Hello guys!
sorry for the late reply, but better late than never...
Thanks a lot everybody for the nice words and comments! They are very much appreciated.
Thanks Mike for the superlatives!
Like Gary, I also feel it to be the worst to model soldiers without any relation to the situation around them. So I am perfectly fine with heroic scenes, as it is just a section of war and we can't show more than a one point of view per project. But personally I'm never too much interested in this type of story. What attracts me in military subjects is how men can be pushed into doing unthinkable things because of the war around him (and I am usually more interested in the negative, crazy or often even horrific, instead of the positive heroic), or on the contrary how men manage to stay human and try to keep elements of normal life while in war.
I don't think many modellers are consciensly trying to glorify war, but maybe some don't keep all aspects of it in mind while making models? Or maybe many people prefer to make a scale replica of a uniform which happens to have a man in it (like a manequin), instead of trying to create an athmosphere, put a character in that man or even have him tell a story. Just different strokes I guess.
But I am quite sure that many modellers are doing military subjects simply because they rolled into it, so because everybody else is doing it and the market focusses on it. This is sometimes a pity, because there are indeed millions of other subjects/stories around for which our medium is perfectly suited, and the possibilities are literally endless. For me personally, I have decided to take the opportunity and for the first year or so, I have no military subjects planned whatsoever!
And Mike, I really agree that the evening news is downright depressing, and that maybe some more people should be checking their motives than only us modellers...
Thanks Romain for the tip! I will certainly try out the smoke, as well as some of the other transperant tamiya colours. I'm not sure about the resin, as it is very unforgiving and difficult to "play around with untill it looks good", but with some luck it might work indeed. thanks!
Hello Marc, it is completely Magic Sculpt.
Hello Stefan. Well, in fact it's not really a big job. Both are quite small (fitting on a 2 by 2 cm base) and together took only 2 weeks of sculpting. Admittedly, I was on a holliday so I could put some more time into than usual.
Thanks Johan!
1) magic sculpt. It is more flexible than milliput when soft and crumples less when carving.
2) no real armature. I scaled down a good side-view photo and printed this, using it constantly to check measurements. Volumes where sculpted by eye only.
For the pelican, I started with the two parts of the beak (carved out of two hardened strips of MS), joined them with a ball of putty, and sculpted the rest of the head on top of this ball. Next I joined the head with a very rough and undersized base for the body (blob of MS rougly shaped) with a brass wire. The legs also have a brass wire in them. Next, it was just a matter of building up the volumes and adding the textures.
3) the feather texture was done by finishing the sculpting with a very thin layer of MS, in which the detail was pressed. For most feathers, I simply used a toothbick, often even only the blunt side. Most important is to study the size and direction of the feathers of the real bird and just mimicing the general feel instead of replicating them one by one.
The wing needed a different approach. First a basic shape of the wing was sculpted. Then, the top was coated with a thin layer of MS and the feathers pressed in. For the large feathers, I used the side of a scalpel, starting at one end and creating a slightly overlapping feel while progressing to the other. After this hardened, I carved the end of every large feather and thinned the underside of the wing with sandpaper and a knife, and repeated the proces for the underside.
Thanks a lot for the refenrences, but probably I'll be doing some other animal than birds next! :lol:
Thanks Ivan! You are right, I always liked to include animals in my scenes! But now, they deserve to be the main actors! In fact, I have really been wanting to become a biologist for most of my elementary and highschool time (reading about animals a lot!), but at the end figured out that an interest in animals might not be enough to become a biologist, so I chose archaeology instead.
Thanks fopr the painting tips also!
I won't be casting them. It is too late now, but I probably also won't do it for future projects since it would slow me down way too much, and I already feel I need 10 times more time for modelling! :lol:
Welcome to the forum Sébastien, and thanks a lot!
Thanks Ivo! That's a very nice compliment you gave me!
Thanks Patrick! Yes, everything I didn't sculpt yet! I will have to learn those while I'm doing them...
Hello Engin! I wish I was better in my administration and didn't lose the paper with your email, otherwise I would have certainly contacted you when in Izmir, just to talk modelling a bit (we should have taken already more time for that in Saint Vincent!). Can you send me your email again? Thanks a lot!
Merci Wim! En waar gaat ge mij binnenkort weer mee verbazen? Tot in Ransart?
Thanks Per Olav! Great name for a trophy! :lol:
I've always been a huge fan of Attenboroughs' work!
Thanks again everybody, and best wishes,
Marijn