A kingly gift

You may have noticed that Ali's work has been conspicuous by it's absence from this blog in the last few months. That's mainly because she has been very busy illustrating her first Children's book (very good it is too!) so hasn't had the time to paint many miniatures. There have been a few though - and this one was a present for my last birthday, way back in June. I have always loved the (sadly now defunct) Ilyad range, and this one (Empereur Haghendorf I believe) is just one of my all time favourite sculpts. It's by the incomparable Jaques-Alexandre Gillios - and I think it's a work of art. It's a great example of how a static pose can be full of dynamic energy and movement. Ali's painting is beautiful too - perfect colour choice (as always - she has sickeningly good colour sense...), and she has really captured the character of the sculpt.

We have a Small but very precious supply of Ilyad miniatures and I am really keen to paint one myself - I have always been a little nervous to tackle one though - the sculpting is so amazing that I really wanted to be able to do it justice with the painting... I do feel that I am painting at a level where I could be happy with the results now though (for the first time in about 12 years!) - maybe I'll give it a go. I'll add it to the list....

One other quick thing for this post. I said that I had found other items in my 'buried treasure' that I might share here. This letter made Ali and I laugh - it's from March 1987. Shortly after that I got taken into the Design Studio for a trial period - and they offered me full time work in April 1987...