A (terracotta) bust is a must

Hello my friends, welcome back. The last few years I have bought several kits and miniatures that only need to be finished. Looking at all those items to make or to finish there should be something that could be done while "in between miniatures". Then I saw the two busts I bought from Alison Davies last year.

A Roman emperor and a lady. Quite popular models by Alison Davies, cast in white resin. Often you see these finished as aged sandstone or marble. Beautiful, but I wanted something different, but what? Busts come in all kinds of materials besidse stone or marble. Just think of wood, (blackened) bronze, lead, pewter, (glazed) terracotta, painted porcelain, et cetera. You name it!

So  I wanted to try something new. A painted terracotta finish. Terracotta was used by artists for studies before the attempted cutting the bust in marble. It was also used for making copies.  For those who can work with clay it is a wonderfull material that can be teased into almost any shape or form.

There are probably very good articles and tutorials on creating a faux terracotta finish. But I could not find one. So I had to think up a method myself. Terracotta is not rjustone colour. but a range of different colour (tones and hues) Depending on the type of clay used the natural colour of the real material goes from soft grey to pink and from sandy yellows to a beige with a burgundy hue. That natural variety gives quite a lot of freedom. After I found pictures of good examples I tried to recreate their colour.

First I aplied an undiluted layer of acrylic paint called terra. As you can see for yourself, this looks way to orange! As if it came from a factory where they make brand new terracotta sewer pipes. yikes! I had expected this because this is meant as the basecoat to shine through the next layers. And so, after it had dried, I applied a second layer of pinkish beige. Something close to a light skin tone. 

The result looked quite promising colour wise. much better than the basecoat Unfortunately this colour did not come in matte finish. As you can see on the picture above it is way to shiny! It almost looks like it is glazed! Not good! I apllied a matte varnish but that dit not tone down the sheen in any way. So varnish was not going to help me with this.  

So what now? In a local store I found (vallejo) pigment powders used on miniature (train) diorama's and such. typically for ageing and such. This could help. I aplied a thin layer of medium and a dusting of the powder. When the medium dried I rubbed the bust with a soft cloth. I ended up with this as a result. Quite dark but it has that subdued sheen that (older) terracotta often has. 

The darkness in the last picture was replaced with a lighter result after it had fully dried (took quite some time) The end result can be seen on the picture above. I am very happy with the result. 

I also painted 2 1:24 vases. I followed the same steps but omitted the first step of painting them in terra like the bust. So the skintone paint was added directly on the resin vases. Because of poor light (it is a rainy day) it is a bit hard to see compared now, but their terracotta colour is actualy a bit paler and more yellow than the bust. Just like with gilding, the base colour affects the final outcome of the colour. 

I have enjoyed this little trial and error. The result is even better as I had hoped. I had expected to need to use more layers of paint to achieve this effect. And who knows some of you may benefit from it someday. :-)

Huibrecht