Monday, March 9, 2015

'Antihero' from StefanK - 'King Richard III'

 
Richard Plantagenet the Duke of Gloucester was the younger brother of King Edward IV. When Edward died in 1483 his marriage with Queen Elizabeth (Woodville) was declared invalid and his sons turned illegitimate as heirs. So Richard took the throne and reigned until his death during the battle of Bosworth in 1485.

This is only the very climax of the awesomely interesting life of the last Plantagenet king of England. He witnessed the Wars of the Roses, fought against the Lancastrians and saw the victory of the house of York. But in the very end Richard III. stayed in people’s mind as an usurper of the throne, a murderer and a sinister intriguer. Although some of those aspects might appear probable our picture of Richard III. is highly influenced by the play by William Shakespeare in which he describes the later years of this interesting monarch. Soaked by Tudor propaganda he shows Richard as a power-obsessed, ruthless villain who meets his fair end by the sword of Henry Tudor who will be King Henry VII. Rather soon. Anyway for me it’s one of Shakespeare’s best plays and I love the character he gives Richard. To my a perfect antihero which made him my favourite choice for this bonus round.

The figure:
It’s made by Alan and Michael Perry as a special miniature on occasion of the discovery of Richard’s remains in Leicester in 2012. Since they were found under a car park the twin converted the figure in a way that he rides right out of the street. A very nice three piece vignette which I had been waiting to paint for a long time.


The colours:
As usual I employed Vallejo Model Colors to paint Richard.

The base:
The vignette is mounted on a 60mm circular base from ever excellent Warbases. Because I wanted to underline the figure itself and its border I painted the base black and coated it with high closs varnish. Additionally I made two banderoles that I attached on the left and on the right. One of them describes Richard’s dates of birth and death while the other one quotes Shakespeare’s well-known play: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” (Act 5, Scene 4).


Well… That’s it for my bonus entries then. It was once again real fun to join your challenge and to tackle all the bonus rounds. During the next two weeks I’ll do my very best  to finish the entry fee miniature and maybe I’ll finish a couple of knights as well. Unfortunately there’ll be no chance to reach my 750 points target but I hope you liked my humble entries anyway.

All the  best
Stefan

13 comments:

  1. Very nice! Great addition with the scroll work.

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  2. Richard the Third the Third already? The woods are full of them!

    Love that scrollwork, excellent touch!

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  3. Wow! Love the basing and scrollwork. Snap on the submission, but yours really puts mine to shame. Cheers, Pd

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  4. Wow! Lovely job Stefan, just lovely. I particularly like how you've done his 'white' armour and that bit of scrollwork just takes it up a notch. Brilliant.

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  5. Wow! Lovely job Stefan, just lovely. I particularly like how you've done his 'white' armour and that bit of scrollwork just takes it up a notch. Brilliant.

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  6. Really nice. Those scrolls are a great bit of work. Cheers Stefan

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  7. Wonderful submission Stefan, the scrollwork is great, The real standout for me is the white horse as I know how difficult that is to paint. Wonderful job.

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  8. Great job, Stefan! The scrollwork is excellent and the color choice is very good!

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  9. Wow! I'm just blown away by all the entries to this round. This one is especially a show stopper. Should there have been a Richard the Third side challenge?

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  10. Hi chaps,

    many many thanks for your extremely kind feedback. It was great fun to concentrate myself on this single miniature and I'm glad that you like it.

    Cheers
    Stefan

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  11. Great version of the figure Stefan, I'm sure you'll be a lot closer to your points target after the results of the poll are out.

    Pip pip

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