The sculpey sketch

Further establishment of the pose

The next set of photos will show the lower half of the coat sketched in using Sculpey. This dry run helps to plan the actual garment for when it's done using putty. This method may be a bit overkill, but I want my garment to look like a garment not a sheet of putty with a few folds in it (OOOH AAAH!). Some may be satisfied with that but why not kick it up to the next level?

The sculpted trousers

Sorry there's not much to show on these. Other than refining a few of the folds I have to add some fringe down the outer sides of the legs.What's interesting is that the buckskin trousers are tailored similiar to period trousers. The waist on the trousers back then were even with the navel instead of lower down on the hips.

Trapper's coat and trousers

I'm working on the trapper's trousers and coat next. The trousers are close fitting so there will not be much in the way of in progress pictures. Buckskin is tough to replicate in this scale. So painting would play a big part of getting that look that separates it from man made type fabrics.

Sculpting the shirt continued

Sculpting the shirt

The shirt

Miller's paintings do not appear to go into much detail about the everyday shirts worn by the trappers he painted. Fortunately I have a book on men's shirts and there were plenty examples from the period of 1800-40 that were a big help in putting this together.