Wednesday 28 August 2013

The Anti-Rooster!






Earlier in the year, '28mm Victorian Warfare' celebrated its second anniversary with a little prize giveaway.  One of these prizes was to involve yours truly painting a 'Command Stand' of the recipients chosen miniatures and I am delighted to say that Dave D of 'One Man and his brushes' fame, finally received his earlier in the month.



It will be of little surprise to many that Dave supplied some cowboys for me to paint in the shape of  a 'Crusader Miniatures' retired US Marshall, mounted and dismounted.  Dave's only requirements  that they should obviously be painted as the same character, not on the same base and to consider said character as an 'Anti-Rooster' or evil twin of his original version, which can be seen here.




Although I was aware of these splendid miniatures this was in fact my first go at painting one of them and I was instantly struck at how simple they were, no extraneous detail to hinder one's individuality, but with that I was suddenly aware at just how much I've come to rely on this detail with my own painting! After a period of head scratching a vague concept started to emerge of a evil Irish, gambling twin and so pinstripe trousers, ginger locks and a Leprechaun green neckerchief seemed the order of the day.


One of my favourite aspects of this most wholesome of hobbies is the 'terraforming' of bases and I had envisaged, as part of the 'Command Stand' giveaway, that this would be the case here; so to hear that Dave wanted his miniatures based separately threw me somewhat.  Not perturbed in the slightest, I concocted a display base that would allow Dave to 'show off' his miniatures, but also to remove them to game with individually.


Blue foam, model railway cacti and pumice gel formed the basis and then I simply carved out the base shapes and lined them with plasticard to form docking areas for the miniatures.  By painting up the terrain to match the bases I was hopeful that they would merge together. 

It was at this point that I was struck with an idea, what if I provided a couple of additional 'plugs' that could fill the gaps when the miniatures were been used?  This would give Dave an additional terrain piece and allow me my terrain building fix. 



The completed stand with all the miniatures and additional 'plugs'.  Great fun to do and a wonderful distraction from the St. Trinians girls.













77 comments:

  1. Nice brush work! That terrain/display base is a great idea too.

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  2. Beautiful work Michael especially the strawberry blonde hair and let's not start on the quality of the base, brilliant.

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    1. Thank you Francis, I was thinking of you when considering the palette!

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  3. Michael, that's a masterpiece! May be it's because I'm coming back from the Wild wild west, but I think it's an amazing work...love the basing, the terrain, the faces with beards...fantastic!!
    Phil.

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    1. Phil, that is incredibly kind of you; such high praise is very much appreciated.

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  4. Hola
    Muy buenas esas minis
    El diorama te a quedado muy chulo
    un saludo

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  5. Very nice planned and executed modeling project. Beautiful painting, basing, and scratch building!

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    1. Thank you Jay, it sort of 'got big on me' as they say!

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  6. Great diorama and really nice paint to the hors , Great !
    Cheers

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  7. very nice - a great scene with lots to feast my eyes on.

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  8. That's some very nice work and the stand diorama is just great!

    Christopher

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  9. Dave D is a very lucky chap, you did an excellent job on this

    Ian

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  10. Great work another fantastic diorama from your workshop
    Peace James

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  12. Amazing work! Especially the idea of building it as both terrain piece and display base is just superb!

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    1. Thank you, I was aware that Dave was primarily hoping to game with the figures so it needed to be versatile.

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  13. I can feel the grit between their teeth. Awesome, partner!

    Jan

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  14. Yet more lovely work from Awdry Towers :)

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  15. That is wonderful. Dave is really lucky.

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  16. Wonderful brushwork as usual and the base with the plugs idea is both brilliant and perfectly executed!

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    1. That is very kind of you to say so Brian. I seemed to work in the end.

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  17. Oh my, but that's splendid. All those extra's that you put into the base provide so much character to the piece. The skull, the wheel, the cacti-excellent. And thank you for the tutorial on how you built that, it is most appreciated.

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    1. Thank you so much for the kind words Anne, I think because it was a 'commission' of sorts a little more effort was made with the whole thing.

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  18. Oh very slick! I'm liking that a lot.

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  19. Michael, thanks one more for this wonderful piece. The terrain piece is truly a work of art. It shall be involved in the upcoming Blog Con along with the bad twin.

    A wonderful rendition of Rooster, which I count as a privilege to say I own.

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    1. Thank you Dave, it was such great fun to work on something a bit different and I am genuinely thrilled that you like it. Looking forward to hearing how he fares at the con.

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  20. wonderful job and great diorama!
    bye

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  21. Stupendous work Sir M! I'm sure Dave will be extremely pleased with his new toy!!

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    1. Thank you Ray, it was great fun to do and I'm delighted to hear that Dave was pleased.

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  22. Great looking gun slingers, and the basing is pure art. Best, Dean

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  23. You had me at the first pic, and then you went into pure genius with your basing. Incredible! I'm going to be staring at these for some time now.

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    1. That is really appreciated, thank you for such an encouraging comment.

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  24. Outstanding! The extra plugs for the base are a great idea.

    Are those cacti from Pegasus Hobbies?

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  25. My mistake. They're Woodland Scenics aren't they? Either way you've made the most of them.

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    1. Thank you so much Finch and yes Woodland Scenics did the cacti. The smaller ones were repainted to ally, but the larger pieces only needed a bit of dry brushing so pretty versatile.

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  26. What a great idea! And lovely painting as well.

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  27. Superb work, love the multi-base approach and diorama stand.
    Never knew you could get such model cacti, very cool.

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    1. Thank you Scott, the cacti were a bit of an extravagance, but when I saw them I just though they would be perfect for the project.

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  28. As ever this is truly something to behold mate. Amazing composition and execution, never mind the painting. I like the fact you made extra bases so it can be used as a complete terrain piece as well...

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    1. That is incredibly kind of you, I think the idea just kept growing and was great fun to do.

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  29. Stunning work !!!

    Best regards Michael

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  30. That is fabulous. There is truly nothing I do not like about either the figure or the base diorama.

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    1. What an incredibly kind thing to say, thank you.

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  31. Fantastic models - proper 'display' standard if ever I've seen it.

    Regards,
    Matt

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  32. Absolute masterpiece Michael!

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  33. Figure Painters of The Old West; "This here's John Wesley Awdry - they say he once shot a man jest fer knockin' over a paint pot on the saloon floor!"

    That's some pretty fancy paintin', Tex!
    ; )

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    1. Now I'm pretty sure those rumours were totally exaggerated! Thank you Ev. :D

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  34. Cracking little diorama there Michael and wonderful painting paints on display

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  35. That is altogether a brilliant piece of brush-work and terrain.

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