Mussorgsky - bust of Modest Mussorgsky

A few years back, my wife was looking for a bust of her favorite composer for the piano, and we realized that nobody has made busts of composers since the days of Brahms and Wagner. Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and a few 19th century greats ---no one from the 20th century. MY FAVORITE from the 19th century was left out----Boris Gudonov's composer.
As a sculptor and music afficionado, I felt it was my duty to start making the molds. The finished sculptures are all hand cast and finished. Resin casts are rotate-cast hollow, then concrete or plaster-filled, burnished with a dremel and steel wool, and then patina'd. Hydrostone (high-density plaster) casts are hand finished (mostly filling air holes and rebuilding ears, etc.) then varnished and/or given a complex patina, underpainted in matte finish, then metallized with graphite, copperite filings, alcohol and food coloring, then buffed by hand for a metallic shine.

The matchbook shown in the last photo is from one of my books, The Devil's Laugh and Other Stories, published under the pen-name of H.Alan Tansson.