Thursday, January 9, 2014

Ed Phillips: SYW Modeler Extraordinaire

French siege works in SYW - modeled by Ed Phillips. (click to enlarge)

Here are a couple of pictures of some French artillery emplacements that were scratch built by Ed Phillips and displayed at the 2013 Seven Years War Convention. His models usually sell out within minutes of their being displayed on the table for the first time. All the more reason to get to the convention early.

Note to Ed: I need to order two gun emplacements for my 12 pounders. Also, a coach for Frederick II to ride around in ( I can provide the coach horses and a driver or two).

Ed uses bits and pieces from various figure ranges such as Old Glory wheels and axles and many others. In these pictures, I can identify an Elite Miniatures French 12-pounder and some Minden Pioneers painted as French artillerists in red waistcoats. The fascines shown in the works appear to be fibre bristles taken from a common whisk broom.

I run out superlatives in my feeble attempts to describe these wonderful models. You never know what Ed is working on or what he will bring to the SYW convention each year. Once I started looking through my collection of photographs of Ed's modeling work, I decided that I had to include more piccies, so this blog entry has expanded into a more comprehensive look at Ed's work.

More siege works by Ed Phillips (plus some interesting models in the background - click to enlarge)
Ed's Field Bakery with Minden Pioneers employed as the help.

A portable field mill for grinding wheat into flour for the field bakery.

French SYW engineers setting up some pontoons to cross the river.

Another view of the pontoon bridging crew. Minden pioneers. Everything else is scratch built.


A view of the pontoon bridge under construction.


A camp vignette with a lot of detail.

French field forge.

There seems to be no limits to Ed's imagination when it comes to building models and vignettes for the Seven Years War. One of the highlights of the convention for me is to see what surprises he is bringing to the show. As you can see from the pictures, Ed is a very talented modeler and I think that he deserves some publicity for his work.



10 comments:

  1. Outstanding models! Another good reason to attend the SYW Convention.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Geeze! I'll be awake now for hours thinking about these models and scenes. Great stuff.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

    ReplyDelete
  3. Indeed, a wonderful collection of 18. century military life. Thank you, Alter Fritz, bringing these impressions around the globe! They are really inspiring!
    _Peter

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very nice models indeed. Do you already have concrete plans for the next Minden releases?

    ReplyDelete
  5. @ Additz: I'm fairly certain that we will do some cavalry for the western theatre of Germany - French Cuirassiers du Roi and Cavalry in bearskins; then the British 2nd Dragoons ( the Greys) wearing mitre caps. And then fill out the first batch with some uniformed wagon drivers for Austria and Prussia.

    Richard will start on these after he finishes the second wave of AWI dragoons for the Kickstarter project. I would then like to alternate between AWI and SYW figures with each new release.

    Jim (DAF)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wonderful models, he is agreat artist!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hello, Jim.
    I will certainly be in the market for French Cuirassiers & Horse in Bearskins. I look forward to seeing these. Any plans for some Prussian Freikorps types - eg von Kleist?
    Cheers, Rohan.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hello again, Jim. Hope you are thawing out - would be happy to send you some of our heat if I could!

    In addition to future figures in my comment above, I also look forward to the uniformed wagon drivers you mention & possibly riders for team horses that are in a long tailed uniform coat with tricorne suitable for 7YW team drivers?

    I wonder if a French grenadier in bearskin hat with turnbacks, but no lapels or lace would be possible for the French foreign & later ordinary regiments would be possible?

    Also, some pioneer types for the other nations to follow on from the great Prussian Zimmerleute.

    Cheers for now, Rohan.

    ReplyDelete
  9. No doubt those are some brilliant modelling work!

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete