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