Living in South East England, we don’t get a lot of snow. In fact, I can remember just a few occasions from my childhood when it did fall. And even fewer occasions when my boys were growing up.
But when it did we’d always rush out and make a snowman. It had to be done, no matter how little snow settled, we’d always have a go at making an anthropomorphic snow sculpture.
This year, like those of my childhood there’s little sight of the white stuff but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
In lieu of the real thing, I’ve made my own small-scale snowman for OO gauge railways.
But making Frosty was a far fiddlier than I thought, with quite a few false starts. He’s available now on my ebay store but if you fancy having a bash yourself, here’s how I went about it.
Making the basic shape
Initially, I tried to use some air-drying clay I had kicking around as it seemed the most obvious material. Just roll it into balls, add a slight curve to the front for that characteristic plump snowman look and away we go I thought. (I used an OO gauge figure as a guide for height and size).
But that was until I left it to dry.
Unlike the real thing, it didn’t melt, the complete opposite in fact.
It cracked! The head in particular had a nasty gash down one side. And the finish was too smooth. I wasn’t a bit of texture to give it a ‘snowy’ feel.
After a few more trials I gave up on the clay and tried epoxy putty, in this case, Milliput. This produced a much better finish while still being as easy to shape and most importantly didn’t crack when drying.
The snowmen I built with my boys were always on the large size so I went for a size and shape slightly bigger than the figure, as seen in the photo above, but there’s nothing to stop them being made slightly smaller as some of the experimental ones made from both clay (also seen above) show.
Now using Milliput, I made a variety of snowman shapes and once dry glued them together with Superglue with a slither of wire through the body and head to hold them in place.
They took longer to dry than clay but I’m happier with the size, shape, finish and lack of cracks.
Unfortunately, unlike my air-drying clay that I had in white, I only had Milliput in Black so several coats of qhite paint were needed. I used Vellejo paint but any acrylic paint will work.
Making the scarf
Next up, came the scarf.
This was easily the most fiddly part.
For raw material, I used the strands from some green tinsel.
This was just the right size and colour.
At first, I tried tying it into a knot around the neck as a scarf would be but even with tweezers this was a nightmare. In the end, I gave up and glued it around in place around the neck and overlapped it at the front to look like a knot.
At the same time, I painted the buttons, eyes and mouth using Black acrylic paint.
The result worked well and I’m content with it.
The nose
Perhaps the trickiest bit was the nose.
How do you make a 1:76 scale carrot?
I tried scrapings from a plastic sprue but this didn’t look right. Neither did paper.
Eventually, I used another tiny bit of Milliput, rolled it into a cone and then painted it.
Getting a Carrot-correct shade of Orange took some experimentation using blends of red, yellow and white but the result is quite effective.
This was glued to the middle of the face with a tiny amount of Superglue dabbed on with the point of cocktail stick.
And the arms
For the arms, I used some Seafoam from my tree and bush stockpile although any small garden twigs could work.
These were VERY gently pulled apart to get the form I wanted and then, like the nose, Superglued into place.
And that’s it. I’m very pleased with my little figure and will be making a lot more. Without the false starts, I initially made, it doesn’t take long – about 3 hours from start to finish – and they’ll look great alongside my Christmas tree train set. Alternatively, you can buy one of mine.
