The Defeated
65mm Resin Kit from Elan 13 of and English Civil War Officer
Article in Military Modelling magazine in 2016
In all wars there are winners and losers ( OK some who just lose a little less that the other side mainly ), and this little piece depicts one of the soldiers from the losing side of the English Civil War of the seventeenth century.
In 1642 Oliver Cromwell’s forces began their war on the throne of king Charles I and whilst there were a few reverses, in the main Cromwell’s New Model Army acquitted themselves well against Charles’s Cavaliers.
By 1645 and after a decisive battle at Naseby that saw Cromwell’s forces take the day, most of the conflict became one of siege. The first phase of the war with the Royalist forces fighting for their king ended in 1649. Charles had turned himself in to the Scots before Newark in March of 1646, and almost three years later – January 1649 – Cromwell and Ireton successfully tried Charles for his perceived crimes against the nation and had him executed.
By 1645 and after a decisive battle at Naseby that saw Cromwell’s forces take the day, most of the conflict became one of siege. The first phase of the war with the Royalist forces fighting for their king ended in 1649. Charles had turned himself in to the Scots before Newark in March of 1646, and almost three years later – January 1649 – Cromwell and Ireton successfully tried Charles for his perceived crimes against the nation and had him executed.
Charles II, his son ( although not recognised as the king by the nation ), then took up the fight, but unfortunately with the same success as his father, losing a decisive battle at Worcester in 1651.
Cromwell it would seem had better forces with better weapons and better tactics. Which leads me on to how we perceive historical weapons in general.
I was given a book some time ago by my good friend Ian Johnson, it was in a bit of poor repair – in three pieces actually, but what a book and what a history – it was written by King Charles’ “Master Surveyor of His Majesty’s Ordnance” Sir Jonas Moore ( 1617 – 1679 ), the first edition being printed in 1673 and the book I was given was the second edition printed in 1689. So, a book nearly three hundred and sixty years old...... maybe not such bad shape after all that time then.
Getting past the “S” being printed as “F” throughout, doesn’t take long, and it makes for interesting reading detailing the design and production of weapons from pistols to siege mortars, and then moves on to how fortifications can be built to stave off cannon and mortar, not to mention other siege breaking tactics. It’s an interesting read because science was being used to formulate weaponry and it’s use, and the book I was given even had notes in some of the margins showing someone had been doing calculations.
So war was developing into more than just taking the high ground, digging in or throwing all you had forward, and the use of formation, advancing weapon design and mathematics were being added into the mix.
But the parliamentarians weren’t to have it all their own way.
Cromwell died in 1658.
He was succeeded by his son Richard, who unfortunately didn’t have the same leadership qualities as his father, and two years later Charles II returned to take the throne.
The figure
I suppose that this could depict one of the Royalist Cavaliers at any point really between 1642 and 1659, there’s plenty of defeats to choose from.
It’s a lovely sculpt too, from the hands of Mike Blank, and was originally cast and marketed by Steve Crisp of Darkstar Miniatures. Steve unfortunately suffered from ill health, and decided to close down his casting of miniatures, and so Rob Lane of Elan 13 took over the ownership of this kit and expanded the range to include several English Civil War subjects sculpted ( like this one ) by Mike Blank.
I got an early version whilst Steve was just starting selling these, my wife Ruth bought me this as part of my Christmas presents.
Photo #1 shows the box art – not something that shouts at you, but it’s a little gem inside I assure you. All the parts are well formed, cast in a cream coloured resin and fit together well.
My only moan, and it’s a general moan really, is resin swords. This one is so fine, but like most resin weapons it has a lovely curve in it. A dip in hot liquid ( tea or coffee is my favourite, although I’m not advocating that you use the same method ) is said to sort this out, but I can’t say I’ve met with much success, but at least I get to drink the stuff afterwards.
So I looked at that and thought – that’ll get replaced at some point.
Otherwise, a little bit of work with a file and a little bit of scraping with a scalpel. Drill up into his legs for some wire pins and he’s ready to paint.
Oh, the parts split – better tell you about that. The main casting takes in the legs, body head and arms, with additional parts for right and left hands with the sword and hat being integral parts of those respectively. Finally there is a separate part for the scabbard and two tiny little spurs for the boot heels.
On to photo #2, and with my usual impatience I’ve begun painting. As usual I added a primer coat of a sand coloured acrylic mixed with a lot of Isopropyl Alcohol as a first layer, then a couple more coats of the same paint mixed with water. I painted the face first, and there are a couple of things here to note. There’s a lot of expression on the face that can be enhanced by careful use of a fine brush, and the eyes are very deeply set. They’re there alright, but you’ll need a good brush with a fine point to make the most of them.
The buff coat is a joy to paint, in fact there’s lots of leather to be depicted on this piece so a bit of planning on colour variation will pay dividends later on. I chose a yellow colour that is so often linked to the coats, and ( unusually some might say ) chose to use acrylics. I wanted a spotted and stained effect, and by starting with a mix of Chaos Black and Iyandan Darksun ( Both Games Workshop paints, the latter being a sand colour ).
This established the shadow colour, although I would add deeper shading later on. First though to get some mid-tones built up.
An important thing to note here is that if you’re going to try to produce a spotted, stained or woven effect on clothing, then you need to start the effect off right from the beginning. With this stained look in mind, I added thin spots and squiggles to the coat in a very dilute mix of the original colour, but adding a touch of the sand colour to lighten it. This process took ages as I gradually added more Iyandan Darksun paint and further diluted the mix to keep it from becoming too thick.
Once I was using almost pure sand colour, I then began adding in Kommando Khaki – again a lighter colour than the Iyandan Darksun, more of a pale buff colour really, and continued painting spots and squiggles. Once I was through to just the pure Khaki I then added a little Skull White, again to lighten the mix.
All this time I was working on smaller and smaller areas, building up to highlights once I was happy with the mid-tones. The end effect is shown in photos #2 and #3 – a spotted and stained leather coat.
The model leaps forward again in photos #4 and #5, where I’ve added some oil washes to the areas of the coat that I wanted in deep shadow, painted in the belt using brown oil colours and also added some nice scarlet trousers. I did consider painting these blue, but I have terrible trouble getting blue to matt down properly and though red would be an easier option. The final touch in this shot was the white of the shirt collar. Again I reverted to acrylics for this, building up mid-tones and highlights on this area to bring out the lace effect that has been sculpted into that part of the kit.
The boots – as I said, lots of options for depicting leather. These are begun in photo #6 and completed in photo #7. I chose oils because i find them good to paint with, I can add lots of scuffs and small tears and the variation of colour makes for easy changes in hue.
As each section of oil paint was completed, I had time on my hands whilst it dried. Idle hands and all that......
I’d been thinking where I could place out hero – at the battle’s end, dejected and lost; maybe he’d retreated to some sanctuary or other...... That was it, seeking sanctuary in one of the few places that would be respected by both sides, a church.
I didn’t want to have to build a whole cathedral – hey that take years to build, so thought I’d scout through my drawers of rubbish ( as my partner terms them, or “useful bits” as I prefer them to be known.
I turned up a Greek Column that I’d made some years ago, and this seemed like it could be pressed into service as part of a church. I cut it lengthways so that it was actually only a quarter of the whole column when looked at from above – saving space on the base – and pinned and glued it in position on the base. I added a paved floor section and step from Milliput, marking in the joints between the slabs whilst the putty was still soft. The painted base is shown in photo #8, and whilst it looks OK, the floor’s a bit clean.
I solved that by adding some straw ( OK it’s deer hair from a section of deer hide that I got from a fishing tackle shop ) and some miniature leaves – the seed husks from a Birch tree, all glued in place with some thinned down Matt Acrylic Medium.
As you can see from the shot in photo #9 it’s a bit untidy, but after it all dried I trimmed off the overhanging ends of the deer hair and you can see that in the photos showing the finished model.
As for completing the painting, well it was only small areas to paint in now – the hair, for which I chose a sort of brown going grey look ( well fighting losing battles must be very stressful, premature greying was probably preferrable to death ). The metallic parts were treated to paint too, and here’s where I came to tackle the sword.
Ok, sword, hands and hat........ Um ?
So go on, tell me it’s not happened to you then. You start a model, in my case several models are on the go at any one time ( I’m looking at six that are looking at me in an accusing manner on the painting bench next to me as I type ), and, well...... Where did I put those parts ?
I mean, they were put in a very safe place obviously.
Two evenings looking high and low, and I couldn’t find the darn things.
I know, I’ll email Steve at Darkstar and see if I can buy some spares. “No problem” was the answer, Steve’s away at the moment, but when he gets back at the weekend, he’ll sort it out.
And of course at that point ( OK about an hour later ) I open up a completely unrelated box and what do I find....... Yup, very safely stored parts for this kit, albeit with separate parts for a couple of other pieces that were on the bench at the same time.
A quick email to Steve’s good lady to say “thanks, but the disaster has been solved”, yes I was embarrassed about it too; but I could get on with the painting.
So, that sword.
I’ve seen and read a fair bit about a method of painting metal items with non-metallic paints. Similar to the method when painting flat figures really, but much more difficult because the viewing point can be changed with a three dimensional piece whereas with a flat the viewer is constrained to looking at the piece from one direction only.
I thought I’d have a go, but first I had to make the sword blade itself.
I tried brass shim – too thin and to be honest too brittle to cut effectively into the size I wanted.
I tried Magic Sculpt, rolling out an nice thin sheet, allowing it to harden and then cutting out roughly the shape I wanted and filing it and sanding it to size......... Beautiful, but more of a curve on it than the original !
Final go then, I tried plasic sheet. This worked much better, but I think I’ve not reduced the width and depth of the blade enough. I wanted it to be a heavier sword than is given in the kit, but I’m still learning at this kind of thing ( I don’t do weapons all that much – so I probably need more practice ), anyway, painting, let’s add some colour to it.
NMM or non metallic metal is the use of flat colours to fool the eye into thinking that the area is in fact reflective and of mettallic construction. Done well, it looks good; done by me ........ probably not so much.
Anyway, the plan is to begin with a dark colour, in this case a very dark blue, and then choose areas where light would catch the blade and cause “shine”. This all depends on what is reflecting in the mirror-like surface of the metal, and usually results in a couple of areas on each face catching such reflections / light.
By adding white to the blue colour these areas can then be built up with final highlights in pure white, and then going round sections of the upper edges to put with highlights on those, along with a small curve highlight on the end of the blood gutter towards the tip of the blade, and a nice sharp looking point.
Whether it works or not, well I’ll leave that up to you, there’s far better examples of this method out there, but as a first try I’m happy enough with it.
At this point the figure looks good, but a little too clean. He's been in a fight, and he's got no evidence of that at this point.
So, hair, weapons, and some blood spatter on the front of his coat and that was him done. Time to attach him to the base and see how it all looks.
Oh, that plinth. A nice one from oakwood Studios, again the colours of the wood matching in to the overall browns of the leather and the stonework.
Final thoughts.
This is a nice little kit, it’s exactly what it says, a defeated man, looking dejected and all in. Clever putty pushing from that Swedish chap. The casting and fit of parts was very good, and the painting can be as simple or complex as you like. I have seen an example on the internet being painted with a green coat. I’m not so sure about that, but the idea of dying leather, or even covering it with a different material have been around for centuries before the time that this model is depicted in, so it’s really just a case of research, thought and a little imagination I suppose.
In a display, this i feel is a “sleeper” one of those quiet pieces that sits there and only gets noticed when you really look at it. Then it really grabs you.
There is a companion piece that Darkstar released – one of Oliver Cromwell. It’s the same scale and again is sculpted by Mike Blank, so what’s not to like.
As mentioned, this model and the Oliver Cromwell kit as well as a few others are now available from Elan 13 Miniatures
Elan 13 Miniatures website is - http://www.elan13.co.uk/
We need your consent to load the translations
We use a third-party service to translate the website content that may collect data about your activity. Please review the details in the privacy policy and accept the service to view the translations.