William Tell's Apple Shot

Early in the 14th century, Swiss legend has it that William Tell was made sport of when Albrecht Gessler, the Austian vogt (officer) of the Swiss principality of Uri, demanded that he shoot the apple resting on Tell's son's head.

Mosaic at the Swiss National Museum

This challenge originated from a situation in which Tell pointedly decided not to salute the authority of the Austrian crown as he entered the town of Altdorf (this being Gessler's hat sitting atop a pole placed alongside the road to town). 

Seeing this act of defiance, Tell and his son, Walter, were arrested by the town constables and presented to Gessler for judgement. The Tells were cruelly sentenced to death for William's temerity of not recognising the power of Switzerland's Austrian overlords. Nonetheless, Gessler, knowing Tell was a renown crossbowman, wanted to make nasty sport from his prisoner's expense, and so decreed that he would commute their execution if Tell could shoot the apple off the head of his son.

From Sebastian Munster's 'Cosmographia' (1554 edition)

The young Walter was tied against a tree, with an apple duly resting on his head.  William silently drew two crossbow bolts from his quiver, socketed one, took aim and deftly struck the apple from atop his son's head. Gessler was very impressed, but wondered why Tell had drawn two crossbow bolts when only one was needed.  Tell cooly looked at Gessler and said the second bolt was meant for him if he missed his first shot. 

William Tell's act of defiance has become part of Swiss legend and lore, being recognized as the first spark of the Swiss rebellion which led to the foundation of the later Swiss Confederacy.

The figure shown here, depicting 'Wilhelm von Tell' in victory, is from Lead Adventure Miniatures.  He was sculpted by Igor Karpov who has a very distinctive, characterful style, with lots of heavy detail to loose your brush in. While the William Tell story is from the medieval period, he's shown here in high Renaissance garb, with slashed sleeves and  wearing a tasseted, flutted breastplate. A great figure to paint.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great week everybody!

Curt

The Boys from Sanitation and Maintenance - Post-Apocaliptic Survivors and Terrain Inspired by 'Metro 2033'

Over the past few weeks I've been doing-up a smattering of figures and pairing them with (hopefully) relevant pieces of terrain. This has been a lot fun and I've managed to work through several lumps of resin which otherwise would have languished in The Lead Shed, unpainted and unloved.

Along these lines and to try to keep things fresh, I've decided to return to my post-apocalypse collection which is loosely based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel 'Metro 2033'.  

The premise of Metro 2033 is that a biological/nuclear war has ravaged the entire world, and that in Moscow, the only people to have escaped the horror unscathed, are those who were in the city metro when the warheads rained down. Twenty years later the Metro has evolved into a dystopian, poly-politic society where the survivors identify themselves with their home territory, their particular metro station, and it's homebrewed ethos (like the protagonist's VDNKh 'Exhibition' Station). Some stations are neo-Communist, some are neo-Fascist, others democratic, and so on.  In the Metro internecine warfare is commonplace and threading amongst all of this is the threat of being overrun by the 'Dark Ones' - creatures from the above-ground, who have become heavily mutated from the nuclear/biological Petri dish of the world's surface.

These figures are from Lead Adventure Miniatures.  For a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun I've painted them in the brightly coloured jumpsuits you often see sanitation and maintenance workers wear. I envision that the sanitation and maintenance people of the Moscow Metro would know all the secret in-and-outs of that labyrinthine system, and that since they repair and clean nasty things like the Metro's sewer system nothing, no matter how strange and horrifying, would make them blink an eyelash - Yup, they are rated as Level 10 in Badassery.

I've used my usual 'ash-debris and brick' motif for these guys. No grass, shrubs and flowers in the Metro I'm afraid.

The crushed subway car is produced by Ainsty Castings. I picked it up when we were at Partizan this spring as I thought would fit in well with the rest of the collection. 

I used a bit of texture gel and added some more bricks and debris so it better blends with the basework of my figures.  

I admit I went a little nuts with the MIG weathering powders to add rust, grime and dust to the subway car, but hey, I think it would have gotten pretty filthy after twenty years in the gloom.

Thanks for dropping by - I hope you all have a great week!

Next: Heading back to the Renaissance...

Entry #9 to the AHPC - Heidi & Hildegarde von Biguns and the Death Bell of Breugel-Bosch

I'm having a lot of fun with this Painting Challenge, ricocheting between different projects and enjoying working on a wide variety of figures. This time I return back to the Renaissance, or a perhaps a slightly skewed vision of the Renaissance.

This set of 28mm models is from Lead Adventure Miniatures. I'm a huge fan of most of their ranges and I really love the aesthetic of their Renaissance models. While they are certainly grounded within a historical context, these figures have a rather odd, very mannered, twist to them.  I've been so taken with them that I've collected a whole series of related miniatures that I hope to form into a distinct collection - but more on that later.

As soon as I saw this set advertised online I knew had to get it as it's just so whimsically dorky.  Depicted here is a 'crew' of a highly improvised artillery piece, a great town bell, 'The Death Bell'. We see that the bell is just about to be fired in the defense of their town of 'Breugel-Bosch'.

The leader is a rather formidable woman, dressed for the occasion in helmet, partial Landsknecht regalia and sword. She wields an improvised rammer made of an old broom stick and scullery brush. This is Hildegarde. She is overseeing her sister, Heidi, in the firing of the Death Bell. Heidi, as we can plainly see, is a little more of a reluctant soul than her brash sibling. Both sisters are trying very hard to ignore the sage advise of their cousin Henri, who lost both his legs as a gunner serving in the Italian Wars. He is seen here on his hand cart, bringing up more ammunition for the ladies.

While working on these castings I came to the conclusion that they deserved a little more pimping out. The stock bell came with a cavernous opening, but with nothing to put in it. I thought that this wouldn't do. It was just crying out for some deadly missile to be nestled inside, ready to be blasted out at their enemies. At first, I made a big cannonball with some greenstuff and popped that in to see how it looked. It was okay, but it still seemed rather, meh, a bit boring. 

Then I came upon the idea that these citizens would want to pack this thing with whatever they could find in town that could be considered lethal. I immediately thought of a blacksmith's anvil and laughed aloud. I rummaged around and, surprise, surprise, found one as part of a Napoleonic forge set from Westfalia Miniatures (sorry Kawe!). From there it was just a matter of trimming down the anvil and adding some other bits, such as a sword, spear, and a few polearms (donations from the town's armoury). Done! Now the gun has a load of improvised scattershot to wreak havoc amongst their foes!

I really liked the pillow as a recoil brake and made sure to give it a nice needlework pattern. I imagine that it's been donated to the cause by one of the town's worthy ladies - a noble sacrifice from her sitting room. 

For the groundwork I wanted to try something a little different. I really liked Sidney's cobblestone base which is featured in his latest theme entry. I didn't have anything like that handy, so I made a rather impressionistic version of a cobblestone road by gluing oblong shapes cut from an index card. Once dried I simply painted, drybrushed them up to look like flagstones, and then added some grass between the 'stones' (clipped-up tufts work well for this).

I've kept to an autumn theme again so that this 'HEAVY artillery unit' can fit in with my other Renaissance stuff.

So, there you have it. The Death Bell of Breugel-Bosch, crewed by Heidi & Hildegarde von Biguns (and helped by their cousin Henri).

Thanks for visiting folks and have a great week!

Entry #5 to the AHPC - 28mm Modern German (SEK M) Special Forces Frogmen

These five frogmen depict members of the Spezialisierte Einsatzkräfte Marine (SEK M) a German special forces unit which focuses on maritime operations.

The 28mm figures are from Lead Adventure Miniatures. They're bit off-the-beaten-path, but I thought they would be fun to do. While the sculpts themselves are fantastic, the only thing I find a bit odd about them is how they're armed. I believe units of this type are typically utilized for close-in assaults, ship-boarding, hostage rescues, stuff like that, so I think it would more likely that they would be armed with compact MP5 SMGs, or shortened HK416s, rather than the relatively hulking G36 seen here. Who knows, perhaps they are landing on some foreign shore where they may have to stand-off at medium range.

 

Being special forces frogmen, it would only stand to reason that they would be kitted out completely in black, so I had a merry time working with various shades of grey to prevent them from disappearing into the shadows completely. With their bases I tried to create the sense that they are coming ashore (and to add a bit more colour for interest).  In the end they turned out alright, though I might go back and pick-out a few metallic edges on their assault rifles and give their Tag watches luminous dials. 

The Father and The Boy from Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'

As per tradition, I make sure to open and close each year’s Painting Challenge with my own entries. As rearguard this year I decided to post a small vignette based on one of my favourite books, Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’. 

In McCarthy’s book an unnamed father and his young son journey across a grim post-apocalyptic landscape, several years after an unexplained apocalypse has destroyed civilization and most life on Earth.  While the story is framed in this horrific setting it is, at its core, a tender love story between a father and his son.

Much of the book is written in an abbreviated third person style, with references to "the father" and "the son" or to "the man" and "the boy."

Realizing that they cannot survive the oncoming winter, the father takes his boy south, along desolate roads, always towards the sea, carrying their meager possessions in their knapsacks. 

They have a pistol, but only two bullets. In a chilling passage in the book, the boy is reminded that he is to use the gun on himself, if necessary, to avoid falling into the hands of other survivors, as most have turned to cannibalism. 

The father struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation. In the face of these obstacles, the man repeatedly reassures the boy that they are "the good guys" who are "carrying the fire". On their journey, the pair scrounge for food, evade roving bands, and contend with many horrors.  An old man they discover on the road acts as seer for them and says that the boy has a glow about him – inferring that he is blessed. As the story moves forward the father feels he has to do things that are insensitive if not inhumane in order to keep his son safe.  This progresses to the point where the reader is left with the impression that The Father is perhaps no longer ‘carrying the fire’. But one can only sympathize with his situation and we are forced to ask ourselves, ‘If the world ran down, and chaos reigned, how far would we go to keep the ones we love safe?’ 

The book is very powerful and I believe it ends the way it should (I won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil it for those who’ve not read it). If you haven’t picked it up it I heartily recommend you do so.

The figures of 'The Father' and 'The Boy' are from Lead Adventure and are modeled closely to the actors in the film. Beautiful castings. I did them in greyscale with only The Boy’s face being in colour, ‘carrying the fire’, as it were. I diverted somewhat from the original colour tones in the stills from the film, instead playing with the contrasting greys of their clothes to bring attention to both their faces and The Father's hands. I created the base to depict one of the many roads that they traveled on. The centerline is broken to foreshadow events in their journey.

Thanks for dropping in for a visit! Administrating the Challenge is both an honour and a pleasure, but I must say it's nice to be back to the old blog - its like putting on a much-loved, if worn and scuffed, pair of shoes.

Post-Apocalyptic Tube Raiders inspired by Metro 2033

Wanting to switch gears for a bit I thought I'd add a few more models to my slowly growing collection of post-apocalyptic figures inspired by Glukhovsky's novel 'Metro 2033'. 

In his book, a bio-nuclear war occurs in 2013 which devastates most of the world. In Moscow, the only survivors are those who managed to make it into the Metro (notable for being one of the deepest in the world). 

Twenty years later the survivors have splintered into various conflicting socio-political factions (neo-soviets, neo-fascists, cannibals, etc.), each centered around a Moscow metro station. In addition to this ever-restless friction between rival factions is the fact that horrific mutants from the surface are trying to force their way into the metro. So basically, at its core, it's your typical Russian novel, y'know, all sunshine and lollipops.

These castings are from the Lead Adventure Miniatures' 'Zone Dogs' pack. I really like this whole range of figures as they are so varied and jam-packed full of characterful details. 

I especially like the figures which sport a mixture of civilian and military gear as it lets me play around with whacky colours and patterns that you'd never see in a purely military setting.

For the basework I followed pretty much in-step my other stuff and kept with an ash waste motif, with  a smattering of shattered bricks for colour, and a dash of rusted piping as a final flourish. I hear this is all the rage in 'Irradiated Homes and Gardens'.

I'm pleased with how the bright orange foam sleeping pad turned out on this fellow. The original colour was pretty darn bright but it toned down nicely with a bit of thinned ink.

For this chap I gave him a well-worn Russian NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) suit. I was really wanting to give him a lurid GAP branded satchel but I didn't know if Russia has a big-brand clothing store equivalent.

I have another package of these guys tucked away somewhere, but I'm thinking I need to build up a horde of some sort of atomic-mutant-type-thingys to act as counterpoint to these 'uncorrupted' survivors. I have a few ideas rattling around in my head, but more on that later.

Next Up: Hmm, I dunno. It will either be more WWII Canadians or perhaps Gladiators... Squirrel!!