Monday, January 16, 2012

Sculpting completed

The sculpting portion of the figure is now done, finally! I have to now add some fring to the shoulders and sleeves. I believe I'm going to use lead coated with superglue for strength. The only piece missing from the figure is the powder horn which attaches around the upper right corner of his bullet pouch/ hunting bag.

Left arm and hand sculpted

This part was a little tricky. The remainder of this figure is turning into a bit of a learning experience. The rough body of the hand overlapped the barrel of the rifle too much. I thinned it down as much as I could with the hand glued to the rifle barrel. It was a nail biting process as it was not holding onto much. The addition of the fingers gave it additional strength. So if you're wondering why the fingers are not wrapped around the entire barrel that's why.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Let's get moving!!!

It's finally time to get this project done. What's the deal with work on a piece coming to a dead stop when it's about 70 to 90% done? I almost always seem to run out of steam went a piece gets to that level of completion. Let's get on to what's new on the trapper.


Trigger Guard and rifle placement
Originally I planed to make the trigger guard out of putty rolled out and cut into a strip. Due to the size and shape I decide to try a different approach. The first 2/3 of the guard was made from flattened sheet lead ( yes lead ) cut into three small individual pieces. Each piece was shaped and applied using Gorilla Glue ( super glue ) to assemble the pieces. The last 1/3 was made from Magic-Sculpt. The rifle was then fitted and glued to the blocked out left hand. After the glue thoroughly dries I'll add the fingers.

What's left?
After the hand I'll then sculpt the remainder of the coat sleeve. After that comes strips of fringe that will run down the back center of the sleeves. I'm thinking that more flattened sheet lead will work best here. After that a little detail on the powder horn and a feather for his hat will see it complete.