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.

From StefanK: 28mm Drunken Monk (5 points)

Stephan debuts with this great little vignette of a inebriated friar.

From Stephan:

This is a nice 28mm miniature by Shadowforge. It's a rather old one which I bought ages ago. Since then it had been hiding somewhere in my lead mountain but now I found it time to paint this little fellow.

Ha! That is a great little vignette Stephan. He would be great as a watchman whose job it is to look out for Viking raiders - a Lindisfarne stamp on the keg would be quite fitting...

This happy tonsured chap will give Stephen 5 points to put him on the board. Welcome aboard Stephan!

AndrewS: 20mm Ancient Briton Sacrifice (16 points)

Andrew sends us this grisly yet wonderfully thematic vignette for his Ancient British army.

From Andrew:

This is just a small entry for today I have been creating a small vignette for our Hail Caesar games, I normally default to having the hapless Ancient Brits against the might of Kevin's Romans. So I thought it would be nice to add some flavour to the table in the form of some wildly celebrating Druids holding a ritual sacrifice of a Roman at the altar. 

These are all 20mm plastics, the Druids are from Hat and the Roman from Italeri I believe.

The stone altar was carved out of another piece of dense styrene and dry brushed up to be a touch more realistic. The hapless Roman was beheaded and mounted onto the alter then a leg and arm were removed and repositioned to look correct and his head mounted on a nice little stake.

These have all been painted to my tabletop standard, which is fine enough from a couple of feet away.

Awesome work Andrew! Those Britons do have a reputation of giving a pretty mean haircut. I particularly like the altar and the grisly 'lamp-post'. Nothing says Winter Solstice like a ritual sacrifice to the gods of the forest.

This vignette will give Andrew 16 points. Well done!

Landsknecht Sharpshooter Team

I realize that its gone a bit quiet here on the blog these past few weeks. Summer has made its glorious appearance and so outside pursuits have taken priority at Schloss Campbell-Hanks. Nonetheless, I've not been completely idle on the hobby front and to back this up here are two lads ready for their puff-and-slash debut.

One of the things that wrapped up a little while ago was the Seventh Season of the Lead Painters' League. I had a great time participating in this event, managing to get a wide range of stuff assembled and painted over the League's 10 weeks. Some of my efforts were well received while others were, um, less successful, :) but that's how it goes and I had a blast working on each of my entries and especially enjoyed seeing the work of my fellow competitors.

At about the half-way mark of the League, an anonymous follower of the competition generously awarded three prizes to several submissions that struck his/her fancy. I was both surprised and delighted to find that my Spanish Civil War Moroccan Regulares was one of those lucky enough to be singled-out for a prize - a choice of a pack from the fabulous offerings over at Lead Adventure Miniatures. How very cool!

My fifth LPL entry: Moroccan Regulares

It took a little bit of hand-wringing as so many of the models from Lead Adventure are brilliant, but I finally made up my mind - deciding to choose a characterful Landsknecht Sharpshooter Team from their Bruegelburg range. 

These Lead Adventure miniatures are beautiful sculpts, crisp, clean and with loads of character. One reason that I went with this pack was the fabulous dwarf 'spotter', calmly teetering on his stilts, identifying the target for his colleague below. 

A pre-op shot of the dwarf spotter.

While on the whole I really liked the sculpt of the stilted spotter, I thought that his pose seemed a bit two-dimensional as the alignment of his body, arm, spyglass and stilts were all on the same vertical plane. So I cut him along his shoulders, under his gorget, and with the help of a little pinning and sculpting putty I repositioned his torso 90 degrees in an attempt to make his pose a little more dynamic (I also gave him a bit of a hunchback as I thought it would fit in with the sensibility of the period). Overall this mod seems to have worked alright, and as an added bonus his right-hand stilt now serves as an impromptu musket rest (I think they called them 'Swinefeathers') for his sharpshooter partner. (I also had to replace the stilt's foot-strap to allow the firelock's barrel enough room to pass through.)

As the figures have an almost cartoonish quality about them I wanted the groundwork to reflect this while also serving to compliment their colourful garb. So I added a load of grass, shrubs and flowers to give the base a verdancy bordering on the Disneyesque. It seems to work fairly well, with the tree also providing a backdrop for this garish duo. 

Again, my great thanks to the League's anonymous benefactor - I really had a wonderful time working on this vignette. Cheers!

Entry #9 to the Lead Painters' League: 'If the First Effort Fails Send in Ney'

Ney leading the French cavalry to their destruction at Waterloo.

The road to hell is paved with... well, you know rest.

Yes, I had the very best intentions to have a newly painted submission for each week of the Panters' League. With this in mind, I had my 9th entry (a unit of Anglo-Saxons arrayed in shieldwall) painted, based and ready for photos - but then I decided to give the figures a spray of clearcoat. This is were my good friend Francis will groan as he'll immediately know what happened next. Yep, the spray-can that I had picked up, shook and sprayed was NOT clearcoat, but rather BLACK PRIMER.

The Anglo-Saxon shieldwall with an extra helping of gunpowder stains...

Fuuuuck. (And this, by far, was the least of the expletives that were uttered in the minutes following 'the incident'.)

To be honest it was not a complete disaster as I managed to catch my gaff during the first pass. I know I'll be able to fix the figures by touching-up the colours' mid-tones and highlights, but I knew wouldn't have the time to repair the damage before the League deadline, which loomed in only a few hours.

So I sat down, collected my thoughts and went over my options. It was obvious I'd have to forfeit the bonus points for not submitting a new entry, but I had to send in something to serve as a suitable stand-in. So after looking in my display cabinet for a few long minutes I made my decision. As the Emperor would say, 'If the first effort fails then send in Ney.' 

I created this command stand of Marshal Ney last year and it remains as one of my favourites as I really enjoyed working on it. It's composed of four 28mm Perry sculpts - all very dynamic and wonderfully animated. As the submission has to have a minimum of five figures I decided to include a casualty stand of a cuirassier toppling from his charger to compliment Ney and his staff. Again, another excellent Perry vignette which has a great sense of speed and movement. 

So there you have it. Like the unfortunate cuirassier, pride cometh before a fall. It serves me right for being in such a rush (again). 

Next week's entry will conclude the League and it calls for a Science-Fiction theme. To be honest I'm a little out of my element on this one and so I've spent an inordinate amount of time puzzling over what to do. In the 11th hour I discovered some figures that I found quite fun so I'm going to give them a whirl. Come by next week if you're interested to see what I've managed to put together for The Final Push.

(AND my clearcoat spray now has very bright red tape on it...)

From MichaelA: 28mm Cannibals & Cooking Pot (100 points)

Michaeal treats us with another beautifly creative vignette for which he is becoming well known. This time it's a group of cannibals and Mandrills in their 'Heart of Darkness' themed Smeg kitchen.

From Michael:

I'm falling behind again due to an unfortunately timed manic spell at work; that said I have managed to clear the attached from the painting queue.  Whilst I was never going to challenge the awesome turnout of the top tier of extraordinarily fast painters, I have looked to consistently challenge myself to produce the best and most imaginative work I am capable of - perhaps looking to scoop up one of the prizes in the sub categories.  

To that end perhaps these could be considered my entry for the non military category?  They are part of North Star Miniatures 'extreme' cannibal range and painted to loosely represent the Azande of the Congo.  

Some time ago I was gifted a flashing blinky LED from Dave D (One man & his brushes) who cruelly sowed the seed for this infernal project, daring me to use it under a cooking pot to give the effect of the burning embers - challenge accepted Dave!  

The pot itself was all scratch built using bits and pieces but primarily built around a table tennis ball - the top sliced off and inverted to form a 'tray' into which I put greenstuff, beads and ball bearings to represent bubbles and a plastic zombie's arm as the final, macabre gesture of the latest victim! 

The Mandrill guardians were also from Northstar and started life as baboons before a little snip and a bit of greenstuff completed their conversion.  I must try to figure out how to take better photographs to illustrate the flames but in the interim I have included one that gives a little of the flavour of the piece - no pun intended!

So that's 5 cannibals, 2 Mandrills, a set of jungle drums and a giant bubbling pot of stew - could things get any stranger?  

Wow, this is phenomenal work Michael! I've always been a great admirier of your vignettes and this one certainly does not disappoint. I had to smile when I saw your Mandrills as they reminded me of Phil's marvelous pink-arsed baboons from last year's Challenge.

Thank you for treating us with this wonderfully creative work.

This vignette with all its glorious boogey-masked, nose-pierced, blue-arsed detail will give Michael 100 points. Bravo and well done!

From MichaelA: 28mm British Colonial Heliograph Section & Mounted Camel Corps Command (80 points)

From Michael:

Well after what seems an age, I've managed to finish off a couple more miniatures which I attach for your scrutiny. More from the fabulous Perry brother's Sudan range, this time the Heliograph Section and Mounted Camel Corps Command. As you would expect from the Perrys they were great sculpts to work on, but the Heliograph Section caused me a bit of a dilemma in so much as some of the miniatures just seemed too versatile to commit to one base and so a little terrain build ensued.

The idea was to give them their own piece of high ground from wish to signal away, while allowing me the freedom to use one of the officers and the guard for other duties as when the need arose.

This will be the end of my travels in the Sudan for a while, I'm feeling the need for a bit of variety and I'm also conscious that I've yet to submit my entry fee, so a brief sojourn to Feudal Japan might be in order!

What an absolutely gorgeous piece of work, Michael. This reminds me of your camp set (well, several of your excellent vignettes actually!). Love the Camel Corps command, particularly the blending on the camels. 

This inspiring entry will give Michael a base of 60 points, but I'm adding another 20 for the superb composition and execution of the vignette.

From DaveD: 28mm 'The Perils of Pauline' Vignette (10 points)

Dave sends in this marvellously curious little scene which depicts a nefarious villain having just tied a fair damsel to a railway track - oooh, the cad! 

In my mind's eye I can hear the off-key piano playing madly  in the background, and if you blink really rapidly you get that silent film effect - no really!

If he was waiting on Canadian Via Rail they'd both die of old age before one showed up...

Apparently this was a give-away figure at a Partizan show a few years ago, sculpted in 28mm by Matt Bickley. Dave tells me that there was a hero figure included in the set so he's going to try to source that to finish the scene.

I love his crumpled top hat, her high heels and 'unmentionables'.

This pair (ahem) will give Dave 10 points. Thanks for this, Dave - well done!

From Curt: 28mm Napoleonic Artillery Casualty Marker (15 points)

Here's another Napoleonic casualty marker I've made up. This one depicts a knocked-out French 12-pounder along with an unfortunate crewman and soldier. I plan to make more of these kind of vignettes to indicate damaged units, or particular spots that have seen hard fighting.

This is a relatively new 28mm resin and white metal set from Offensive Miniatures. The pack includes two separate models, but I cut them up, rearranged them to fit and added a Perry casualty to compose a larger scene.

A sobering scene, to be sure, but one I would assume to be fairly common during that period.

I'm going to give myself 15 points for this one.  Next will be some more markers and finally, perhaps the last of the Normans...

28mm Napoleonic French Vivandiere and Orderlies

Its been a few weeks since my last post, but summer is upon us and we're taking full advantage of the great weather. Nonetheless, I've managed to finish another rear area stand to add a bit of colour to my Napoleonic French army. This one's a bit more whimsical, depicting a Vivandiere bringing a tumbler of wine and some bread to a gallant orderly and his companion (In my mind's eye I think she's a bit sweet on him). 

I've always really admired the sculpts and animation of each of these figures and so I've been saving them until I thought of a suitable composition. 

The French orderlies are from the Perry Waterloo range while the Vivandiere and her trusty donkey is from Warlord Games.

Like my other 'rear area' stands these will either tuck-in behind the artillery caissons to add a bit of depth to the formation, or be loitering in nearby villages.

28mm Napoleonic French REMF Base

My apologies for not posting much lately, I've been working like a Trojan on getting our back yard re-landscaped. Nonetheless, I've not been completely idle hobby-wise and have managed to finish this small vignette depicting a group of French infantry who are taking a break from assisting an artillery battery and chatting with a visiting orderly.

These are assorted Perry castings from their Waterloo range. This is the first time I've tried doing a leopard skin effect on a shabraque which was kinda fun. Ultimately my plan is to have one of these bases behind each of my gun models with ammunition caissons following on behind them. 

With a little luck I hope to have another one of these vignettes completed in the next week or so...