In addition to my 54mm Roman project I have started another bust to add to the Imperial German collection. I have had the DML busts sculpted by Mike Good in my collection for years and finally figured I could do his sculpting some justice. The subject of this bust comes from the photo below.
Hans Goerth was a German Naval pilot who achieved his seven victories flying an Albatros D.Va and a Fokker D.VII. Interestingly his portrait standing in front of a Fokker D.VIII or E.V is the impetus of the inclusion in the same DML 1/48th kit of this bust. The kit is great but the bust was my reason for buying the kit in the first place. Hans appears quite dapper in his light grey jacket, black bow-tie and Naval peaked cap.
After assembly, prep and priming I started as always with the face. Using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow Medium and Cad Red Medium as a base tone for the flesh. Chrome Green and Indigo were used to play with initial shadow tones by applying hints in areas of the cheek hollows and underneath the chin (green) and in the facial hair areas (Indigo). These tonal values should be extremely subtle. Over this, highlights were started with Titanium White and Cadmium Yellow, mixed. This was allowed to dry before going on to final highlights and shadows. The face at this stage is seen in two photos below.
The following four photos show how we stand as of this evening. Yesterday morning I used W&N Brown Madder as a glaze to deepen the shadows of the face. Tonight Titanium White and a hint of Cadmium Yellow Medium were used to brighten the facial highlights, again as a thinned glaze. The eyes are Indigo with white worked in to lighten the blue. Further white and Indigo were applied after drying to bring out the desired steel blue-grey. A dot of black for the pupil and a tiny white catch-light complete the eyes. The lips were "flesh mixture" with a tiny bit of Alizarin Crimson mixed in. The top lip is in shadow so Brown Madder was used over the Crimson/Flesh. Tiny lines of the white were used to highlight the lips. Hair is Yellow Ochre over Burnt Umber with touches of White and Yellow Ochre mixed to pick out the lighter hairs. It was the style of the times to have what we call "whitewall" sides and back, meaning shaved smooth. I wanted the flesh to come through but with a slight hint of hair color so these colors were slight rubbed into the sides and back, just below the hat to change the skin tint and indicate the hair color.
Naval Uniform cloth was a deep Navy Blue, nearing black. I have started the hat by using W&N Indigo with subtle white wet-on-wet highlighting. Once this dries completely I will use Indigo and black to pull out the shadows further. The band and bill will be gloss black. The jacket starts next......
No comments:
Post a Comment