Anne Walker Mini Part V (Conclusion)

 Finally, I have come to the end of the Ann Walker project! Here she is, with her shawl done up and placed in an appropriate environment.

Ann Walker, front

And also from behind.

The groundwork was first built up with Milliput 2-part emoxy, painted green and then covered with pebbles and sticks I found in the backyard. The vegetation is an assortment of basing materials produced by Army Painter and Gamers Grass (Portugal), including, if you look closely, a couple of laser-printed bracken plants under her skirt.

And here they are, the Ann(e)s together on my shelf, accompanied by the books that discuss their lives.

Lister and Walker

I learned a lot while working on this project, not the least of which was how to render plaid. I can certainly see as this is a technique in which I could improve a good deal, but am satisfied for now.

And I hope you enjoyed following along with me!

Next? A rendering of Francois Rude's sculpture of Joan of Arc Listening to her Voices (1852), the original of which is found in the Louvre. Stay tuned!

Ann Walker Mini Part IV

 As mentioned in my last post, Ann Walker and Anne Lister provide essential role models during times such as these, when the rights and well-being of LGBTQ2SA+ people are under threat from Christo-facist, Conservative douchebags.

Because they dared to live openly as queer women married to one another in an era in which even they did not have the vocabulary to describe their experiences, Walker and Lister were subject to violence and mockery. Lister mentions a number of incidences in her diary in which she was harassed by men making inappropriate comments and offers. She describes also an occasion when she was physically attacked. She fought back, cursing at her attacker, "God damn you!"

After Walker moved in to Shibden Hall following their "wedding" on March 30th, 1834, they were stunned to discover a marriage announcement in the newpaper some months later, detailing the marriage of Ann Walker to "Captain Tom Lister." Although Lister's father, James, had been a captain in the British Infantry during the American Revolutionary War, the marriage announcement was not a matter of confusion of identities. "Tom" was a perjorative name denoting masculine women (i.e. "tomboys"), and this was clearly a cowardly and hateful attack on the two women.

Events like these rattled Ann Walker badly. Always delicate in her mental health and prone to depression, she struggled with internalized homophobia. This makes her determination to live authentically with Anne Lister all the more profoundly admirable. She was afraid, she was made to feel afraid, yet she persisted.

It is therefore with humilty and pride that I continue work on my project. 

Walker plaid skirt, gloves and shoes

This is my first attempt at plaid. It was tedious at first, but I appreciated watching it all come together as it progressed. Unlike the rest of the model, the skirt is done in acrylics, simply because doing it in oils would take forever. Shadows and highlights will be completed by means of washes in appropriate tones.

You can also see the putty I have in place in preparation for the groundwork, which I anticipate will resemble that of the figure of Anne Lister I finished a while back. After this, I will finish off with another plaid pattern on her woolen shawl before spraying the entire figure with a protective matte varnish.

The costume from which I'm working

Ann Walker Mini Part Three

In the face of rampant homo- and transphobia all over the Western world, heroes like Ann Walker and Anne Lister are needed more than ever right now. So let us do as Miss Walker would have us do and "Go on bravely!"

There are no surviving portraits of Ann Walker, although we know from Lister's diaries that she was blonde. She was also probably small in stature, since one of Lister's pet names for her was "Peewee." Lister herself was not tall, being roughly five feet three inches tall and of an athletic, slightly masculine build, so perhaps "Peewee" had more to do with Lister's sense of protection over Ann than any physical dissimilarity.

Most often, Lister referred to her wife, both directly and in her diaries, as "Adney," from a Latin word meaning "to adhere." Ann called Lister "Dearest."

We do have a portrait of Ann's sister, Elizabeth Sutherland, showing the golden tresses shared by the Walker sisters.

Elizabeth Sutherland (nee Walker) date and artist unknown

It is not, therefore, much of a stretch to see the enchanting Sophie Rundle in the role of Ann Walker in HBO's Gentleman Jack.

Sophie Rundle as Ann Walker in Gentleman Jack Season Two

It is this image of Ann Walker that I am trying to capture in my mini. When last we visited our intrepid heroine, I had cleaned up the 3D print and sculpted her braids, her hat and her shawl, after much travail.

Upon returning to my workbench, we know have some paint in place, bringing her a little closer to life.

Walker face, hair, hat, shirt tie and jacket

Although it is difficult to see in this photo, I have attempted to reproduce the soft pink brocade of her coat by dabbing an old worn-out paintbrush onto the surface in more or less random spots. Trying to reproduce the pattern as it appears in the still from the show would be tedious, and I believe would also "steal focus" from the rest of the figure as a whole.

After a good coat of white primer, Miss Walker was undercoated in acrylic paints, over which I have rendered her in Grumbacher oils. With figures like this, I work "from the skin out, top to bottom", which is to say, I begin with the face and eyes, then the hair and the hat. Moving down, I did the shirt, the tie and the coat.

I admit I am somewhat intimidated to do the shawl and the skirt, both of which are tartan in lovely rich earth tones of brown and green. But it promises to be a project that is educational, and I look forward to Miss Walker taking me to class, much as she took the children of Halifax, Yorkshire, to school.

Stay tuned!

Anne Walker Mini Part Two

After a bit of delay, I am back at the hobby table. 

When last we met with Miss Ann Walker of Crow Nest, I was contemplating some additions to bring the miniature more in line with actual historical dress of the 1830s. For inspiration, I am basing her on images taken from the BBC series, Gentleman Jack (2019). The show is magnificently scripted by Sally Wainwright and supported by a fantastic cast including Suranne Jones as the titular character and Sophie Rundle as her wife, Ann. The costumes were designed and created by Tom Pye, who based his designs from extant examples, including one that used actual period textiles. Therefore, flawlessly accurate.

This is the costume I am working towards (Walker is on the right):

I approached this part of the project with a bit of trepidation, to be honest, because I am not very experienced at sculpting. And by that I mean that while I can take a piece of soapstone or tagua nut or wood and remove bits to create something, I am really, really bad at taking clay and shoving it around to make it look like anything other than an ashtray made by your typical six-year-old.

But, what the hell, right? The first step to being good at something is to suck at it first. So, off to the races!

The medium in which I am working is a two part epoxy called Milliput. It is essentially two tubes of stuff that, when blended together, eventually harden into a rock hard finish. In the soft stage, you have about two or three hours sculpting time. So I had to work against time as well as a steep learning curve!

The first attempt was...unsuccessful. When I tried to roll the putty out to a suitable thickness, it stuck to the tool. I added water, not knowing that water will degrade the putty and cause it to fall apart. Time to rethink. So I asked the guys down at Hobby Wholesale for guidance, and got some pointers. Turns out, I did everything right except they recommended I used cling film over the putty while rolling it out. And only use water to sculpt details!

Et voila!

My approach was to actually make a shawl laid out flat, then scrunch it up and  drape it on the figure in order to approximate the way the wool would actually fall. And while I had to do it in two parts (there is an invisible join running vertically down the centre), it worked. Unfortunately, the shawl doesn't hide the misshapen hand the way I wanted it to, but I have an idea about how to fix that with a really small rotary tool in the next stage of the project.

Walker figure rear view, showing shawl and bonnet

In addition to the shawl, I also had to add the bonnet/tam she wears and a long braid down her right side. While the bonnet was relatively simple and needed only basic soft folds to suggest volume and gravity, the braid was completely unfamiliar territory. I think it's pretty good for a first try with the clock ticking.

Now I am waiting for the putty to harden completely before I fix that finger, then prime the whole deal prior to getting to work on the paint.

Please follow along as we progress through this project and let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

Ann Walker of Crow Nest Mini

To celebrate Pride, I am doing the companion piece to my previous project.

This is the brave and pretty Ann Walker, who "married" Anne Lister on Easter Sunday in 1834. They took the sacrament together at Holy Trinity Church in York and exchanged rings, thus performing the first gay civil union in British history. Lister and Walker lived together in Lister's ancestral home of Shibden Hall, Halifax (Yorkshire). They also traveled extensively, visiting France, Spain, Germany Scandinavia and Russia. It was in Georgia that Lister caught a fever and died in September, 1840.

Walker returned to England, making arrangements for the transport of her wife's remains over land and sea, a journey of six months and many thousands of miles. Lister was, according to her wishes, interred in Halifax Minster with her father, aunt and uncle.

Lister's Will specified a life interest in Shibden Hall for Ann Walker on the condition that she never marry (a man). Unfortunately, Walker's mental health--a lifelong concern--and a spate of legal issues meant that after only three years, Walker left Shibden Hall and was declared mentally unsound. She spent some time in a private asylum, but later retired to her family's estate, Cliffe Hill. There, she died on February 25, 1854, aged 50, of "congestion of the brain" (probably a series of strokes).

Walker's family did their best to erase her from history, possibly out of embarrassment over her relationship with Anne Lister. And they would have succeeded if Lister's diaries had not been discovered hidden in the walls of Shibden Hall by one of her descendants. In 2020, a volume of Ann Walker's journal was also discovered. In addition, the West Yorkshire Archives hold a number of Walker's letters, underscoring her generousity of spirit, and one memorable phrase:

"Go on bravely."

Today, Ann Walker is the subject of much celebration and scholarly interest. In Search Of Ann Walker leads the way in learning more about the mercurial Lister's quiet partner. Sophie Rundle played Walker with charm and compassion in the BBC series Gentleman Jack.

The Miniature
The figure was designed using the powerful tools at HeroForge and 3D printed by my good friend, Robert Harkema. The photo is of the figure the way it came to me, straight off the printer (although I have cleaned up the edges a bit). Overall, I am pleased with how this turned out, given Hero Forge's limited options for a historical figure. I am not pleased with the misshapen right hand, however.

And these are the garments I want to reproduce:

Here, Sophie Rundle as Ann Walker is seen in a casual walking out outfit typical of a wealthy heiress of the 1830s. It consists of a linen shirt with silk tie worn over her stays, a silk brocade jacket and a woolen plaid skirt. On her head is a woolen cap and she is carrying a silken shawl. She is also wearing kid leather gloves. 

I will need to add the bottom of her cap, her tresses, and build up her gigot sleeves a bit at the shoulders. Adding her shawl will also help hide the right hand. This I will do with Milliput, an epoxy putty that hardens when mixed together and exposed to air. When I am happy with that, I will spray the whole figure with primer to provide "tooth" for the paint, and then I can begin actually painting!

Stay tuned to progress updates. Any questions? Hit me up in the comments section on Facebook!

Gentleman Jack Mini - Conclusion

 At last, here is the finished figure.

The paint is actually still wet, which accounts for some of the gloss, but overall, she is done. You can see I went with a blue coat instead of a black one, because in the series Gentleman Jack, Lister wears a blue coat to her "marriage" to Ann Walker. And symbolism aside, I like that the blue coat offers a bit of visual relief from all the black.

If you look closely, you will see that I have added a watch chain and fob to her waistcoat.

Here is a side view, giving a better view of the silver and onyx ring Lister habitually wore on her right index finger.

And, the view from behind.  

Given that I started with this...

...I am quite pleased with this figure. 

This was a really satisfying project, as it required me to step up my sculpting skills in order to modify the figure to make it more in line with the Anne Lister we see in the show. I am totally diggin' on the ground work, which turned out beautifully (if I do say so myself).

What's next? I'm not sure. Maybe I will see if I can't get good old HeroForge to crank out something that looks like Ann Walker so I can have both Ladies of Shibden.

I'd like to see something sexy in blue, please. I'll take it.

Gentleman Jack Mini Part IV

 Miss Lister slowly comes to life with the application of paint to her hatband and her skirts. I painted the skirt in straight ivory black and laid in Prussian Blue shadows. Highlights were rendered with the addition of titanium white. Then I "weathered" the bottom edges of the skirt with powder made from an earthy Naples yellow pastel. I did this in two stages, the first to just lighten the hem while the paint was still wet. The second bit was applied a little more heavily when it had dried, just to give it that "out and about" feel.

I also dusted the toes of her boots and gaiters.

Here is how the figure looks from behind.

All that really remains now is the coat, and this I will do in two stages, starting with the top and moving to the skirts. I will add weathering and distress to the bottom edges of that garment also. It's a fairly large piece of work, so I expect it will be at least another week before I update again.