Dan Morton
A Fixture
This is a continuing project to create a 1/16th scale sculpture based on a famous wartime color newspaper photo. (I'm posting the photo of the poilu in the deserted village to remind you of the overall vignette.)
This post might be a bit confusing if you haven't already seen the previous posts of the vignette. Basically I've only been working on the big column-thingie in the middle of the photo. Everything else is done.
I've been racking my brain since the last posting of this vignette to try to figure out exactly what the column or water fountain or whatever-it-is actually is. So- I've settled on a best guess. I think it is a cistern. If you are not familiar with a cistern - it collects rain water in a tank basically. My grandparents had one back in the 50s on their Missouri farm. GEM was the manufacturer and it was mostly zinc coated metals and cast iron - pre-fab design. I've uploaded a photo of one, even though it has nothing to do with my vignette. My grandparents cistern collected rain water from a large metal catch basin and from rain gutters on the house.
This French or Belgian village cistern is a lot more elaborate, of course, but it would serve the same purpose. Rain water would be collected in the large tank which (best guess again) was probably made from cast metals of various types and porcelain. Maybe the village had a drinking water well and maybe not. Maybe the cistern produced water was only used to fight fires. Who knows? But I think the cistern is the most likely explanation for the tower looking thingie next to the French cyclist.
To make the cistern I used MagicSculpt. Using Photoshop, I scaled the photo and the cistern itself. I estimated the height of the soldier and then calculated everything based on that.
And again, to remind you, the Poilu, the bicycle, the pavement and the backdrop of closed village shops are all finished and I've posted photos of them earlier.
Three photos show the bottom part of the French cistern. I apologize for screwing up the perspective in these photos. I took them from above with the cistern on its' back or side and the camera lense warps the image a bit. I tried several other ways of photographing the bottom part of the cistern, but none worked any better. I think you should be able to get the idea. I sculpted only half of the cistern because the other half should be the mirror image of the sculpted bit. The only way to do that is to cast it.
The photo with smaller bits and pieces shows sculpted features of the cistern. Several of the features will need to be cast more than once to complete the cistern. The small plastic grille in this photo came from a building features plastic kit. The grille goes on top of the catch basin on top of the cistern, when it is complete.
Also if you look closely, you'll see a 1/16th scale French pear grenade I made with some left over MS. If you aren't familiar with them, I've uploaded a photo of a pear grenade ca. 1916.
So finally, if you have a drinking water cistern, you have to have some means of pumping the water out. The photo shows an Evans hand pump. This looks almost exactly like the one my grandmother had in the farm house. Maybe the French hand pumps looked different, but I couldn't come up with an image for one ca. 1910-1920. So I assembled the hand pump from bits of plastic tube, plastic scrap, metal rod and a little bit of MagicSculpt. After I took the photo, I noticed one of my rivet - thingies fell off. Easily replaceable.
SO - I'm really not a competent caster. Help! Could I ask someone to cast the cistern and parts? Once I get the castings back, I can assemble not just the cistern, but the whole she-bang.
All the best,
Dan
This post might be a bit confusing if you haven't already seen the previous posts of the vignette. Basically I've only been working on the big column-thingie in the middle of the photo. Everything else is done.
I've been racking my brain since the last posting of this vignette to try to figure out exactly what the column or water fountain or whatever-it-is actually is. So- I've settled on a best guess. I think it is a cistern. If you are not familiar with a cistern - it collects rain water in a tank basically. My grandparents had one back in the 50s on their Missouri farm. GEM was the manufacturer and it was mostly zinc coated metals and cast iron - pre-fab design. I've uploaded a photo of one, even though it has nothing to do with my vignette. My grandparents cistern collected rain water from a large metal catch basin and from rain gutters on the house.
This French or Belgian village cistern is a lot more elaborate, of course, but it would serve the same purpose. Rain water would be collected in the large tank which (best guess again) was probably made from cast metals of various types and porcelain. Maybe the village had a drinking water well and maybe not. Maybe the cistern produced water was only used to fight fires. Who knows? But I think the cistern is the most likely explanation for the tower looking thingie next to the French cyclist.
To make the cistern I used MagicSculpt. Using Photoshop, I scaled the photo and the cistern itself. I estimated the height of the soldier and then calculated everything based on that.
And again, to remind you, the Poilu, the bicycle, the pavement and the backdrop of closed village shops are all finished and I've posted photos of them earlier.
Three photos show the bottom part of the French cistern. I apologize for screwing up the perspective in these photos. I took them from above with the cistern on its' back or side and the camera lense warps the image a bit. I tried several other ways of photographing the bottom part of the cistern, but none worked any better. I think you should be able to get the idea. I sculpted only half of the cistern because the other half should be the mirror image of the sculpted bit. The only way to do that is to cast it.
The photo with smaller bits and pieces shows sculpted features of the cistern. Several of the features will need to be cast more than once to complete the cistern. The small plastic grille in this photo came from a building features plastic kit. The grille goes on top of the catch basin on top of the cistern, when it is complete.
Also if you look closely, you'll see a 1/16th scale French pear grenade I made with some left over MS. If you aren't familiar with them, I've uploaded a photo of a pear grenade ca. 1916.
So finally, if you have a drinking water cistern, you have to have some means of pumping the water out. The photo shows an Evans hand pump. This looks almost exactly like the one my grandmother had in the farm house. Maybe the French hand pumps looked different, but I couldn't come up with an image for one ca. 1910-1920. So I assembled the hand pump from bits of plastic tube, plastic scrap, metal rod and a little bit of MagicSculpt. After I took the photo, I noticed one of my rivet - thingies fell off. Easily replaceable.
SO - I'm really not a competent caster. Help! Could I ask someone to cast the cistern and parts? Once I get the castings back, I can assemble not just the cistern, but the whole she-bang.
All the best,
Dan
