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Sparrow

The inspiration

I build out of inspiration, I derive my spark from almost anywhere and the diversity of my projects reflects this. It was no surprise that I found myself with a VP Pirate set. The characters in it were animated and colorful. It would be a great diversion from typical World War II subject matter. I also try to expand my skill set with every project and this one fit the bill with a number of new techniques I would need to develop.
This kit is just the figures, no ship, no deck, no cannon. From that I set off to plan on scratch building the rest of the project. I liked the backdrop of box art with the cannon, but I didn’t want to simply duplicate what was presented. I wanted my own creativity infused. I studied the figures poses and came to the conclusion that separate elevations were necessary for the full dramatic affect that the stance of these figures have. I also wanted to include rigging of some kind. When I was a kid I took a trip to see the USS Constellation in Baltimore.
I came away from that visit intrigued and in awe of the all the ropes and rigging. I had visions of crew scrambling up and down the miles of rope. The rigging draws attention and creates movement and visual interest. I wanted to include that in my project.
So with a vision in my head I set off on getting the idea out of my head on to paper.

planning

I have learned that no matter how big or small a project is planning is most important part. I’ll share an acronym I learned once – P6 – Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance (you can make it P7 but I’ll keep it G rated).
My first stop in research was the kit.