"Hangin' on Three!" The Mortar Crew Sets Up

Today's Progress--

I spent some time today working on the latest sculpture: the 81mm mortar crew.

I'd done the armatures for this piece a while back, but was waiting to really start on it until I'd made more progress on the other sculptures-- the Marine Rifleman and Belleau Wood Marines.

Here are the basic mortar crew armatures:

I now had to make the heads, hands and feet for this crew, before I could know their real positions in the composition, and before I could build up their form...

For the heads, I decided that I should make a standard skull form for all three figures, and then adjust it for the individual when finishing. Here is the basic skull, with a penny put in for reference.

 "...I  knew him, Horatio!" (I'm sure this figure will be a man of infinite jest at well..)

 

 The feet, hands and skull for a figure:

The 'half-heads' I made on the assembly line (I guess you could call it a head shop)--

Then they were ready to assemble and attach to the wire skeletal armatures below...

Here is the crew, with the Assistant Gunner the only one yet with hands and feet... soon he'll have a mortar to drop a round  in...