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Author Topic: The Three Musketeers - Larger than Life! - Update 09/06 - Monsieur de Tréville  (Read 25319 times)

Offline white knight

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Re: The Three Musketeers - Larger than Life! - Update 02/01 - Mounted bodyguard
« Reply #120 on: January 02, 2019, 10:03:05 AM »
The Duke of Buckingham's guards don't have it easy. His escapades onto French territory frequently put him in harm's way (the things we do for love) and these seasoned veterans are sworn to protect him with their lives. This mounted guard is one of the best shots with a musket to be found in England and as such has the privilege to accompany his Duke on those voyages.

 The model is a touched up King and Country ECW figure. I painted the buff coat green, so that he'd be a better fit to the colourful Duke's guards and to avoid confusion with the Witchfinder faction. He has one eye closed, which I also touched up as the original paintjob had his eyelashes at the same height as the open eye, where it should be lower for a closed eye. For some reason, the highlights on the green look a bit stark on the back, they are fine in real life.



The Duke and his bodyguards, so far:



The Duke and his guards get into a confrontation with the Witchfinder General and his thugs, who've been overstepping their boundaries lately...

Offline Metternich

  • Scatterbrained Genius
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Re: The Three Musketeers - Larger than Life! - Update 02/01 - Mounted bodyguard
« Reply #121 on: January 02, 2019, 09:37:25 PM »
And that had to have set you back a pretty penny !

Offline Arthur

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Re: The Three Musketeers - Larger than Life! - Update 02/01 - Mounted bodyguard
« Reply #122 on: January 02, 2019, 10:10:51 PM »
I'm somewhat wanting for words and will therefore stick to "Wow !" .

Offline white knight

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Re: The Three Musketeers - Larger than Life! - Update 02/01 - Mounted bodyguard
« Reply #123 on: January 03, 2019, 12:13:42 PM »
Thank you, gentlemen.  8) It's a pretty laid back project because I don't have to build and paint everything, but just build it around a core of readily available figures and add in personal touches and conversions.

And I don't stop coming back to admire all your pics, these gorgeous figures put in front such beautiful and well-chosen background are a feast for the eyes!

I printed the background from a google search. I was looking for an image that to me evoked the iconic scene early in the book where d'Artagnan meets up with the three musketeers for a duel amongst the ruins of the Carmes Déchaux, which is promptly interrupted by the arrival of Jussac and the red guards. This image worked perfectly for that for me.

And that had to have set you back a pretty penny !

I've spread them out over time, the recent posts are me catching up with taking pictures of models that were acquired over the course of several months, which isn't the say they aren't expensive.

Offline white knight

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It's been a long time without updates, so hopefully this one will be worth it, as it's one that took up a disproportionate number of hours for the final result. Nonetheless, here is the King's carriage.

A King always travels in style and none has more style in abundance than King Louis of France. Covered in the royal fleur de lys heraldry, the King's presence is clearly announced and all who witness this carriage's passing will know it holds an important member of the Royal household, most likely the King himself. Not so good for visits to one of the King's mistresses, but no doubt he has more discrete carriages at his disposal should such a need arise.


The King descends from his carriage and is greeted by the Cardinal under the watchful eyes of his faithful musketeers.

The model is based on a Lemax victorian carriage with a heavily modified rider. The casting and painting on the original model was very bad and I did my best to improve it, but some casting flaws were beyond repair. The ugly thread reins were replaced with florist wire. The driver was completely resculpted to wear the King's livery. His hat was donated by a 54mm figure, with some added sculpting to enlarge it. The decals are from an old Warhammer Bretonnian sheet.


















The King and Queen returning from a short ride in the King's carriage, still blushing from the... um... excitement.


The downside of announcing the identity of the passengers is having to deal with the occasional assassination attempt.

For completeness' sake, this is the Lemax model it was based on, though in reality they don't look quite as nice and clean as in the promotional pictures:


Offline Friends of General Haig

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Great to see an update - the carriage is superb!

Offline Captain Blood

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Terrific job WK.  :-*

Offline white knight

  • Galactic Brain
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Terrific job WK.  :-*

It may have been your ECW resurrected that prompted me to finish it.


Offline Captain Blood

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  • Elder God
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It may have been your ECW resurrected that prompted me to finish it.

lol Don’t blame me!

How many more of these gorgeous figures could you / do you plan to add to this amazing collection?

Offline white knight

  • Galactic Brain
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    • WK's Miniature Imperium
How about a thank you then?  8) 8)

Offline AKULA

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What an update!

 :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*

Offline FifteensAway

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Gives me ideas for how to paint my Bluemoon 15s carriages for musketeers.  Nice work.

Offline white knight

  • Galactic Brain
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    • WK's Miniature Imperium
Thanks gentleman. I did hesitate with making it so specific as to be the King's carriage instead of a more generic one that could also be used by the Cardinal, Milady, the Duke of Buckingham, etc... but there was no getting the image of a blue coach with fleur-de-lys heraldry out of my head, so it had to be done, even though it limits it's usefulness in scenarios.

Or you know, I could just ignore that and use it anyway if the need arises (and let's be honest, I never get to game anyway lol ).

Offline white knight

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 6169
    • WK's Miniature Imperium
Monsieur de Tréville, real name Jean-Armand du Peyrer, Comte de Troisville, was the respected captain of the musketeers guarding Louis XIII. A close adviser to the King, he is a man of great honour and integrity. He inspires loyalty in his men and gives it back without reserve. Possibly the embodiment of the musketeers' motto "One for all and all for one!".

Captain de Tréville flanked by the musketeers Aramis, Porthos and Athos

As he is based on a King and Country prepainted figure, I only did some minor painting on him to turn him into the good captain. Therefore, I can take little credit for the final figure.



The Captain is a minor modification of the King and Country Gustavus Adolphus mini. It was chosen due to the colours of the model being a close match for the Musketeer uniform. It only needed a change of hair and the addition of the musketeer cross on the back of the cape. While I'm fine converting the cheaper Lemax figures myself, I wanted this model to be perfect, so I enlisted professional sculptor Ian Mountain, whom I had worked with before, to make the conversion. I then proceeded to paint it to match the rest of the figure. With the changes, he no longer looks obviously like Gustavus, at least to my eye.



I wanted to give the impression of greying hair to his flowing locks to indicate his seniority.




"Sire, I have this urgent missive for you." - "What is it? Is Spain on the move again?"

Frequent duels between musketeers and red guards were a regular point of contention between the Cardinal and the Captain.


"Your musketeers were caught duelling again!You must punish them!"
"I will look into it and give them their just deserts.


"I heard you disobeyed the prohibition of duelling again and fought the Cardinal's guards?"
"Yes, my captain, but..."
"Silence! I only want to hear one thing out of  you... Did you win?"
"We did, sir!"
"Good."


"This is d'Artagnan, captain. He's the one who bested and injured Monsieur de Jussac in single combat."
"No small feat. I hear you want to become a musketeer, boy?"
"More than anything, captain!"
"Well, at least you're a Gascon."

Offline FifteensAway

  • Galactic Brain
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A Very fine collection. 

 

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