Every once in awhile a figure jumps out at me and says, "You have to paint me!" One of the beauties of hard plastic figures is the ability to customize and create unique figures for your collection. In building an Afghan Tribal Force, it takes longer to paint when you cannot set-up an assembly line. What I do is decide, okay, this will be the red painted parts on the different figures, etc., which keeps the process moving along.
Remember this guy?
I had already decided that this was the guy that was going to be the leader figure for my next unit of charging, up close and personal, fanatic, hand-to-gland, combat fighters For the Men Who Would be Kings. As I looked at the figure, I thought my Pashtun Chieftain could look more dramatic with the addition of one or two loose tails to his turban to make it look like they were blowing in the wind. As I glued the tails to the turban, I thought to myself, "Self, where have I seen this before?" Then I realized, it looked very similar to an Angus McBride illustration from the Osprey Men-At-Arms Series #72: North West Frontier 1837 - 1947. It was the right hand figure on Plate H.
The loose "tails" have been added. There are quite a few that come with the box.
Rarely do I stop what I'm doing and decide to paint one figure as I usually have multiple figures and/or projects going on at the same time. While paint dries, I can move onto the next and I think you get the picture. But for this guy, I stopped the presses and worked only on it.
After I did the major painting on the figure, I glued scabbard for his tulwar (saber) and also gave him a shield.
The finished figure.
His unit is not ready yet, so some men from Irregular Infantry #2 will join him for a group shot!
Somehow, inspiring leaders just seem to deserve the extra effort. I think the results shown in these pics will support my argument!
ReplyDeleteWhether it makes a difference on the table is more questionable. Some of my best sculpted/converted etc and painted leaders don't seem to inspire their little metal and plastic soldiers while some old scraped and bent, paint chipped hero can always seem to inspire the dice in his favour at critical moments.
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm always amazed when my veterans with broken bayonets come through in a pinch!
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