"The Grandmother of Europe" - Suzanne Taylor

Suzanne Taylor's troubling resemblance to 

the Queen was quickly noticed by Mycroft

Holmes as he searched for a look-alike to 

occasionally replace her Majesty for protection.

~ CMoN

Welcome to another Friday on The Art of Caesura!

I'm determined to finish the last few busts from The World of Smog: On Her Majesty's Service over the next few weeks; and today we'll be looking at Suzanne Taylor!

Poor Suzanne has been languishing in the immaterium of being a "draft post" for the past few weeks, while I joyfully distracted myself with the new look of the blog, musings on miniature photography and then Warhammer Underworlds. But today is her time to shine.

In the story of The World of Smog, Suzanne was a music-hall actress who happened to have a striking resemblance to Queen Victoria, so was brought on as her body-double. 

There are two details that didn't make the transfer from the full-body sculpt to bust, one slightly more subtle than the other: her pince-nez glasses and her whopping Gatling gun! Without the latter, she ran the risk of just looking like a bust of Queen Victoria, so I tried to combat this by changing up the colour-scheme from the dour blacks Queen Victoria was often painted in. 

As I've mentioned before, I'm trying to do these busts in the same colour-scheme as I did their full-body sculpts (see the picture above). For this gal, I started her cloak and hat with Altdorf Guard Blue washed with Druchii Violet and then stippled back up with Altdorf and Lothern Blue, to give kind of a velvety texture.

The veil-thing coming off the back of her hat started as Altdorf Blue as well, but I washed it with Drakenhoff Nightshade and then edge-highlighted by adding Stormhost Silver to give a slightly silkier appearance. 

I tried a slightly different tact with her skin, that I'm finding much faster these days. Where previously I was using solely Scale 75 Flesh paints (check out my review here), as I said at the time - they are beautifully nuanced paints, but their coverage is (purposefully) a bit thin. So recently I've been starting with a base of Bugman's Glow before launching in with the Scale 75 line. Because the Scale 75 flesh paints are quite thin, you get a bit of the warmth of the Bugman's Glow showing through; I think that you this effect quite well in the third photo from the top, above. Finally, I gave her lower lip a thin layer of Scale 75's "Indian Shadow" for that kissable look (...shudder...).

I finished with the details - the purples of her bow and feathers, and then I painted the flowers as daisies to lighten things up a bit and to harmonize with the pail yellow of her top. 

Let me know what you think of Suzanne; I'm quite happy with how she turned out. 

See you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Watching: Liar, Liar - can't get enough of that movie!

Gaming: Warhammer Champions

Reading: Watchmen Absolute Edition - Alan Moore

Next Week:

Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!