Buffalo Gal

 I figured it was time to get started on my "pledge model" for my local modeling club. Earlier in the year, I had chosen Buffalo Gal. This is a scene from It's a Wonderful Life, starring Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart. I enjoy it, and watch it a few times each Christmas season.  Since it's been around since 1946, I'm sure everyone has seen it at some time.

The model is a well made 3D printed kit by Nostalgic Resin, and depicts the walk home after George and Mary fell into the school's swimming pool (BTW the pool's real and still exists at Beverly Hills High School). This is the first real scene where they start their romance.  

 

 The first problem I had was whether to do it in color or B&W. Due to the size I thought it was too large for it to be all in B&W, and soon after found a nice colorized image of what I needed - the clothes. 

 

The only problem I had with it was the sidewalk was warped, and no amount of heating kept it flat. So I quickly tossed it aside and got out a piece of sheet styrene. I also had a decent sized wooden base and tested fitted all the basing materials. Besides the sidewalk, it come with a section of hedge, a picket fence, and a pillar.

Getting started, the pillar was painted gray, the fence white, and the hedge a green. It looked a little too plain so the hedge got flocked, I painted the picket fence and added some miniature rose bushes to fill the void, and the  pillar was fine so it just got a coat of paint with a little dark wash. seems I never took a WIP of the base so we'll see it at the end. 

Now I know what's to be done with the figures it was just a matter of filling in the colors. 

 

Getting to the faces, Stewart's likeness was good, Donna's barely came close, but not being able to sculpt a likeness, I'll just add paint to this as well.

 My next decision was Mary's robe. I know it's white, but that's an awful lot of white and I didn't want to make her look like a ghost with a sheet. So being George's clothes were warm earthy colors, I tried making the shadows in the robe a similar earthy colors. No good... That just made her look like she rolled around in some dirt. So the robe was repainted and this time I took the palest blue to fill in the shadows. This looked better. and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

Sadly my roses were mostly hidden

 

Sponging

 

 

Two Minute Tip – Sponging

Kevin Kilkenny

This tip is probably the least expensive tip for modeling I think I’ve ever given It could be free if you’re brave enough to raid the wife’s cosmetic drawer when she’s not hope, else these things are easily found at the Dollar store. They are cosmetic sponges. The are dense, yet soft, egg shaped pieces of foam. An added benefit is that they are easily cut if you need a smaller sponge. 

 

In the hobby they can be used for at least 3 things. The first is for replacing the dry brush. The biggest complaint or hits from a modeling judge is that the dry brush result makes the edges of the model look dusty.  Take that sponge and to paraphrase Bob Ross of “Two hairs and some air” tap the edges with the sponge and instead of dust you’ll get texture. This also works when you want to pre-highlight for those that like to use glazes as a painting process. In a similar fashion prime the mode dark and then use a lighter color where the highlights go. Again, gently tap the sponge and create your highlights.   

Finally, it can be used for highlights to a model. They say that pastels are the ‘poor man’s airbrush’?  Well, my view is that the cosmetic sponge has replaced the pastels. The trick is when the base coat is dry, to take a slightly lighter color of the base coat onto the sponge and dab on a paper towel until there’s barely anything there, then dab onto the model that you want to create a faded panel etc…