Time to dress and accessorize!
With armature fixed, I began to bulk up the cores, and prepare for clothing. Chelsea boots went on. I began to set a base lines for end lines on appendages. I realized that I would need to start working on the sketch pad now. How it would sit in the hands, and what space it would occupy would be effected by the mass of the clothing. I knew for the casting process it would be better for the foundry if the hands and pad were removable to be cast separately.
I used 1/8 deep silicone baking mats to make separate layers of wax sheets. I pressed these together into the sketchbook, adhering the top, curled section to the main body with a sheet of wax dipped fabric. Otherwise, it would always be falling off. It looks like I will need to attach the left hand to the sketchbook as one unit, which will slide past the left leg, and into the left cuff. The right hand will be by itself, and slide into the right cuff, to rest on top of the sketchbook.
I would need to figure out how the wrists would join with the cuffs without getting bound by the legs or clothing.
I am attaching a second cuff to the wrists. I thought it was a neat detail to show that men's shirts would button a starched cuff over their shirt cuff to be seen from their coat sleeve.
The Victorians were full of layers.
Still working on the vest... I'm blocking out the lines for the sack coat, and bulking out mass of the pant legs. The literature describes Bannister as slender. The only almost full body images I’ve found of him back this up. He was fit, an avid sailor.
Still, walking around the piece, I start to see a need to build up his torso. The challenge of full bodied, clothed figures, is keeping the gesture of the form while you pile on layers of clothing. You have to keep your lines, carry the tension of the fabric throughout the different relating forms, and maintain a feeling of the clothing’s material. But first, before you fiddle with details, you need to get as much mass on the figure you can, make sure it flows, and keeps up with the feel of the portrait head.
