Hptm. Walther Karjus--Prepwork II

When we last left off, Karjus had been mostly assembled, pegged, and mounted on his work base. 

Which brings me to my TDL (to-do list). I will hasten to add that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my sample casting: these mods are personal preferences to make the figure "my own".

There are seven salient items on my TDL:

• The Blue Max (Pour le Mérite)--As best I can tell, Karjus is wearing a Blue Max (this is corroborated by Guillaume Menuel's conceptual sketch). As this is an "alternate history", he may very well have been awarded the coveted PlM at some time. But the historical Karjus was never awarded the Blue Max. Thus, I intend to carefully shave the decoration off. DONE
• The Iron Cross (EK1)--The level of detail, etc. is simply "fair", at best. Decorations in miniatures less than 1/16th/120mm are an absolute bear, so this is not a dig at the sculptor (the PlM was masterful!). Fortunately, I dug-up a fret of 1/32 scale photo-etched Iron Crosses (by Nimix), that will provide an excellent replacement after suit- ably backdating. DONE
• The ribbon bar--The conceptual sketch clearly shows a ribbon bar above the left breast pocket: this was left off the master sculpture. Given that Karjus is wearing a jacket with the buttons concealed by a fly, the ribbon bar would be the only place you would see the EK2 ribbon. I intend to also show the ribbon for the Knight's Cross with Swords of the House Order of Hohenzollern. DONE
• Abzeichen--I intend to add a organizational emblem on the left arm. DONE
• Reworking the join of the left forearm--As noted previously, the left forearm is a flush, flat-on- flat join. I intend to extend the arm slightly, and hollow-out the gauntlet cuff for a "plug-in" connection. DONE
• The fly of the jacket. Scribe the seam down the left quarter-panel of the jacket. DONE
• The lining of the coat--The coat's lining as sculpted is limited to the front quarter pa- nels and the collar. While this may be perfectly legit, it doesn't ring quite true with me. So I intend to add a woolen lining to the visible interior of the coat-tails. DONE

UPDATE 26.02.17--While working on the coat's lining, I decided to rework/convert the collar lining to fur. This adds a diversity of texture; enhances the flow around the face/head; and enhances the essentially achromatic palette.

The TDL is now closed!

Stay tuned!!!

“When the cost of a hobby exceeds the fun and doesn't attract new people, the game is over.” -
Oscar Koveleski, August 2003