Fossil 3! the last of the triptych. I still have to find a setting idea for the 3 of them.

Anyway, here we go again, another figure sculpting beginning by twisting a few brass wires

That I cover with MS+Duro..

Then I added some Hornet hands. I can actually sculpt hands but hands have less "personality" than heads so I prefer using Hornet's and therefore save some time.
Strangely enough those were not as destroyed as the rest of the body

the head + helmet (AFH-1), all Duro and MS, work in progress but in the end, there will probably be more blurred features for the face as well as a better hollowed helmet

And now for something completely different.
A badass US flying thing made in USA.. let me think.. C-130 looks pretty cool, how to cram a 1/35 C-130 on a 10x6cm base?
ah well, only one of the engines now

What's cool when you begin to master (more or less) figure sculpting is that scratchbuilding really appears so very simple to me.
So here we are and let's do the blades as well as some other stuff. I was fortunate enough to have an access to the great Lock-On on C-130 as well as used the Prime Portal references for global shape.

so, some old kit parts, other parts cut from a round cutter, MS covered plastic for the blades, Duro for the crumpled metals bits, here is the engine after 2 hours job :

refining, trimming sanding ..

the base of the engine

let's hole the blades to insert the bits..

Add a few extra details, trim the blades and here we are

Okay, let's paint the plaster base.

Of course i never ever use any seal product on the plaster, now that's a very stupid thing to do as the plaster drinks the paint and the water in it, which means that if you are wise enough you can create some effects that you could only dream of when using some plastic (more on that perhaps another time)

Anyway, my bootiful Iwata sprays weird colours on my base, blues and red brown.. what the heck? that's no colours for a diorama base.

Well yes it is. I used some early 1980's pictures as a reference and you wouldn't believe how the colours faded since. I don't model what's true, I model what's left of the memory of those poor guys, the memory has got a blue-greenish hue and that's it..

So here is the first stage finished, the base colours are applied. I used several masks made of paper, the usual stuff.. excuse the low quality of the pictures, I don't dare using the good camera when i am doing dirty job!)

Now is time for overpainting. I wet the plaster  abit and I screen and screen again, darker hues in the recesses, tan on the tops and then some random colours. No method, just piling up the colours.

But now the interest of that special pictures is what i am doing with the placement of the wires. That's it, those will be casting some shadows on the ground, therefore I have to paint those (airbrush those).

Here is a blurry picture of the mostly finished base

Except well.. pigments. Now I am a bit suspicious on those because overdoing the thing is very easy with pigments.

Whatever,  I just applied some Vallejjo pigments fixer and pour some blue , brown pigments here and there.

I am never afraid of using colours! I have been using my SF Mig pigments as much as the regular ones

Here is the way now i am doing the bases for the Fossil series. first a plaster base -that's simple, I just pour plaster in a vague form done out of plasticard that i sand afterwards.

Then when cleaning my plaster dish, I put one the water with the plaster wash on some plastic surface that I leave to dry.

Then I break it with the hands and "glue" it on the plaster base using some ultra diluted plaster.
I just have to trim it and paint now.

So I was giving a website course some 10 years ago and I had that girl saying to me at the pause with some weird voice just like she had some hair on the tongue "Well my boyfriend died in the mountian a few years back, they found his body only two years later and you know what? His Breitling was still in working condition!" 

So Then I got in mind that guy's picture with a big wrist watch on his hand, poor fellow's body was totally burned and I asked myself if his watch was still in working condition.

Anyway that's Fossil 2, second part out of 3 of the series

First let's bend a bit of brass

Then let's cover it with a mix half half Duro/Magic Sculp.

So that's it, the Fossil diorama is finished. Of course that's an historical subject, I think a lot of people could guess what i actually showed in that one. Anyway, I thought it was too dark and violent to be shown in fourms so I stayed that one only here or in facebook. Maybe i will go a bit more in the open next time!

Thanks for looking. The rest of the pictures are in the gallery here.

Last minute note: why on earth those colours? Because the colour photographs taken during that era, and of this event showed those kind of colours.. Those are the ones of old argentic films exposed at not very friendly lights. It's more interetsi,ng than the real colours if you prefer :)