Got this great bust from Alexandros models this weekend and decided to do a slight conversion. So i left the hat aside and sculpted the rest of his skull and his crazy hair.
I will try to do some kind of an SBS on this one.
Hope you like it.

Great idea and well executed. So, is the bust as awesome in hand as it looked in the pictures?

Mike it really is an excellent piece. Some minor casting problems, still it is a must have IMO.
So basecoat with a mix of gold oxide, jaune brilliant, fawn, purple madder, brown madder and basic skintone from josjona's acrylics range.
After this is done i use burnt umber to paint the shadow of the upper eylid, the lips, the nostrils and that of the hair as any mistake is easy to correct at this point.
The eyeball is painted with a mix of basic skintone and a touch of the basic color, highlighted with titanium white.
Finally the iris disc is painted with black oilcolor because i find it easier to manipulate.

This looks brill Dimitrios! Your addition is as near to perfectly seamless as one could hope for, great work.

Einion

This should have been an option on the bust, nicely done

Dave

Very nice Dimitri!I was completely sure that will paint it with the best way
you know.Step by step.

Very interesting SBS Dimitrios. A great bust.

That's quick.
Gonna not ordered one because it wasn't in stock.
So I gonna follow this with great interest, and ordered again.

marc

That looks a really good bust and great sculpt, look forward to this one.
What shade of grey are you going to do the great coat most do it a greenish grey but Napoleons coat in the Musee de L'Armee is extremely light in color,
Perhaps it was a summer coat but I am sure he had more than one, this bust is a must for me.

Which uniform, Chassuers or Grenadiers

Great start Dimitrios really like the conversion,always look forward to seeing your painting.


Cheers David

Greenish? It's nearly always done a neutral or slightly blueish grey from what I can recall.

The surviving coat is likely to have faded with exposure to light so it's probably not representative of the value it once was; the hue could well have changed too (as with some examples of Confederate grey, which now look like they were butternut originally).

Einion

Dimitrios

I definitely prefer your bare headed conversion above the already beautiful original sculpt. The hair is done very convincingly. Very nice work !

Johan

Looks like another winner Dimitrios.Look forward to seeing him progress.
Brian

Great idea. I follow closely your work.

http://www.mininet.tv/egminiatures.html

I think both uniforms are possible to paint, cause in the bust we can´t see the lower part of the lapels.

http://www.mininet.tv/egminiatures.html

Dimitris I think this little conversion has radically altered the bust gave it a new fresh look and I think I finally have you carving .. not start sculpting ..
Congrats Dimitris expect to see and other developments in painting and Saturday from near!

Alexandros

Thank you all for the comments. Glad you like the conversion.
Some progress on the face. I didnt like the base so repainted and also changed the eyes because they looked empty to me.
First i make mixes of lights and shadows. Lights adding skintone base on the basic mix and shadows adding olive green and brown earth. The mix differ very little in tone so i make 5 to 6 minimum. Then i apply them and blend them as i go.

Then after i have a good highlighted and shadowed base comes the fun part of filters and extreme tones.
I use different colors ranging from blues to greens and yellows. For this one the pallte has paynes grey, olive gree, brown madder, red violet, gold oxide and moss green.
Now this stage is hard for me to explain because i dont have a certain protocol, meaning that i do what need to be done in my eyes. So i filter, i repaint certain areas with different hues and so on. For example reddish tones are used at the cheekbone, nose and ears area some yellowish for the forehead and for the 5 o clock shadows i heavily filter with paynes grey, olive green and purple madder.
More fine tuning will be needed after other color on the bust will be applied to have some sense of balance. The iris is also to come.