Sunday 28 March 2010

The End of the House of Lancaster















...well, almost the end.
Henry VI and Queen Margaret, riding around at the edge of the battlefield, ready to either take flight in defeat or line up the captured Yorkists nobility to be attainted and executed in victory.
Figures are Perrys; the pennon bearer is a plastic figure with adjusted arms to hold a flagpole (though not at an exact 90 degrees ...theres a strong wind blowing you know!). Flag is LBMS taken from their HYW sheet.
Having now painted both plastic and metals from this range I fear that the plastics are now going to either spoil us with the extra crispness of the detail, or result in the casting quality of the metals needing to be raised. We get to see the lovely sculpting by both Perrys when they post WIP pics (on TMP or all too occasionally on their own website), but increasingly this detail seems to be getting lost in the mouldmaking and casting process IMHO. Case in point here is Henry's raised hand - the detail just wasn't there and the fingers had effectively fused together - and I'm pretty certain that Michael would not have designed the original figure so.
I say not quite the end of the Lancastrians, as Edward Prince of Wales and the duke of Somerset are still to come and are due to be released as mounted figures, anytime now. Henry's also due to be accompanied by a dismounted herald, from the plasics box which I'm still doing... but too much small-scale heraldry for one painting session.

9 comments:

  1. Very nice looking work.

    Cheers
    Christopher

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  2. Once again you excel at painting and presentation. The lighter skintone of the queen is fabulous.
    Unfortunatel I share your (and other's) complaints about currently descending quality of Perry moulds; hopefully they do listen. Would be a shame if this put off any potential customers, especially for this great period.

    Cheers
    SG

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  3. Excellent work, you've really put a lot of care and attention to detail into these and it shows.

    I particularly like the standard bearer (and will show my appreciation in nicking the idea!), that boxed set is very versatile! is the right arm from 2 arms? a mailed upper arm and plain lower?

    Stuart

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  4. Lovely stuff yet again Simon.

    I know what you mean about some of the casts from the Perry ranges- I started to notice this when I bought more HYW stuff at Kerriemuir- it just wasn't up to the same standard of the stuff I had bought originally. This is a bit of an traversy when it comes to the high quality and splendour of the Perry sculpts.

    Darrell.

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  5. Stuart,
    the flagbearer is just the pair of mailed sleeve arms (for the 'passive' pose) stuck on at different angles. I added a helm hanging on the belt and his right arm just rests nicely on it. Have done another flagbearer using the plain cloth sleeves, with bow hand drilled out and that gives a better version - holding the flagpole at head height.
    Am always looking for other nice combos to nick too!

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  6. Very nice! I've just primed up that Henry/Margaret/Buckingham set and hope to paint them soon. I didn't notice casting issues as I cleaned them, but sometimes those things don't become obvious until the paint starts being applied.

    It's been a long time (since the Samurai first came out!) since I've bought/painted any Perry figures. But this range has definitely caught my interest! I hope the casting doesn't disappoint.

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  7. Wonderful work.
    Having sculpted and cast that gun you posted, I can speak from experience that what goes into a mold usually comes out as an exact replica. I would venture to say that the sculptors are designing so many figures that they are glossing over some of the finer details.
    "The three ups" larger size, and the drawn out tooling process would make for a much more accurate miniature.
    Terrific blogs, Mr Painterman. Keep it up.

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  8. Kelly
    Wow, that's quite incredible that you should find the blog - the web certainly make the world a smaller place! I love the figures of yours I have (still mostly unpainted, but which now will be included with the new Perry ones). Are any of them still available and are you still sculpting, or perhaps moved onto other things?
    Just remembered that I didn't disclose the gun manufacturer did I; I'll save it to the next post.
    All the best...

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  9. Hello

    I really like the way you do your bases, any chance you could take a few step by step photographs when you do your next lot?

    Cheers

    Stuart

    ReplyDelete