9. Day, Workshop Goslar, November 1, 2019


Towarisch Leitenant accompanied me to the Harz Mountains - and I spent the Friday afternoon painting in his eyes.

As always with acrylics - and this time I chose my own eye color, gray-blue ...:



After the eye-painting comes what always means the "magic moment" to me: Through the fine white reflex-points, the eyes not only get their shine, but the whole figure begins to "live"!

The finished eyes turn a so-called lifeless workpiece into a figure, to which I get a real personal relationship.

Alright - enough of the philosophy!

That's what Comrade Lieutenant looked like after the first workshop day - and I was pretty happy!









Cheers

10. Day, Workshop Goslar, November 2, 2019


For the second day of the workshop, I had actually planned to paint the face of our hero - with oil paints whose choice of painting the painting of the hands, so to speak, is already predetermined ...:



However, during five hours of concentrated painting I came much further than I originally planned - not only the face is finished, but also the forehead, the ears and the neck!

In the evening, the whole thing still shines a lot - but I think you can see where the journey goes to ...:












The next steps are the eyebrows, the hair (although I still sway between brown and dark blonde!), the beard shadow - and finally a decent amount of brandenburg dirt!

Only the color first has to be nearly dry for that - next Tuesday gI'll go on here ...


Cheers

11. Day, November 5, 2019


Beard shadow - very carefully and adapted to the contours of the face ...



... as well as eyebrows and hair - I opted for darkl blonde, but avoided pure yellow, like the devil the holy water!



This is what Towarisch Leitenant now looks like ...:












What is missing the face now is a decent handful of Brandenburg filth ...


Cheers

I dilute the oil paint pretty much with turpentine substitute and then make about half a dozen small dots each time, which I then very gently veneer with a very soft brush.

In the "depths" of the skin folds a little stronger, as the beard shade there looks darker in the original, correspondingly less in the light areas of the skin.

I repeat this in small steps until the result looks realistic enough to me.


Cheers

12. Day, October 6, 2019


While the face with beard shadow now is allowed to dry completely, I turn to the "Pilotka", as the "boat cap" in Russia is called.

Here I am facing a problem:

When, after the victory in Stalingrad, the old Tsarist uniform (with the epaulets called "Pogony") were reintroduced in the Red Army (and the former "Kommandir" was again allowed to be called "Offitser"), officers were given Pilotka caps which were piped in " Weapon color".

A few examples: These "weapons colors" were for ...

Generals: Red ..:




Rifles (infantry): raspberry red ...:




Artillery, Tankers, Pioneers, Technical Troops: Black (Tankers often wore full black Pilotkas!):




Border troops (NKVD) and administrative units (RKKA): Green ...:




Aviators: Light Blue ...:





The "weapon color" of the NKVD rifle regiments was dark blue ...:




Unfortunately, the original photo says in terms of "piping" nothing, as I have also enlarged it ...:




But the double piping on the bonnet and cap edge of the Pilkotka should actually be there!


Palo has already sculpted one of them - the one on the edge - so the second one is missing!




That's what I like to do - so I picked out "Milliput" ...



... and the made the second piping by myself, whereby the diameter is given by Palos Sculpt!


That reads faster than it was actually done!


That's what comrade Leitenant looks like now - now the milliput has to harden overnight ...:










Cheers

NKVD (blue) - because of the cockade at the Pilotka...


Cheers

Fantastic work Martin on an exceptional sculpt! Love the face...

Cheers,
Ken

13. Day, November 7, 2019


My today painting session starts with the priming of the yesterday sculpted piping.

Looks good, it blends in beautifully with the "picture" ...:



Then I started to paint the "Pilotka".

As far as the color selection is concerned, as far as brown, ocher and green shades are concerned, there is practically a free choice, because these things had an enormously wide color spectrum, depending on their age and fabric quality, as the following picture shows:



I took these colors...:



My basic tone consists of lights ocher, gold ocher, umber burned - about equal parts! - and a small track "juice green", where you have to be really careful with this color, because it "bangs" total, and this dominant green overlays the ocher and brown shades too fast, if you do not pay attention!
For the shadows I have - gradually - increased the proportion of the "umber burned". The lightening was done - also step by step - with "skin color", a solution that was initially only an attempt (I was really skeptical in this regard!), But then turned out to be just right.

"White" to lighten tends to make the color "chalky" afterwards, and I did not dare yellows.

Anyway - I'm pretty happy with the overall impression of the "Pilotka" ...!









What do YOU think...?


Cheers

14. Day, November 8, 2019


After the oil paint has covered part of its way from "glossy" to "mat" overnight, and the glamor no longer shimmers off much of the play of light and shadow, I just took some new photos of the Pilotka cap...:












Unfortunately there was not enough for more today - next week I will continue.
Cheers

15. Day, November 11, 2019


Today I paint the last details at head of our hero!

It starts with the the double blue pipings on the "Pilotka" hat.

That's why I chose these colors ...:




I have to be really careful with the lightening, because otherwise I will transfer Comrade Leitenant against his will to the Air Force, because so far were the colors for NKVD ...



...and Air Force...



... not at all!


The second detail is the oval cockade the guy wears on his Pilotka ...:



Hmmm - actually there should be a red star with the "Molot-Serp" (hammer and sickle) symbol!

These stars existed in an almost overwhelming variety - often painted green for camouflage reasons, with the only color that was abundant in the Red Army: the "Tank Green" with which the big device was painted ...:



As for the stars:

Different versions of the cockades for officers and men, which existed in the Tsarist army (and later again during the Brezhnev period!) - Stalin did not go that far!

However, it was tacitly accepted that the increasingly self-confident officer cadre supplied significantly larger stars than those worn by ordinary soldiers.

The difference we see here - in the middle a cockade for officers, right and left the variant for soldiers ...:




But comrade Leitenant's cockade is clearly oval, not in accordance with regulations - but a "Hero of the Soviet Union" could afford a lot on the front under Stalin!

Only: The research for the template has driven me to the tree!

Finally I found it - namely this one ...:



It is an old NKVD cockade from the late 30s - and a derivative of this one here ...:



There were many of such derivatives ...:



Maybe our friend wears the thing as a talisman ...

Alright - colors out ...



... and painted that thing!

First in "Steel" - and then I carefully worked out the laurel wreath and the "Molot-Serp" with silver ink.

You can even see it clearly - but only from very close!

The laurel wreath is held together by a red lacquered "band", so a red mix was used!

I wonder how Palo managed to model this tiny cockade so accurately! I almost broke my fingers when painting!


I also got the following photomontage from Palo ...:



And - damn! - he is right, the irises of our hero actually have different sizes!

So I'm ** sigh ** in the (left in the photo) left eye again and corrected the size of the iris ...

Thank you very much, Palo!!!


**continued next post**

The last detail for today is the white collar, which looks out on top of the gymnastika, the uniform shirt, of Comrade Leitenant ...:



It has a special condition that is so typical for the Russian army that I want to tell you:

The summer Gymnastiorka M 1943, equipped with two breast pockets for Officers, which our hero wears - soldiers had no breast pockets! - had no inner lining at all ...:



At more or less regular intervals, the Red Army soldier received from his supply unit a clean white piece of cloth, which he then had to fold into a collar and sew into his uniform blouse!





Also at the front there was no exception for it - as this picture of some submachine gunners shows ...:



According to the regulation, there should be a clean "collar" a week, which of course was highly theoretical in the war and at the front!

This white collar was the object of hatred of all conscripts in the Czar's army as well as in the RKKA, and the fétisch of all NCOs - and was scrupulously controlled!

And that has not changed to this day ...:









I painted the collar with these colors ...:


At the neck then came a very gentle outlining of skin color, mixed with something "umber burned" added.

This is what our friend looks like now ...:









I really think that the head loks pretty good - even if you should not praise yourself!

Almost a pity that I have to pollute the face now exemplary prototypes ...


Cheers

16. Day, November 12, 2019


So, today is the day before I had a bit of fear from the beginning - because now I have to throw dirt on the so well-done face of our Towarisch Leitenant!

While I was researching for the figur, was I thinking of how to do it? Real dirt from the garden? Pigments? Pastel chalks?

Everything discarded again!

Then I decited...: I take colors!

So I mixed my dirt out of these three colors ...:



And then I tried to balance exactly on the border between "role model" and "too exaggerated" along.


Judge for yourself:



















And now I'm asking for critical answers!

Is somewhere too much (means, the effect must be mitigated at certain points)?

Or is somewhere too little, means, where must the effect be strengthened if necessary?



Thanks and Cheers!

Here again a set of pictures, without any artificial light taken.

They are a bit dark (outside is typical Bremen "dirty weather"), but are the overall impression much better justice ...:








Cheers

Not as dirty as your reference photograph but it looks good to me, especially in the pictures taken under natural light. The dirt looks a bit 'oily' to me but that may change when the paint dries further; or perhaps that was simply the intention?

Yep, these are oil paints - and in a week they're mat.

Cheers