Horan Figure of the Week, Officer, U.S. Marine Corps, 1859

This weeks Horan figure is a great study on how to paint white/light colors! Figure done by Bill in 1993.
Click images for larger version

New Projects and some other news

Hola one and all!


Wow, it has been a week since the bench was last updated. There are a couple of reasons for this. Mainly, my mother has been here in the States visiting us on the ranch. She was stuck here for a few extra days due to the volcano erruption in Iceland, but she is now home safe and sound. At least she was not stuck at some airport somehwere!


So the limited time for the fun stuff effected the blog a bit as I spent the time I had available trying to catch up with the figure work that has been neglected these past couple of weeks. So even though not much action has taken place here I have managed to get a few things done, or at least close to being done.


At the moment there are three projects on the bench. All are 54mm original one off's. A Revolutionary War Fifer, all tattered and torn which is in stark contrast to a mounted Bavarian Officer from the War of Spanish Succession. The last piece on the bench is the Swedish private from Närke -Värmlands Regiment from the battle of Narva, 1700.  Which leads me to some potentially bad news for all the fans of the video series.


Due to the lack of time recently and lack of ability to record any more video I had to make the decision to finish the figure that we have been following through out the video. It is a comission piece and has to be done for the MFCA show which is rapidly approaching! As such I have to use some other project to finish the video series. I am very sorry that this is the way it worked out, but I feel it was the right decision at this time. However...there is one more hour of video on how I sculpted the legs (folds etc) on the same figure that I have yet to edit and post up. Hopefully by the end of next weekend it will be all up and ready to go.

The good news is that this frees us up to cover pretty much anything we want, as opposed to just follow the logical progression of a sculpt. I know many of you want me to do a video on the tools I use and how they are used, this is something that I will do for sure in the near future. I will also do some other 'how to' videos, though I hessitate to call them How To's as all that they are is showing how I personally do it, but I will cover how I go about sculpting various things such as folds etc. Maybe even do one covering some basic theory behind the folds, and what causes what sort of fold etc. This would be very helpful, not only to my self, but to the rest of the video viewers as it helps in determining the type of fold and what should be used when.


So in short, I am sorry that  I am unable to complete the video sbs on the same figure. However, we will still cover many more things in the months to come. I am just getting started with the videos so hopefully in a short period of time, we can have a video archive here on "The Bench" as a bit of a reference regarding sculpting.


Anyways, sorry for the long message, just thought I would share what has been going on here and the reasons for no activity as well as what the status is in regards to the videos.


Next up is the Horan figure of the Week!

All the best and Happy sculpting and painting!!

Horan Figure(s) of the Week, Black Watch, 1885, & Highland Clansman, 1745

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Family Pic!

It's been a bit quiet on here the past week or so as my Mother is on visit from Sweden. I have been doing a little bit of sculpting but nothing too serious. I hope to hit the bench this weekend with renewed fierceness to try to catch up from the past two weeks. I will post some in-progress shots of my current projects here pretty soon. In the mean time here is a shot of the family sans the horses. It's my awesome wife Kate as well as our two dogs which you are already familiar with, Rowan and Porter respectivly, whom by the way doesn't look too thrilled haveing to act somewhat civilized for once!! I also hope to be able to record part IV of the sculpting video series in the next few days.

Video Tutorial - Part Three - Fleshing out the Mannequin

Here is the next step of our sculpting adventure! These 4 videos covers the fleshing out of the mannequin, in other words we are adding bulk to the mannequin by sculpting a rough naked body on which we will sculpt the rest of the figure. Enjoy!

Horan Figure of the Week, 14th Brooklyn, 1862

Once again I would like to thank Mr. Joel Glass for allowing us the true pleasure to visit his magnificant collection of Historical Miniatures. Without this generosity these "Horan Figure of the Week" pictures would not be possible.


Also, another reminder of the Bill Horan in Retrospect display that will be featured at this years MFCA show, May 7th and 8th. This will be a great opertunity to get to see some of these masterworks in person. Many of which have not been in public display for several years. It is going to be quite something I think, and I for one am pretty excited about it.


'nuff talking! Here is the Horan piece of the week;14th Brooklyn, 1862.
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Video Tutorial: Part Two -Conclusion of Posing the Manenquin-

Here are the final 4 parts of Posing the Mannequin. Like I stated earlier it is about an hour total, but wanted to show it all. Next up will be fleshing out the mannequin, which will be a bit more streamlined. So on to putty work next, but here is the conclusion of the poing stage. Keep an eye out on the credits in the last part for some information as to where to get some of the supplies used in these videos.

Also, I've received a lot of requests for a scale chart here on the blog. It's been real busy around here so havent had a chance to get to it yet, but I will post a scale chart here in the upcoming week.

Video Tutorial: Part Two -Posing The Mannequin-

Here are the first three videos of part II in the new video tutorial series. In this part we will pose the mannequin. The video is prettty raw and almost unedited except to keep them under 10 minutes each. It is a lot of video, but I wanted to show the entire process. The video really shows everythign I did to the mannequin, but I suspect that only a handful of hardscore sculpting enthusiasts will watch the whole thing, which is fine. There will be more interesting videos to follow. But I wanted to show the entire process withouth cutting it here and there and take an hour long process and cut it into 5 minutes, then you would get frustrated when you tired it at home. So take it for what it is, and hopefully you will find it somewhat interesting!

Sculpting Video Update

First off, thanks for the great reponse to the first sculpting video!! I have received many emails with suggestions etc and trust me, I take all of them to heart. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to send me a note or email.


The reason that no other videos has been posted is due to some technical issues. I've struggled all week trying to get them to work right, having spent massive amount of time editing and uploading said videos with no good results. Even 'bought' a website/server to host the videos but still to no avail. However the problem seems to have been fixed now. So all that's left is to re edit all of the videos once more...and upload them. I hope to have them all up by the end of the weekend at latest. If anyone out there is a website builder and wouldn't mind lending a hand, please send me an email as I could use some knowledgable advice regarding website building/publishing.


So until the actual videos are ready, here is the new 'intro'. I know, I am having way to much fun with this...