I've long been interested in human prehistory (some will remember my ever-growing flint collection), so for my next bust I decided to opt for this offering from Heroes and Villains - a 1/12 bust of a Neanderthal.
The continuing advances in gene sequencing technology have recently helped establish that around 30% of the Neanderthal genome still exists, spread out among the world's population. A lot of people in the UK have between 3% to 7% Neanderthal genes. So although they died out around 24,000 years ago, they can be said to live on in Homo Sapiens, though I suspect that we may have had something to do with their disappearance. This is a picture of a well-known Hollywood actress adjusted to look Neanderthal:
It's often said that given a shave and a suit, the average Neanderthal would pass without notice on the London Tube.
This is what was in the box:
A nicely sculpted piece with loads of texture and supplied in three parts. I wanted to paint him as a resident of Europe at the end of the last , so that meant a light skin like this bloke:
Here are my initial efforts:
I was disappointed to find that the skin was quite rough and uneven and wouldn't take the paint well, so it ended up as a bit of a struggle. Still, given the small scale I think it works (just).
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