Thanks gents.
After a couple of weeks busy elsewhere I have managed to get back to Italy, 1944.
First of all the sunflowers have spread - a little like Triffids!
I wasn't happy with the colour of the leaves which, despite airbrushing them with various shades of green, still looked too bluish-green (the colour of the original card showing through). Also, looking at photos I took in Tuscany a couple of years back, I noticed how much variation in colour there could be (although these look half-dead).
After a bit of work with Vallejo acrylics they started to look much more life-like.
Next I turned my attentions to my
bella donna on the balcony.
This is another excellent
Mk 35 Editions figure (originally French) called '
Woman cutting a bunch of grapes'.
In order to make her pose more suitable I had to change the position of her right arm to rest on the balcony, remove the knife, twist the left wrist and remove the bunch of grapes (so that she would hold a bottle). I also replaced her head with one from Hornet so that I could give her a more interesting hairstyle. Ironically, I am pretty sure that the original sculptor used the same head (which is a bit cheeky). The hair was sculpted from
Tamiya Quick Type epoxy putty which was then detailed with a scalpel blade. I'm not exactly confident that it's an Italian hairstyle of the 1940s era - but let's just pretend she had just got out of the bath to greet the liberating Allies!
The billowing shape hanging from the balcony (a white sheet to indicate surrender) was also made from the same putty. This replaced a much rougher effort which I had made earlier from Magicsculp (see the first photo in this post). Although the Tamiya putty is very sticky (you need to use a
lot of talcum powder to stop it sticking) it is absolutely the right thing to make thin sheets, clothing, etc. After a few minutes drying time it can be manipulated very easily to obtain realistic folds - as if blowing in a light breeze.
