Ral Partha Pirates & 3 Musketeers

Ral Partha Pirates (left) and 3 Musketeers (right). Click twice to enlarge view.

Here are some pictures of a recent painting commission, just completed in time for the client to give to his son for a Christmas present. What a nice Dad! Don't you agree. He gave me a packet of Ral Partha Pirates and denizens of The Three Musketeers and told me to get creative in how I painted them. Some of the figures reminded me of minor celebrities, so I have given them names. See if you agree.

Two Musketeers square off against two of the Cardinal's Guards. The chap on the far right is my favorite figure of the whole bunch.

Actually, I think that we have the Three Musketeers here, but one of them has switched sides, at the client's request, so that he could have a two on two sword fight. Porthos, on the far left, is holding a leg of lamb in one hand.

The Bad Guys

I really enjoyed painting a couple of the Cardinal's Guards. They red and black combination of colors looks stunning, IMHO. I really like the guy on the right, wearing a leather jerkin with metal rings on it, he also has an eye patch covering one eye, so he looks suitably evil to me. I replaced a cross bow weapon that he came with with a Front Rank heavy cavalry sword because he looked more like an accomplished blademan, rather than a timid cross bow soldier.

More fellows from the 1600s.

I guess that these two fellows could be appearing during the 1600s in Paris, fighting on the side of the King's Musketeers perhaps.

Pirates! (l-R) Brian Blessed, Stephen Lang and Hulk Hogan

Here are some of the Pirates. A lot of them seem to be missing a few arms and legs. The Pirate Captain was a joy to paint as he has a lot of character. The guy in the yellow shirt reminded me of Stephen Lang in his role as Ike Clanton in the movie Tombstone. The bare chested fellow could be none other than Hulk Hogan.

(L-R) Monty Python, Kurt Russell, Terry Bradshaw and Bruce Willis.

It must really be hard to get good help these days. Look at this motley crew, every one of them is missing either a hand or a leg or even both. The fellow second from the left reminded me of Kurt Russell in his Snake Pliskin role in Escape From New York. The fellow in the blue trousers and bald pate reminded me of Terry Bradshaw. Speedy, on the far right was kind of tough to tag a name to. Sort of looks like Bruce Willis when he shaves his head or wears his hair very short. Maybe you can come up with a couple better ideas for names.

I could almost see getting into The Three Musketeers as a skirmish game. It could be fun to play, and even more fun to paint.