This year’s portrait is inspired by the painting, “The Lion Hunt”, by Horace Vernet in 1836
I will be using a Centeno resin by Gudrun Schmidt to customize into the grey Arab in the front. It will be a more involved overhaul than the previous portraits, as I will have to do a lot of refining and resculpting to turn the original resin into an Arab type.
Here is a before picture of the resin:
After the initial review and determining what needs altering to create the portrait, my trusty dremel gets to work. Here he is shown with his joints cut where he will need to be repositioned, and his head has been whittled down considerably. Next step will be to soda glue the joints in place, attach his head with a thick wire to set his head and start sculpting. Additional dremeling will be needed to refine his legs, but I'll wait until he is standing and the new position is stabilized.
Next he was pinned back together and dremelled down to an armature. I dremeled down all four legs to realign joints and refine the cannons. Then I sculpted him into his present form.
He didn't meet his reserve at the NAN Auction and I was glad for the opportunity to add more warmth and realism to his finishwork, including skin tones and subtle dappling.
