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!