Thanks a million for all the nice words guys!
Yes George, I use Humbroll Enamels. The base of the face is a quite dark mix of flesh 61, wine 73, natural wood 110 and a dab of black 33. Highlighting is done by adding flesh 61 untill it is pure flesh 61, then adding white 34. Shading is done with natura wood, wine and black, going darker untill pure black.
The base of the shirts is a warm grey, mixed from white 34, natural wood 110 and black 34, highlighting with more white, shading with more black.
Thanks Jay and Jean-Paul! You are right that presentation and making it recognisable as being a railcar is a little problematic. First of all, railcars are not that obvious a subject as a fence or a wall, so cutting it of can confuse the viewer. The obvious solution would be to include a wheel, but this is indeed much lower, in fact so much it would almost double the height, which would be a silly sigth dimension-wise and detract from the figures. So I had to keep the volume small (to focus on the figurines), and cut it anyway...
So I decided to give the sides, back and undercut at the front the same texture and colour as the plinth of the base, and leave the top of the base plain wood, to suggest it is "floating". I placed it to the back for visual balance. It might not be noticable on the pics, but the figures are hanging out of te window to the front quite a bit, and placing everything more forward looked really akward to me. The empty wooden space in front serves to show that it is in fact cut-of and is merely on a fancy base for dislay.
Anyway, just my way to try and solve the problem, but indeed far from perfect... Thanks for the ideas!
About the coppying: I don't like sculpting for masters so much, as it would double the time I need for sculpting a figure, and at the same time limit the possibilities. So I prefer to keep modelling purely a leisure-time hobby, so Ican be completely free! :lol:
Thanks again everybody and best wishes!
Marijn