Carving from Belgorod

[HAIIAPHNK]

6 hours ago, empathry said:

... and in such a case, why not set the entire ship model on fire and analyse the wave lenght(s) emitted by its raw products through a spectrometer ? 

The customs would get from its ashes all the requested (legal) answers !  

Are we turning to Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451 ?

Will books be burnt ?

Will art be burnt ?

We'll ourselves be burnt and euthanized (... obviously for "our" security) in order to fertilize this planet ? 

 

Oh! We are now very close to a difficult place. I would not like disputes to arise between opponents and supporters of the use of bone.
There can be many different opinions here. And each side will be right.

[HAIIAPHNK]

After work on Fulminant was discontinued, I had more time. And I returned to my lion project. During this time, I managed to finish two lion figures. And first, I will show you the Turkish lion.
In fact, it took a very long time to complete. I started it more than two years ago. And work on it was put on hold. Only now has it been completed. I finished everything I wanted to do. Well, not everything; there are still some issues left. But more on that later.

I didn't take any photos while I was working on it. There's nothing new here, and I don't see the point in photographing something I've already shown many times. So, there will only be photos of the finished sculpture.

I am very happy that I was able to make a Turkish lion for the lion collection. Very often you can see different styles. The vast majority are either European or American ships. But I don't know any Asian ones at all. Although Turkey is a country with a long maritime tradition. But I don't know much about it. The only memories I have are childhood impressions from Sabatini's books. In one of them, the main character was enslaved on a Turkish galley. But, of course, as befits the main character, he managed to escape and embark on adventures. 

 

I also remember descriptions of some battles from the Russo-Turkish wars. But that's all about events. I had no idea what Turkish ships actually looked like. That means I had never encountered Turkish decor. I know that religious laws prohibit painting or sculpting people, and the main method of decoration is patterns, intertwining geometric or plant elements. So, getting to know the ships of this country was a revelation for me. As it turned out, the maritime museum in Istanbul is very diverse and rich. There was a lion figure there that I couldn't pass by. 
What was especially valuable was that it wasn't just a small figure on a model ship or a drawing, it was a life-size sculpture. So there was a lot for me to look at there. The plasticity of the body, the style. How exactly the carver depicted the mane and fur. 

 

 

 

 

 You can see for yourself how different this lion is from the other European lions in my collection. Compared to Swedish, British, or Russian lions, the Turkish lion is closer to a real predator. In other countries, lions were depicted as strange monsters. Here, with the exception of a few minor details, the body structure is very accurate. The explanation for this is quite simple. Most likely, lions were not exotic animals in Turkey. They were probably brought from Africa and kept in private menageries by local rulers or wealthy nobles. 

In Europe, it was much more complicated. People there simply did not know what a real Simba looked like. Keeping one was not easy. More often than not, lions could be seen as skins on the wall or stuffed animals.

 

 

 

 

 

That is why there is such a big difference in how artists imagined the king of beasts. Well, the second reason why the Turkish lion looks more like a real one than the others is that the Turkish lion represents a different era. 

 

 

 

It was created much later than its northern counterparts in the collection. That's the whole reason. Ideally, I would have liked to find a more ancient reference for the Turkish lion. But I simply couldn't find one. 

 

 

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

Well, now I can show you what I've come up with.

This is what my Turkish lion figure looks like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't yet decided whether this will be the final look or if I will work on it some more. You can see that the museum reference has gilding. Maybe I will do the same with my sculpture. But I'm not sure. I don't know if it's worth doing. I will come back to this question later, when the whole company is assembled. I will lay out all the lions and think about how they will stand on their exhibition pedestals. Should I leave them all wooden, or should I add paint, gilding, or something else to some of them? For now, at this stage, I consider the work on the Turkish lion to be complete.