Friday, August 18, 2017

Statue Scatter Terrain

Even with the current hysteria surrounding statues here in the US at the moment, it was actually by complete coincidence that I finished these pieces this week. I recently came into possession of a lot of modeling stuff since a distant relative passed away who was also a long-time historical modeler. Among all the different models, were a small collection of 54mm figures that were rather old and not very well cast, so I decided to give them a new lease on life. I cleaned each of them up, cut up some wood for plinths, and put them all together.

To paint them, I tried a very different technique than the one I normally use, most recently on my Hungarian statue. This time I primed the plinths with gesso and used a tan-colored chalk paint for the color and texture, highlighting with white mixes, washing with Vallejo European Earth, and finally adding some light earth color with a dry pigment wash of Yellow Earth. The statues themselves were primed grey, basecoated in Pavement grey, with successive drybrushing of a blue-green paint mix. Unlike most earlier statues, I tried to to leave the dark grey base showing through in areas of shadow and focused the verdigris more on the blue side of the color wheel. What really helped was a good wash of Secret Weapon Cool Grey which helped to mellow the colors (which I also carried into parts of the plinth to imitate weathering). I also added some whitish discoloration on horizontal surfaces to simulate the effects of bird poop. All in all, I really like the final effect and will use it going forward.

Included in the set are two Napoleonic statues, an American Revolution statue, a Confederate soldier statue, and a Spanish-American War soldier statue.




The two statues below (one Spanish-American War, one Napoleonic) are for sale for $25 each. Drop me an email if you're interested in buying one or both.



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