Well, here’s the unsuccessful party of Henry Tudor, self-appointed Earl of Richmond, fresh from Steve Dean's latest painting competition, where Sascha Herm's King Arthur did for them in the final.
The scene depicts Henry’s landing at Dale near Milford Haven in south Wales in August 1485 - from where he marched to Bosworth to seize the crown of England and establish a dynasty whose doings reverberate down the course of British history to this day.
The figures are mainly from the Perry Wars of the Roses range, plus a couple of figures from Stephan (Regulator’s) Pro Gloria range, sculpted by the indefatigable Mr Hicks.
The first two figures are assembled from the WOTR and Mercenaries plastic boxes, with fairly minimal conversion, but with the addition of the metal Tudor heads.
Now I adore Michael Perry’s work, but have to say that a set of plastic heads would have been a better bet. Firstly, the metal heads are whisker too big for the plastic bodies – to my eye, anyway – and they don’t sit properly in the neck socket either. I had to add a lot of epoxy around the necks to secure them in place properly. Secondly, the faces are a bit... odd. Not truthfully amongst the maestro’s finest work (sorry Michael).
The flag is a simplified version of Henry’s standard, hand painted on a piece of tomato puree tube. (Yes, I have to eat a lot of spag-bol to make all these flags).
Next up, Henry himself plus a household Welsh longbowman. Again, slight conversions here to get the sort of poses I was after. Henry has another of the metal heads with the wonky face, whilst the longbowman has a beautiful (and free) zouave’s head, the hat reshaped with a bit of melted sprue into a Phrygian cap.
A pair of pikemen – again, metal heads on plastic bodies. The advancing pikeman has been made by drilling out a bill from one of the pairs of bill arms in the WOTR set, and replacing it with a pike from Warlord’s ECW set.
These next two are metal figures straight out of one or other of the Perry WOTR foot personality packs. Can’t remember who they’re supposed to be – I think one of them might be meant to be Henry VII, ironically… But they serve well enough as a couple of bigwigs in Henry’s retinue…
And finally, these two figures are from Pro Gloria – metal figures, and very excellent characterful models they are too. I have several more on the paint table, and they are all just as lovely. Well done Paul and Stephan.
02 November 2010, 06:57:56 PM
