[Nap]

Hi Leggy

Thanks for posting the pics ...suitable recompense and a nice paint and a very sad story , wonderful he is remembered

Nap

 

[Viking Bob]

Great Painting Paul and story, he will now always be remembered.
As an aside I grew up in Orpington but not during the war.