Who killed King Louis?

Hello my friends,

Well, nobody has killed the Sun king as far as I know. And certainly not one of the Zonneschuts has had a hand in his death. He died of old age in Versailles. So why this weird title?

This bust in white metal is a miniature copy of the famous Bernini bust of Louis XIV that can be seen in the palace of Versailles. With a 7 cm (2 3/4 inch) height it is quite big for 1:12 scale. Too big for putting it on a table or the top of a bookshelf, but not too big for a collumn or pedestal in a grand hall or a garden. It just needs a bigger room than average in 1:12.

When I assembled the different parts There remained a visible gap between the face and the whig. An ugly open seam that needed to be filled. quite annoying. I experimented with some clay to fill and hide that gap and model it to resemble curly strings of hair. 

It worked quite well in closing the gap. But, in an eerie way, it looks like a blood trail, trickling down his face as a result from a blow to the head. That explains the title of this post. But thankfully nothing unsavory happened to "good old Louie".

However. That being the case, does not change the fact that the 'evidence' of this addition/reparation needs to be hidden from sight. If one wants to conceal something, conceal it well. In this case several layers of paint...

I decided to give this bust a terracotta finish. And not a light and fresh terracotta colour like I did on the woman's bust. No, this time I wanted a darker terracotta colour. Perhaps it has been weathered through standing outside in the garden for a few decades?

The first layer was a Revell skine tone. I applied it as a primer. A thin layer where the metal colour still shines through in places. And being a metal paint it is waaaay to shiny to pass as terracotta, but the next layers should cover that sheen.

Now it is time to deepen the colour. Although I know what result I want to achieve,  I make each step in the painting proces up as I go. I mixed a bit of primary red, some light Venetian red, and a small amount of burnt Sienna into a deep brownish red. And applied a layer onto Louis. When still wet it rather looked like the bust is made out of solidified curry ketchup....

I added some raw umber to the mixture and applied another thin coat of paint. Because the second layer was not yet fully dried I take of paint with my brush in places instead of applying it. With a bit of juggling more paint was applied onto the bust than was taken away. And afterwards it looks like the picture above.

I quite liked the result but it needed something more. I mixed some pigment powder together with acrylic medium and added it to the bust with a brush. This is layer number four.

And finally after the acryllic medium has fully dried we get something like this. The bust looks weathered and a bit flaky. The pigment powder has dulled down the sheen of the paint a lot. Which is good because terracotta is usualy unglazed and should have a matte finish.

Well, this is it for now, my friends. I hope you like this post about my journey to create a good terracotta finish. Although I like the result it is not yet the perfect recipe. Perhaps the next try will be perfect. So stay tuned! :-)

Huibrecht.

Miniatures; A rook's chessmate?

Hello my friends,

Two weeks ago we visited Amsterdam. We've dined with friends and went to see the Dutch National Ballet's performance of Tchaikovsky's  Swan Lake. That in itself has nothing to do with miniatures.  But first we went to a shop specialised in chess and board games. A great shop! To my surprise they had a few boxes in the back of the shop filled to the brim with surplus chess pieces. All kinds, old, some broken, wood, plastic and resin thrown together. If you have lost a piece of your chess set there is a good chance that you can find a replacement here. 1 euro per piece and 50 cents for a pawn. 

I however zoomed in on a few pieces for a different reason. Could I not use some of these for miniatures? After a search through the top quarter of the boxes (they were filled to the brim. What treasure remains hidden deep down?), I ended up with a few rooks ( we call them towers) and two bishops I'd like to buy. The bishops may end up as finials somewhere, I have no immediate use for them. The rooks I chose because of their model. These three do not get very thin at the top as with most models. And that makes them good candidates to be transformed into pedestals. Wether it is for a statue, a bust, a vase or an urn.

I started with this black tower. I filed the crenelations off untill I had a smooth top surface. I then played around with some pieces of round and octogonal mdf I had lying around. Leftovers from the bases of the blackamoors I have made. This in order to increase the pedestal's height.

Once I was happy with the configuration of elements I painted the chosen mdf pieces with ivory black to match the rook and added embelishments in gold paint.  The result you can see in the picture below. I tried to use the gold paint sparingly to give the pedestal a restraint classical feel and hopefully not an abundant Victorian one.

I still had Alison Davies' Caesar's bust lying around that I had bought together with Marie Antoinette's bust a few years ago. The latter I have given a terracotta finish but Caesar was still waiting to be painted. 

I wanted to try a wash of ivory black and water to give Caesar a greyish "unearthed white marble' look. This was not a matter of careful prior planning. It was a spurr of the moment idea. I had some ivory black left on my palette. So why not give it a try? I dipped  my brush in water, then through the smudge of black paint and brushed away.

The result was a bit too dark in my opinion. So I gave ve it a second wash with a watered down chrome white to tone it down a bit. That came out too chalky as you can see in the picture above. So the next wash I gave caesar was a medium grey mixture of ivory black and chrome white. All very warery so that the earlier layers and even the yellowish colour of the resin stillbshine through in places. They all add to the depth of the marbling. 

After the third wash it really started to look like something. Although the black had fallen away too much. So a wash with a lot of water and the tiniest amount of ivory black was the last "brush bath" I gave old Caesar. 

I did not redo the marble frame around the plaque. That only has the initial black wash on it. I want it to look like a renaissance addition to an original Roman bust so it ideally it a similar but not the same type of marble as the antique bust. 

It was a bit freightening. Just experimemting without knowing where it will/should end. But, I do understand now why many miniaturists like to use washes! This is definately not my last try. 

The second chess piece needed much less work done to it. It is an old piece and much of the old black paint has rubbed of by use over decades, or even longer! I wanted to keep that patina so no paintjob here.  

In the top photo you can see some damage to the top and bottom of the piece. The damage on the top mostly dissapeared with the removing of the crenelations. The damage on the bottom was mostly on one side. On the front side only two small damaged areas were visible. Using different brown and black colour pencils I colored the two patches to match the surrounding colours. Now they look like old damages. 

And that was all I did. I placed my antique seal stamp of the man in classical dress on it and I declared this pedestal finished. 

After these two pedestals the third rook remains to be transformed. I have not yet something fitting to place on it however. So this one will have to wait for a while in my stash of bits and pieces. What shall I put on it? An urn perhaps, or a sundial? I am not sure yet. We'll see.

Huibrecht