tributesinwood

A Colourful Corporal

Well, our 1812 soldier now has some colour.  In a few days, I’ll have his hands and other soldiering accessories painted and glued in place.  A final urethane finish will protect the acrylic paints and really make the colours come out.  You probably can’t see it in this photo, but I have quite a bit of colouring to make him look a bit battle worn…basically, some mud and dirt look.  I’m really glad that I added the legs and shoes as I think that it completes the caricature that started out as a bust.

I’ll get another picture up later this week, hopefully.

Musket and other progress

Here’s a quick picture of the musket that my 1812 soldier caricature will be holding.  The gun stock is made of cherry and the barrel is an old artist’s brush.  The metal plate is aluminum tape and the flintlock mechanism and trigger are made from lead.

The brass looking brackets on the gunstock are actually copper.  I used a piece of electrical copper wiring and flattened it out to make these two brackets.  You might be able to spot two gun strap brackets as well.  These are just made out of wire from straight pins and glued in place.

The gun is in two parts and the split will be hidden beneath one of the soldier’s hands.  I had to split the gunstock in this fashion so that I could fit it closely to the hand that I carved earlier.

In other news…the Corporal now has legs!  I started to paint him and he looked so nice that I decided that it wouldn’t be right to leave him as just a bust…so I glued on some additional wood and carved up his legs and shoes.

I’m just in the process of painting right now, and I’ll get a photo up on the web in the next day or so.

Hands and Musket

We’ll, I guess I’m not setting any land speed records, but I am making a bit of progress.  It’s tragic how the rest of your life can interfere with carving!

I’ve roughed in the placement of his hands and the musket.  Still a bit more work to do on both…I want to keep the hands over-sized as this is a caricature and the figure should be exaggerated.  The musket still requires a lot of work to include a barrel and flint-lock hammer.  I’ll also include a leather strap ( mine will be probably made from sheet metal ) along the bottom of the barrel with some hardware to attach to the wood gun stock.

The gun stock is actually cut and re-attached underneath his right hand.  If I hadn’t done this, I would never have been able to carve his fingers and thumbs closely wrapped around the gun stock.

I hope that you like the way that he’s progressing…I think that he’s going to look pretty nice when I have him set up on a pedestal.  Just a little more playing around to do and I’ll be ready to start painting.  I’m still shooting for the April wood carving show in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and I now see that there is a second show in Belleville, Ontario on the following weekend.  The Corporal may be doing a bit of travelling.

The Corporal Gets Some Colour

Cpl Sowerby got a bit of paint this weekend.  I didn’t want him to look too battle worn but not parade perfect, either.  As a result, he has a bit of colourful dirt on his slightly worn hat.

He’s also been out in the sun a bit too long and picked up a bit of a sunburn on his nose and the tops of his ears where his hat wasn’t giving him any protection.  Then again, I don’t imagine that sun damage was these soldiers’ biggest concern.

A bit of a five-o’clock shadow rounds out his not-so-parade-ready look.

I think the hat badge turned out pretty well.  That’s a base coat of gold with a bit of copper colour for highlighting.  I put a coat of urethane on the front of the hat to give it a more of a leather polished look.  The back of the hat was felt, so it won’t get the shiny treatment.

Cpl. Sowerby Progress

I did a bit more detailing yesterday on Sowerby’s head and hat.  I think it’s looking pretty good with the plume/rosette and rope tassel.  Just a bit more tweaking and it’ll be ready for some paint.

Those are brass coloured nails on the sides to look like button heads.  I’m going to look for some brass or gold coloured film of some sort to put over the badge and still allow the badge carving to show through.

Cpl. Duncan Sowerby

We took a trip to visit family over the last few days and had a great visit with everyone.  During the car ride we came up with a name for the 1812 Infantryman caricature…Corporal Duncan Sowerby.

What do you think?…Sound right for the era?

Here’s a quick snapshot of the first pass at his hat.  Eventually, a feather plume, some knotted cord and a brass badge will decorate the front of the hat.

It’s interesting that the hat was termed a Shako.  Some quick surfing came up with the origin of the word being from Hungary and meaning a peaked cap.

In general, it’s interesting that the uniforms of the time were so colourful and ornate.  Similarly, the hats would be tall and equally ornate.  Neither reflected the sense of camouflage that we know of today.

For those interested in the construction, again, you’ll see that I made the hat in two parts.  The peak has the grain running horizontally in the photo so that it has greater strength and won’t break as easily as it would have had I run the grain vertically through the entire hat.

After roughing-in the hat and cutting off a bit of the top of the head level, it was just then a matter of dishing out the bottom of the brim to fit the head.  The dishing out gives the impression that the hat is pulled right over the head.