Body sculpt - Harry's new coat

I have decided that as I named my initial head sculpts variations of 'Bert' I should have a name for my initial range of body sculpts too. So may I introduce you to 'Harry' - albeit that he is still in the making!

Today I have some more minor progress to report - Harry is visiting his taylor. I am making up his tunic, you can see some of my pen lines in the accompanying photo indicating features to be worked on.

The belt was made from a strip of plasticard, pinned and glued in place to give me some reference of where Harry's waist would be. He maybe a bit on the rotund side, but I am greatly influenced by the figures of Black Hat who - I think - have captured the 'manly' Edwardian figure very nicely (barrel chest and thin ankles)!

At this moment I am working on the jacket collar. It's a bit over-sized as I have just laid down a layer of Milliput, but this will be sanded back when dry. He will also be given epaulettes.

Left: Amusing to think that this sculpt started out with my rickety home-made armature!

My influence for the design is the Romanian M1893 tunic, depicted in Osprey's 'Armies of the Balkan Wars 1912-13' (colour plate E1). This means I will be adding a nice row of shinny buttons, and the belt will be receiving a buckle too.

Now, I was going to add the appropriate webbing for the period too, but have now decided I would like a figure without webbing, I will have my brother duplicate this in resin and then add the webbing to a freshly copied resin version of my mannequin. This is so I have a range of uniforms from the one sculpt - with and without webbing - so I can model both infantry and auxiliary soldiers.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave!