Miniart 1/16 Musketeer Part V: Death of the Musketeer

 Some disappointing news about this project. It's coming apart at the seams. Literally!  So I was getting ready to put the next layer of paint onto the Musketeer when I noticed that his sword arm had started to separate.  As I looked around the model some more I noticed most of the seams that were filled with putty had separated and the putty was gone.  I primed the figure and thought it would have sealed it and protected the joints.  The only conclusion I can come up with is that solvent I was using to thin the oil paints ate away at the putty.

Oh well! Onto the next project!

Miniart 1/16 Musketeer Part III: The underpainting

So I finished, finally, filling all of the gaps and allowing it to dry and sanding down the putty.  I ended up being sick all of last week so I didn't do any painting. Did not feel up to it.  This week I was able to prime the figure using black and overlaying that with white.

The overlay of white over the black picks out the highlights and the black is left as a shade or shadow.

Once that dried completely I then created my underpainting.  This is a mixture of watercolor paints and elmers/white glue.  The colors used are artist quality watercolors and they are Ivory Black, Red Ochre, Brown Ochre, Yellow Ochre and Chinese White.  I create a mixture of black, red and brown ochre and white. I add the glue and then lots of water to create a wash.

I then take my Size 6 brush and paint upwards allowing the paint to pool into recesses and stain the primer. 

Once that starts to dry I then mix Yellow ochre, Brown ochre and glue. I add water to create a wash and then I paint this onto the areas of flesh that will become the high light areas.  So the bridge of the nose, cheeks, chin, forehead, fingers and so on.  

I will allow all of this to dry for 24 hours. As the glue dries it will suck the paint into the recesses and when I apply oil paints as a glaze the pigments will show through and add depth to the paint/figure just like a traditional oil painting.

Miniart 1/16 French Musketeer Part II

Part II of my work in progress of the French Musketeer.  Well if you remember from my previous post I wasn't able to get the hair to match up. With some advice from the Military Modeling forum, I cut off the ears of the Musketeer and the hair fit nicely.  You can also see from the below shots how much filler I had to use. I still have to fill the seam on the back of the hair.

I was able to get the lower part of his body together. The amount of gaps and uneven casting with this model is amazing.  Even the fold of the boots don't match up well. I still have to add putty to fill those gaps.

The Torso and arms weren't too bad but the arms need some attention too.  Nothing on this model matches up well at all.

I have a lot of flash to clean up on the hands, sword, sword hilt and other pieces. I'm hoping to get to prime this sometime next week. Weather permitting.

Miniart 1/16 French Musketeer Part 1

My wife, for Christmas, gave me a present which was another Miniart 1/16 scale figure. This one is the French Musketeer.  I'm going to do a series on putting this thing together.  Maybe it will be helpful to someone in the future.

To start off with the head comes in 3 pieces. Two halves are the side, neck and back of the skull. The other piece is the face. You have two choose from in the box. There are gaps that have to be filled with putty when putting the two side halves together.  Once you put the face on nothing lines up. I had to build a chin, create a jaw line and just fill holes where the pieces don't meet up.

The white is the putty I added. Everything is being held together with blue tack.

Now the hair! The hair comes in two pieces as well but once you line up the hair at the front of the face there's a huge hole at the back! See above photo!  If you shift the hair back it doesn't look right because his hair will start almost behind his ear in order for the two pieces to meet up.  I have no idea how to cover or fix this. 

Ugh!