Props Making an Early 19th Century Hussar and His Horse

20210329_100743 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Still got three more prints to go before I have an entire horse head.

The glass cabochon I have already fits surprisingly well into the eye socket. I need to redo the paint job to look less bad though.

 

Now the other side of the head.

20210330_101909 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

The cheeks are two 6-7 hour prints.

 

Finished printing the head! Now to gluing it together more properly and covering everything to look pretty.

20210331_154553 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

20210331_154854 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Yeah it's a veritable Frankenstein's Horse right now!

A lot of grazing hooved animals have horizontal pupils because it helps them scan the area and see as much as possible.

The craziest part is that they can rotate their eyeballs so the horizontal pupil is parallel to the ground! I don't think I will give my horse eyeball rotating powers. lol

 

I am too dumb to figure out how to tie a turk's head knot for the barrel sash. I did see some period examples where instead of using turk's head knots the barrels were just flat braid sewn into tubes, but I am stingy so I sculpted a weave texture in zbrush, printed it, and painted it.



Renaissance Fabrics is having a spring sale so I finally bought the blue wool for his trousers and pelisse. They are out of stock of the red wool.

But it's fine. Access Heritage still hasn't told me they have more gold braid. Where is the gold braid. They don't even list it as out of stock on their website. I think I will poke them again with an e-mail. I would give up and go somewhere else if getting such a large quantity of metal braid wasn't so gosh darned annoying.

 

Covering the head in fur is slow going. Can't use too much glue at once or it seeps through the fabric and for realism's sake, I want to make the seams as invisible as I can manage. I'm not as good as the people who make muppets, but it's definitely less visible when I do handstitching than compared to a plushie I also made with minky but used a sewing machine for. ......I just really hate doing handstitching....

horsecovering by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

I think I might airbrush or use a little bit of ink around the snout to get more of a gradient and I learned that champagne palomino horses tend to have freckled skin so maybe some color variation as well.

20210503_152337 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Today I also 3D printed a pistol but since it was a cosplay prop with moving parts that I shrunk down to doll scale.... I learned it was kind of a bad idea to print it in clear........ good gravy it was hard to see where the tiniest pieces were

 

Finished 3D printing for the two pistols that go in saddle holsters. Ended up editing it in meshmixer to stick together most of the parts so assembly wouldn't be too hard. The flintlock still moves though so that's fun. Downloaded the Pistolet Napoleon off My Mini Factory. It's not an exact match for standard issue for hussars, but close enough. A lot of the army was more hodge-podge in real life than in all the paintings and Parzival being a captain means he has at least some means to do what he feels like. Some officers went so far as to get non-standard uniforms tailored in linen for the summer.

Now he can dualwield. Gotta do some light sanding and painting still.

20210506_180359 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

I don't usually get jointed hands, but given the intricacies of holding the reins on a horse and his multiple guns and saber, I think I will buy some jointed hands for him and give him some riding gloves so I don't spend all my time thinking about the inherent lumpiness of it all. Not sure which brand of jointed hands has the best posing capabilities. I am not looking forward to sewing riding gloves.

Printing his rifle next. It's going to be like 20 inches long to be roughly proportional so that's like a 10 hour print to cram it all in pieces on the build plate.

I previously bought a metal letter opener to be his saber but I think I might model one and 3D print it so it will be a more accurate saber and resin will be lighter than metal so it will be easier for him to hold up in the air dramatically.

Also after finding it impossible to source faux fur/faux sheep in the exact color I want, I think the trim on the pelisse will be an easier to buy color lol I don't like dyeing faux furs that much because the skinny fibers get so easily wrecked with heat and the faux sheep was dry clean only so that's probably dicey to dye. =_= Why did I pick greyish ivory? For some reason I don't like normal ivory/cream and all the gray faux sheep I can find is a very dark gray. I think I am going to use black like the IRL French 6th Hussars.

Still need to dye the wool for his trousers and pelisse. Navy blue was a little dark but photographs too dark for my taste and the blue I purchased was not as dark as I was expecting and it doesn't match my swatches for French Imperial Blue.

........is this why Napoleon had half a thought to give everyone white uniforms.... because that would be a lot easier lol Granted white uniforms have a tendency to not be that color anymore on campaign. I'm not sure how the Austrian infantry managed.

 

m1777 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

the two smaller pieces are slightly uneven so I can't stick them down until I get epoxy putty in for filling the gap.

=_= I was annoyed that 4 piddly ounces of putty were like $10 so I ordered 5 pounds of it for $45. I will most likely die before I use it all up as my main use is filling gaps in 3D prints of miniatures and doll stuff.

I was going to use less leather for a more simplified bridle, but my general pickiness came back. The horse will be wearing a halter and double bridle so that's like... even more straps!!! It's like 7 yards of leather? And a little bit of wider leather for the saddle.

Parzival's real life equipment cost would be like 3 months or so pay for a captain. Napoleon's Dragoons remarked that a dragoon trooper named Clavieux ended up blowing more money on being a dragoon than he got paid over 6 months. Cavalry boys are expensive. Cuirassiers were the most expensive due to the breastplate.

And doing some double-checking, the pistol I printed is just the variant before the one in the book I was referencing so I guess it does work for what I am doing. Kind of working on like the early to mid section of the Napoleonic Era. I am somewhat disinterested in Russia and Waterloo.

 

After getting annoyed that the place I was gonna order fancy metal soutache from ghosted me for months with no response to e-mails, I bought some rayon soutache and dyed it to match.

20210608_145602 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

The places I got wool from still don't have red in stock. Other places are either heckin' expensive (and $30/yard already makes me wheeze), don't send swatches, have janky websites I'm not entirely sure as to the legitimacy of, or some combo of the above (why are so many reenactment websites trapped in 1990s/early2000s web design... One saddlery website I used for reference was trying to play midi files). oTL

I also need to find white/ivory (whenever I make up my mind on if I want white or ivory) because due to my sculpting project, I'm gonna do two hussar outfits, the Parzival one as originally planned and the Louis-Francois Lejeune one (he is an aide-de-camp but Marshal Berthier let him design the outfits and he decided on hussar style and declared he conceived the most brilliant outfit in the entire Grande Armee).



I'm not making two horses because I don't think I will make another 1/3 scale horse until mmmaaaybbbbeeee I get a large FDM printer and the skill to do a really good ball-jointed horse. And Lejeune doesn't really have a signature horse because he has an uncanny knack for losing horses. One of his horses got stolen like the same day he bought it....

 

More printing because that is what I could manage before work today.

I tried adding a ton of mica powder to the resin to get a gold effect without needing to paint too much, but it's still a little more translucent than I want. But I think I can get away with just painting the underside of the buttons. I mainly wanted to avoid painting to avoid brushstrokes and I have an airbrush but it is a temperamental little diva that clogs if you look at it funny.

The mica powder is reasonably close to the soutache color.

I already bought a letter opener to be his sword, but since I think I will be getting ball jointed hands, a less heavy resin sword might be a better idea. I think I need to make the sword hilt like 10% bigger but the default pose of ballerino hands isn't quite working as well. The letter opener is also a lot chunkier so this will look more in-scale.

I needed to thicken the shank of the button a little because I ended up cracking it a little in my hand, but I think I might want to mix in some tougher resin (Sirayatech tenacious is $65 per bottle so not a resin one uses heavily...) for the buttons that will actually be used for fastening the dolman and pelisse shut.

buttons by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Assembled the barrel sash..... I think I need to cheat with hidden knots or maybe glue the barrels together. Artists always make it look less gappy in illustrations because it's way more aesthetic that way.

20210711_161849 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

I'm doing a shorter cheat-ier one because I do not want to deal with the tangle levels of a fancier one. 3 columns of 3 barrels is the minimum to get the look, but barrel sashes can be like longer than a guy is tall and be around like 6 barrels to 6 columns or so?

Barrel sash worn by Lieutenant William Polhill, 1815.... it looks so tangly



I don't even know what barrel sashes are even for. The hussar outfit has other belts for carrying weapons. It's just... there????

 

Making yet one more wig because straight hair will show off his braids better. I was preferring mohair because it looks glossier. But this suri being softer than a baby's butt made of clouds is nice too lol

currently looking like an emo elf

20210715_165041 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Parzival's wig closer to done.

20210829_133020 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

I am gonna be going to the SD BJD Con in November (assuming COVID doesn't cancel it again).

Want to finish before then.... somehow....

 

After sewing the most irrationally tight woolen pants possible, I realized I should probably make sure he can tuck his shirt in. Checking the fit on the butt was like it has to match this painting of Joachim Murat lol

Still need to finish the waist band and gold trim on the pants and the collar on the shirt but this has been more progress on Parzival being dressed as a hussar than I have had in months.

20211022_171758 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Bleh, I don't think I will finish Parzival in time to show him off at the convention, but he is progressing at least

The dolman is frustrating because the draft version fit better than the wool version. This wool is expensive so I'm just like aaaahhhhhhh.

20211107_153140 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Yeah, he hasn't been ironed yet. This wool does take steam fine.

Yeah. Maybe next year's convention will fit his style more too. This year is Mardi Gras themed. He better be done by next year. This is the longest project

Not sure if it is better to disassemble it to sew on all the buttons and braid or to stitch it onto the outfit as is. I'm terrified of it looking slightly uneven. Like I know a little irregularity isn't the end of the world, but it feels more exaggerated at doll-scale.

 

I work on this in the most on and off fashion...

Been experimenting with patterns for the sleeves. Many of the dolman patterns I found online were a two-piece sleeve pattern and it doesn't quite look right to me.

First tried a straight sleeve (too baggy) and a 2-piece pattern, shape okay, but I don't like the seam in the front view.

20220417_145830 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Then tried the straight seam one more time but tighter and a one-piece curved sleeve pattern. I think one piece with a slight curve looks the best and looks similar to the references.

20220418_103431b by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Compared to some extant dolmans from the era (the book is J'etais soldat de Napoleon! 200 ans 200 objects.)

 

I need to make myself a doll-sized sleeve presser thingiemadoodle.

Does a tailor clapper really help that much. I keep staring at it like does this block really help?!

....though I am glad I have an electric iron compared to like olden times where you're just going at it with like 6 irons in rotation on a stove. lol

 

One of the back fetlocks on the horse seems to have broken/gotten loose and the back hoof twists around too much. =_= uuuggghhhhh I do not want to open it up to see what happened because the legs are weighed down with tiny glass balls...

I got some linen and started on a shirt with construction more similar to what was historically common.

.....I honestly have no idea how guys crammed so much shirt into their tight breeches and their dolmans...

20220505_124922 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

And the lightweight linen I am using crinkles so easily and now all I can imagine going on under the guys' dolmans is like...

 

After feeling dissatisfied with the horse legs and stability going too wobbly again which is a little stressful for a horse that is going to hold a heckin' expensive doll, I have pulled out the 3D printer. I think I will keep the neck foam for some posing. Printed it hollow so I can fill it up with something to keep the legs heavier since keeping horses balanced is always hard since they are top heavy with toothpick legs.

Will be covering it with fur because I want horse to be soft.

20220516_200316 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

More feet!

20220517_183137 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

I don't feel comfortable running my printer overnight so I have chopped the remaining parts into 11 pieces and my incoherent naming scheme thereof.

Chest top 11h 20m
legbutt1 15h 8m
legtop2 15h 49m
topbutt 9h 33m
legbutt2 15h 8m
mid chest 12h 31m
legtop1 15h 46m
midbutt 13h 8m
stomachtop 10h 4m
stomach bottom 10h 36m
otherfrontleg 6h 13m

 

oh I forgot to mention. The model is a super scaled up anatomy model I bought off artstation

 

We got 4 lower legs now. I tried printing the underside of the stomach in vase mode to save time, but it feels a little too flimsy, might fill it with foam. Well, the upper side will be printed sturdier so it should be fine.

So much printing......

20220519_181704 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

To salvage the glass beads I used to weighting down the sewn horse, the wood dowel in one of the legs did indeed snap. =_=

 

Dismantled the plush horse I attempted since I am just gonna 3D print the horse now and to salvage the stuffing and like in hindsight I probably should have used a nail instead of wire and glue.

Two nails even.

15 hour print x_x My cat slapped me awake at 5:30 AM so I started it around then. lol

20220520_213716 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Accidentally printed the horse's butt with the wrong settings and it messed up at the end. RIP

20220521_183549 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Not quite a pattern pattern, but it's like literally all rectangles. I cut down a little bit on the bagginess and length from the human-size method I was working from because it was just a lil' too much on a doll and I tailored the mercilessly tight pants to that shorter and less baggy cotton shirt I made earlier.

If my scant directions are too incoherent, I was working off Bernadette Banner's Hand-sewn Pirate Shirt video.

The Ballerino body has quite a thick neck, so I think the collar might need to be shortened for noodle boy 70cm dolls.

I'm probably gonna sew more old-timey shirts for other projects. I am not the only one here obsessed with Our Flags Means Death right? lol

70cmoldtimeyshirt by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Upper back leg for the other side, and the base of the neck.

Need to trim/sculpt my foam to fit with it.

20220524_165232 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Filling the legs with glass beads and a little bit of epoxy.... in hindsight maybe I should stick a pipe or wire into the hole or something since I did not bother to model little keys/dovetails for the splits in the model to fit more snugly... I also did not model holes because I assumed I could drill it, but then the weird shapes made getting a grip harder. I ended up making holes with a soldering iron.

20220526_211537 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Tweaked some of the files because vase mode too flimsy and wanted to do fewer 15 hour prints.

Still got all of this to get through

stomach top 1 14h3m
stomach top 2 12h 12m
legt top 2b 12h 1m
leg top 2c 5h 22m
mid chest 1 13h30m
mid chest 2 12h 15m
mid butt 1 15h 23m
mid butt 2 12h 49m
top butt 1 11h 23m
top butt 2 11h 39m

Finished hemming up the linen shirts, but now I can't remember where I put tiny buttons.

 

Still got 8 pieces left to print, but starting to glue them together. Using Weld-On 16 because people said it was good for joining PLA and it was cheaper than PLA gloop ($30 for 4 oz vs $18 for 16oz) and also using the soldering iron to melt some joins for extra attachment. The soldering iron also helps for melting down some of the sliggghhttllyyy off prints I don't like filament printing as much as resin printing (I mainly hate troubleshooting with filament because there are way more variables and moving parts), but the fact filament's potential to warp is much smaller than with resin is definitely a good point for these super large multi-piece prints.

20220531_092838 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

edit

it big

Not sure how best to hold up the body while a glue the legs or maybe put the legs on top of the body

20220531_121710 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

Man, these prints were going mostly smooth and then I got two spaghetti incidents. =_=





....maybe it is a pencil holder now lol

 

20220603_100445 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

The leg sections are printed and glued together and weighed down with glass pellets (about 2lbs per leg) to try to resist being too top-heavy. The rest of the hollow pieces will be filled with spray foam. Not sure how many cans I need, but I started with 2 because I am not sure how big a difference there is between the normal gap can and the big gap can.

Still need to successfully print out the mid section so I can stick the two legs parts together and have it stand without leaning on something. I was hoping to use the stomach piece I printed out vase mode, but it’s just too flimsy. It’s probably safer to reprint with thicker walls.

The Weld-on 16 seems pretty sturdy. I haven’t felt like anything is gonna snap apart after the glue was given enough time to dry.

Also grabbed an articulated tail off a model on thingiverse. ((blew it up to fit giant horse more))

 

The horse officially stands.

In hindsight it was foolish to have the middle section not cut flush because I basically had no easy way to hold the pieces together aside from "stand there holding it for 5 minutes"

20220607_144608 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

I saw from a Youtube video that a guy said one can of spray foam filled a mannequin's head size-ish so I assumed one can would be less than enough for how much horse I had printed so far.

....turns out Loctite Tite Foam for Big Gaps is very powerful!

Foam Overflow by Kaxen6, on Flickr

 

I tried Tuff-tac glue from Glu-stix.com because a fursuit maker I follow says it's much better than the glue you get at the craft store and I assume if anyone knows about sturdy gluing fur to plastic, it's fursuit makers. My horse won't get as much stress as someone walking around in a costume, but after the hot mess of the wood and fluff attempt, I want it to be sturdy!

When using hot glue to attach fur, the thinner vase mode print is too thin and it will warp under the heat of the hot glue.

While testing, the gorilla glue test popped off when pulled after cooling while the glu-stix one didn't.

20220609_131920 by Kaxen6, on Flickr

Printed a bit. I think it makes the mouth open a little too much, but I think I won't reprint until I finish the body in case the head feels too out of proportion

20220609_171955 by Kaxen6, on Flickr