Wednesday 5 October 2016

Magua (2)

This is the first Indian/Native American figure that I've painted in 6 years.  I painted a horde of Conquest Miniatures Iroquois back in 2006 (see here) and then more Conquest and Perry figures over the course of 2006/2007.  I finished off the figures in the Perry range in 2009 (see here) and added the Conquest figures of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa in 2010.   That gave me about 60 foot figures, with 3 mounted and a pack of civilians.  That's more than enough for most AWI needs, other than Oriskany (for which you need a lot of Indians - I'll run through the "British Grenadier!" scenario requirements for Indians when I next paint up a pack of Conquest figures).

I can't recall when or where I picked up this Conquest Miniatures version of Magua, as potrayed by Wes Studi in "Last of the Mohicans", but he'd been on the painting desk half-painted for a while and I finally finished him off when I was painting the loyalist camp I posted about earlier.  Conquest do two Magua figures.  The first is from a pack of "Last of the Mohicans" characters, and shows Magua in the outfit he wore when leading a British column, with Colonel Munro's daughters, into an ambush.  A photo of that figure is below for comparison (and the relevant blog post is here).  The second figure shows Magua celebrating his slaughter of Munro and other British troops after they leave Fort William Henry.  I started painting this figure as a generic Indian before I realised that there was no excuse for not painting Magua as he appears in the film (see above).

For the flesh I used Foundry's "Native American Flesh" 120 palette, which I'd previously tried out on the figures of Tecumseh and his brother.  Before that I had used my standard flesh palette, and this produced figures with rather "white" skin.  The colours of the clothing and equipment are not 100% accurate when compared to the photo of Wes Studi, but I think the overall effect is pretty similar.  I perhaps could have done with a bit more black paint on the right upper arm.  The black zig-zags are on his head, but are difficult to see in the photos, and I tried to add that shaven-headed look with a thin grey wash.  I base chieftains on 2 pence pieces and "rank and file" on square bases, so it's easier to tell who's who in games.  Magua perhaps deserves to be based as a chief, but I have enough of those (and indeed my other Magua is based that way) so he's just another brave.  

1 figure.  Painted September 2016.


 
      

7 comments:

David said...

Nice work there Giles!

AJ (Allan) Wright said...

Looks great to me! For more reference material, there are some good photos of native American reenactors on my blog here: http://ajs-wargaming.blogspot.com/2016/07/fort-ticonderoga-2016-reenactment.html

AJ

Michael Awdry said...

That's a striking piece of work Giles.

Dalauppror said...

Exellent paintwork indeed!

Stefan (aka. Monty) said...

Excellent piece of work, Giles.

Simon said...

Great work, I always feel the Woodlands Indians get a raw deal in Wargames rules. They did fight well on many occasions and on their own terms.

Willie Anderson said...

Look great Giles