Thursday, January 26, 2017

Crow Warrior #3



Hi you all!
Here is the third Crow warrior.




He is armed with a hatchet and will have an optional hide shield. He carries a bow in his mountain lion fur bowcase and has a quiver from the same material. Both are typical from the Northern Plains. On the side, he carries a stone-headed war club. He wears a loop necklace and a chocker with a concha and a little bell plus some wristbands. He is plain dressed in moccasins and breechclot. His hairstyle is relatively modern, with pompadour and two braids wrapped in otter fur. 

I hope you like it!
Cheers!

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Anatomy Practice: The End

Hi you all!

I made the hand and added a pair of details to the mini...and then the arms fell off! I cooked it to often, it seems.




So, I have repaired the mess and I have decided not to finish it in order to use the mini as an armature in the future :-)






I´m pretty happy about how it turned out and have learned a lot so I think this was a good experience...and now, I must continue sculpting historical minis!!

Cheers!

Monday, January 23, 2017

My L´il Library

Hi you all!
I´m proud to show you my little library about Native Americans I have been slowly gathering for many years, long before I started sculpting (but suddenly faster as I started thinking about sculpting some historical minis ;-) ).



Several years ago, I was an Ph-D student spending hours looking for sources at public libraries...that age is long gone, my project never finished, but I learned a lot about searching and getting useful bibliography. So as I decided to start this project, back in 2015, I was lucky enough of getting two of the main books on this subject, that have most inspired and helped me while doing this: Josephine Paterek, Encyclopaedia of American Indian Costume, and T.E. Mails, The Mystic warriors of the Plains.

These two, along with Curtis´ pictures and Bodmer and Catlin´s paintings are not only my favourites but also really helpful as sources for Native Americans´appearance. I have come to read from them almost every day I work on the miniatures (planing or sculpting)!
Some cultural dissemination´s works are very useful because they have a lot of photos or paintings (Bodmer´s, Catlin´s or Miller´s, for instance) with way more quality as their internets´counterpart, what is very useful! Besides, for me it´s handier since I don´t have internet at home ;-) I specially like german historical magazines for it (GEO-Epoche) because they also have a high scientific standard IMHO so the articles are really worth reading.

The book on the left side, down, (La Ilusión del Lejano Oeste) is a catalogue from the exhibition the Thyssen Museum from Madrid organized about the "Far West" and all related to it, witch included some original paintings from both Bodmer and Catlin, and some warshirts, warbonnets and more regalia aswell. I went to the exhibition but it was closed so I came back with a book, instead...
The book above it is the result of my visit to the Museo de América from Madrid...It seems I cannot visit a Museum without getting a book about the Plains and their inhabitants :-P
 
...I even got a little manual about learning Lakota, back in 2005!

I think I missed doing some research and that´s what really moved me to doing historical minis. It simply makes me happy to investigate who wore what when ;-) It´s tricky, because it´s very easy to forget (or simply not know) something important (I´m really a perfectionist so I ponder everything forever) and sometimes I think I´d get crazy for reading contradictory information, or when I realize that the things I believed to know are a bit more complicated...again! But it´s funny and I guess that´s the way of learning. I know I still have to learn a lot about this subject but the path of knowledge has been delicious until now :-)

And now, it´s time to get some new books!

Cheers!





Thursday, January 19, 2017

Crow Warrior #2



Hi you all!
Here is my second Crow warrior.




He is armed with a flatbow and a knife. He wears a loop necklace with conchas and bracelets, like the first warrior but has some older style items, like his tubular close fitting hide leggings with fringes and quilled decoration, or his hide breechclout. The hairstyle is also typical Crow and inspired in the one of the chief Pretty Eagle, with pompadour and two braids. At the back he wears it in four strains decorated and fixed with gum balls.

I hope you like it!
Cheers!

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Anatomy Practice (V.2)

Hi you all!

I just attached a head (from one of my survivors) to see how it could look like...











Crappy photos, but I kind of like it...What do you think?

Cheers!

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Anatomy Practice (V)

Hi you all!

I almost forgot to post more pictures of the mini I was doing!!






More coming soon!

Cheers!

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Crow Warrior #1



Hi you all!
 Here I show you my first Crow or Apsaroka warrior.


  My goal is to start a range of Crow warriors (on foot and mounted) for the time around 1830-1850, that will be followed by warriors of other tribes. I intend to focus on intertribal warfare more than in the classic Indian-Whites conflict of the 70´s. In order to achieve this, I have worked not only with the magnificent photos of Edward Curtis and some others (really good for a later period), but also with a lot of paintings of the 30´s and 40´s, like the ones made by George Caitling, Karl Bodmer, Jacob Alfred Miller or Rudolph Friedrich Kurz, who actually meet the Crow and often portrayed them. I have tried to achieve a mix in older and a bit newer styles so the figures can be easily identified as Crows but retain the “older” flavor of the first half of 19th century.
Crows seem to have been fairly distinctive in their look, with lots of jewelry and decoration and very elaborated hairstyles, some of which were fairly unique of them, so I hope this will be a range with lots of personality. 






This warrior is armed with a stone club with feathers pendant and is simply dressed in moccasins and a trade breechcloth. He is also wearing a loop necklace with conchas typical of Crows and also worn by Blackfeet, Nez Perce and some Plateau tribes. This kind of jewelry and the bracelets can be seen in many old pictures of Crow Warrior (like Curtis´ ones) 
His hairstyle is typical Crow: worn very long at the back, decorated with gum balls and with a pompadour at the front. At the sides, he is wearing two hair bows (also called crow bows) with cut-off feathers from which two ornaments made of hair pipes are hanging.  

I hope you like it!

Cheers!!