Our Jud
I've known for quite a while that Artizan have a George Orwell
figure. It’s sold here under Orwell's real name of Eric Blair.
Its 28mm so you may be wondering
why it has been mentioned in this here 15mm wargame blog?
I have long wanted an original
banner for the blog and I thought that buying the figure and painting it would
be a great start and I might head towards a diorama at a later date.
The figure looked a little
chubby on the website but in reality doesn't look too bad. Very little flash on the figure and an excellent sculpt, The figure was mounted into a lipped round base which was filled with a mixture of filler and fine sand.
The first
choice to make was the colour of undercoat. For my desert warfare
painting I tend to undercoat in Desert Yellow. This tends to make the
final figure have a bit more of warm feel. Orwell's wife, Eileen, did
describe his complex during the war as "...dark brown,
and looking really very well.”
However I wanted my George to be a little pasty and
grubby. To draw the colour down I opted
for straight forward grey primer.
The colour palette choices after that were a simple 1930's bland brown and greys with splash of brightness in the scarf. I added a "blue collar" shirt to try and hint at Orwell's working class allegiances.
George Orwell volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War in December 1936. Unusually he did not join the International Brigade but opted to join the Marxist POUM. This was The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). This decision nearly well cost him liberty and, indeed, his life when the POUM was purged by their rivals in the Communist Party in June 1937.
Famously, Orwell was involved in fight around the Catalonia front where he was inspired to write the poem that is the title of this blog and was also where he was shot in the neck. There seemed to be no lasting effects from his injury and he managed to escape from Spain with his wife Eileen during the purges and recovered from his wound in Morocco.
The colour palette choices after that were a simple 1930's bland brown and greys with splash of brightness in the scarf. I added a "blue collar" shirt to try and hint at Orwell's working class allegiances.
George Orwell volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War in December 1936. Unusually he did not join the International Brigade but opted to join the Marxist POUM. This was The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). This decision nearly well cost him liberty and, indeed, his life when the POUM was purged by their rivals in the Communist Party in June 1937.
Famously, Orwell was involved in fight around the Catalonia front where he was inspired to write the poem that is the title of this blog and was also where he was shot in the neck. There seemed to be no lasting effects from his injury and he managed to escape from Spain with his wife Eileen during the purges and recovered from his wound in Morocco.
¡No pasarán!
Very nice work! I've painted one of those figures too, they're really characterful
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