The General-Napoleon

Well, what do you think? Should I stick with Cowboys? Actually, I think he turned out pretty good. The one thing I don't like about this piece is the side profiles. As you can see if you look at those shots in the gallery the hat, the head and the lower part of the piece are all vertical which gives the piece an odd look. But, that's how it would be I guess.

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In painting him, for the hat I used Licorice, which is Black with a little white added. Straight black on bare wood just looks terrible so I don't use it. While the paint was still wet I dry-brushed white around the rim and used my finger to blend it out then painted the ribbon and rosette.

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For the head I just painted it the way I always do with a mix of Red Iron Oxide and Yellow Ochre washed over the entire facial area then coming back with a stronger red mixture for the lips & outer cheeks. The beard and eye areas were very lightly washed with an extremely thin wash of Midnight blue. When I say extremely thin I mean extremely thin. When making that wash in your tray and you think to yourself..."Why that won't work, I can hardly see any color!"....that's the color you want!!

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For the coat I used Mudstone and shaded it with Raw Sienna and then dry-brushed with white and blended it like before...with my finger. The inner uniforn is Midnight Blue with Bright Red trim. To make the red stand out I undercoated first with Moroccan Red which, like the licorice, has just a touch of white to make it opaque. The Medal was painted the colors you see but I added Interferrence Green, a Liquidtex irridecent color to make the colors sparkle a little more.

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So, there you have it. A carving of a fellow who fought just one to many battles and ended up on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. As Clint Eastwood so aptly put it: "A man's got to know his limitations!"

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Lots of photos in the Picasa Gallery and comments are always welcome.