Summary

This is a bust of "The Ideal Scout" or "The Boy Scout" by Canadian artist R. Tait McKenzie.

The first version of this statue was created in 1918. It stood about 18 in / 45.72 cm. A limited edition of 10 bronze copies were cast and presented to various people.

A life-sized copy was commissioned to stand outside the Philadelphia headquarters of the Boy Scouts in 1937.

Numerous copies of the life-sized bronze have been cast.

This is only the bust of the statue.

How I Designed This

Creating the Bust

            <div><p>I used my iPhone XS Max to take photos of the statue. I used the RAW option in the app Halide as it gave me much more latitude to make adjustments later. I chose an overcast day to minimize deep shadows and blown out highlights as the bronze is still somewhat reflective in spite of the beautiful verdigris that has developed on it.</p><p>I captured the entire statue. I started by photographing the whole figure every couple of steps as I moved in a counter-clockwise circle. I then moved in closer to capture detail shots while circling again. I heavily overlapped the photos. I'd finish the feet to the knees, then capture the legs just below the knees to the hips, etc. I wanted to make sure there was plenty of overlap for Metashape to work with.</p><p>After I got home, I weeded out any shots that might not work via Lightroom. I then made adjustments as needed to lighten shadows and tone down highlights. I then exported the photos as 8-bit TIFs. I made sure to remove the geotags as they've created more problems when I'm modeling a statue.</p><p>I then imported the photos into Metashape. I chose a medium setting for creating the model. I used the "Gradual Selection" function to further refine the alignment of the photos after the sparse cloud was created. I cropped out the surrounding landscape to focus on the statue. I then proceeded with the dense cloud on medium. I then meshed the dense cloud. </p><p>I then imported masks using the meshed model. This was a faster method for me rather than hand-cropping out the background in every photo to create a mask. I then ran the alignment process again on high using the masks. I eventually ended up with a good model of the statue down to the torso. I exported the OBJ and retopologized it in Instant Meshes and exported it out as an OBJ. I imported the OBJ back into Metashape and I then cropped the model to focus on the bust. I then exported it as an STL. I did a check for printability via Meshmixer. I then checked it again in ideaMaker and enlarged it to fit within a 150x150x200mm print volume (the default for my Ender 2 printer).</p><p>(Just in case the STL file name makes no sense: I name each step of my model creation starting with 'alpha,' etc. It helps me keep track of the progress of the model. I like to keep the earlier rough drafts just in case I need to refer back to them. "Delta" was the final model, ready to be shared in this instance).</p></div>

The Ideal Scout bust