Hi people,

Been working on this little guy for alpine's figure painting contest.
I had this idea after seeing a the photos below:




(not so sure about the authenticity of this one, it is at least re-colored)

The Alpine figure had to be modified slightly to fit the stg44; I removed his left arm and cut it apart at the wrist and elbow, then re attached them with wire. I then played with them until the pose looked right, used some aves apoxy sculpt to fill in and re-sculpt the joints and, voila!! I also had to rill out the belt in back for the stg mags to fit and then, again, re-sculpted the belt to go over. This is the first sculpting I've done and it was mughty hard to get it good enough not to stand out too bad from the excellent sculpting of the figure!!
The stg, strap and magazines are dragon gen2, excellent I must say. And the cigarette is a tiny piece of paper coated in ca.







I know the painting is a bit rough compared to some of the masters around here, but I really learned a lot with this one, it is really the first serious attempt to paint a figure in my adult life (yeah I've been working on this one since before those dragon figures!!) I used to do tons when I was a kid, but I had no patience so they weren't the best!

I'm always open to tips and constructive crits

Thanks all

tskross

First attempt? If you call that rough, you should see my first attempt!

A bit of constructive criticism...

The clothes and equipment look great, but the face isn't at their level, IMHO.

Did you use oils or acrylics?

I hope to see more of your work.

SCOTT

Hey scott,

thanks for the reply,
I agree, I really struggled with the face (it is in oils, the rest of the figure is acrylic) I used 'the bannerman' method, but I think I could have used a little more varation in the facial tones and hues. I may yet go back into it, and of course now, after staring at the pics I see several things that bug me, but for the time being I just wanted to call this one done!

I'd try acrylics, using the layering effect. I find it easier because if you mess up with a layer then you can just dip the head in water. DON'T FORGET: Feather your highlights and shadows. Meaning, start by covering a large are and slowly shrink it down until it's only a dot of paint for the lightest highlights. This is the trick to using acrylics.

What I like best about this figure is the photographic evidence to back it up.

Well Done, and an excellent conversion. If this is your first try, I can't wait for your 50th. It should be outstanding!

Mark Lopiccola

thanks Mark, I always like finding photos that have something a bit unusual about them and trying to think how I could use them, and with the LIFE pics and the Bundesarchive now online, there are so many out there that are easily accessible to pour over!!

Kieran, thanks for the tips! I did use the layering technique (as explained on vallejo's website) for the clothes and equipment etc, but as it was my first time and I did a lot of back and forth so the process wasn't quite as streamlined as it could have been! As for the face I think I'll give oils another try, I'm comfortable using them, I think more than anything it was my lack of experience with painting (tiny!) faces that held me back and made me fear going to far with them...in the end I think its obvious I didn't take it far enough!!

Wonderful workmanship. If you don't win, they picked the wrong entry. Great job.