Planning

Due to the dynamic composition of the tableaux, this piece was conceived as a shadow box, best viewed only from the front and with minimal perspective. All the figures would be constructed to the same scale. The monument walls and parapet would form a natural backdrop to the scene. The staging would be brought as close to the front as is possible to minimize the depth and to create a compact scene.

Having selected a suitable frame size for this piece, a simple cardboard cutout was used to frame the composition of the scene. Simple cutouts were also used to create the monument walls (Fig 2).

There were 11 figures and 1 statue to be constructed. A coloured A4 printout of the painting was made for visual reference and the figures came out at about 1/32 scale.

Various commercial parts (mostly Preiser figures) were used in the figure conversions to speed up the work. The commercial parts help to maintain a constant scale throughout. To further speed up the work, details were added only to the visible parts which could be viewed through the cutout frame. Wire and epoxy putty were used extensively to reshape the figures and add details (Fig 3).

Fig 2. The basic cutouts to frame the scene.

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Fig 3. The figures being recruited and assembled. The settee dimensions were determined at this stage

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