Ivan the terrible / freehand technique using oils by Marc Mussat

 

 

Ivan the Terrible, or Ivan IV, was the first tsar of all Russia. During his reign (1533-1584).

The grandson of Ivan the Great, Ivan the Terrible, or Ivan IV, acquired vast amounts of land during his long reign (1533-1584), an era marked by the conquest of the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberia. Ivan created a Russian state with a strong central control imposed by military force .

Many believe him to have been insane. One of his violent outbursts probably caused the death of his own son ,

He confiscated the property of the boyars and granted state property to those who served him ,

 

Old classics never go out of fashionand that is what I thought when I finally decided to start this 90mm classic sculpted with talent by V.Konnov for Pegaso a few years back.

 

It is a fabulous figure, faultless with a beautiful sculped face giving an idea of the character of this rather ruthless Tsar,

 

This was a challenge for me , as I usually paint 75 mm figures, making the freehand work crucial with such large areas to paint .

 

I had to find an idea for the huge ceremonial dress, which had not been seen around already . So I did some research in specialised books (the russian ornement source book) and on the web to find a suitable pattern for both the dress and the huge coat .

 

Assembly proved problematic, due to the overall weight of the figure, Therfore, I had to secure the heavy coat using epoxy putty,

 

I started undercoating the dress with a mixture of titanium white and burnt umber taking special care in enlightening the areas I wanted to stand out most, and shading the areas close to the coat.

 

 

After complete drying (72 hours) I could eventually start the freehand.

This was done using my best brush (not the smallest one, but the one with the best tip ), using the same mixture, but being always a tone lighter than the base colour, so that the flower pattern could start to stand out .

 

Three very important points with freehand painting (using oils)

• having very good support points , holding your fig (especially with heavy metal 90 mm figs !) the best is not to have your wrists up in the air but resting.

• Paint consitency , thick but still rather liquid,

• undercoat perfectly dry so that if or when you go wrong, it is easy to wipe of the paint with WS,

 

The bottom frieze was also painted before fixing the coat , which was still removable at that stage

 

Then I finally fixed the coat, and carefully sealed of the visible joints, before undercoating the huge ceremonial dress

 

I chose a mixture of persian red, cadmium red medium enlightening being made with a mixture of cadmium orange and flesh tint, shadows were added using the base colour and viridian green ( green being red's complementary colour).

 

Then the funny part started... the pattern, In order to have a symetrical pattern, I used a simple "point" technique. I make sure the points are correctly in line using some masking tape . . An appropriate template was made of a little plastic sheet and used to give the correct distance between the points.

when my network of points seemed OK to the eye, I then could start building the pattern gradually, always using diluted burn umber.

The pattern must be painted on a very dry surface, so that small painting errors could be wiped off easily with white spirit, and rapidly dried with a nearby airbrush.

 

Once the pattern drawn, I could start filling it in using mars yellow, chrome yellow and white. Rather long and a bit tedious, but I was sure the result would be worth the effort .

 

The face was also painted using oils (mixture of light red, yellow ochre, a touch of cobalt blue, titanium white , dark purple and some burn umber for the shadows ) Care was taken to have one side of the face lighter than the other due to the particular head position .

 

I changed the base at the last moment, as the previous one was too colorfull for the figure. I opted for a black marble base , which did in my opinion enhance the figure.

 

 

 This figure was also rewarded by a gold medal at the 2016 Euromilitaire, Sèvres and Montrouge Paris show, Roselie and at the SMC to my greatest satisfaction