Spearhead, US 3rd Armoured Division, Paderborn, Germany 1945
The Battle of Paderborn was hard fought by the US 3rd Armoured Division towards the closing stages of the war in Europe. I wanted to summarise the bitter mood from the aftermath of the fighting by contrasting the tank crew's weary "thousand-yard stare" and his nervous grasp on his cigarette against his foot on the severed gun barrel of his adversary - a symbol of a costly victory.
The figure was painted with a mixture of Vallejo and AK Interactive Gen 3 paints. Colour for Vallejo Acrylics mixes can be found HERE from an earlier project. I used a combination of cool dark grey and warm dark brown tones for the shadows areas to render a sombre mood. Warms tones are employed to direct the viewer's gaze towards the face and hand - the two most expressive features of a human portrait. And with that, we have come to the conclusion of this project. Let's see what is still left on the bench...
Calvin
