Tsarskoye Selo

[Flashcad]

To the admiring gaze of the Tsarina Alexandra and their two oldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana, Tsar Nicholas II inspects his troops on the lawn at Tsarskoye Selo in July 1914. As the Motherland mobilizes for the war that would sweep him and his entire family into the dust of history.
All figures are assembled and painted 54mm white metal kits.















Couldn't resist adding the German Kaiser's Ambassador to the Imperial Court at the back of the scene.

[Bluefalchion]

Marvelous! The haughty bearing and the (100 year old fashion) military uniforms mark the Tsar's daughters out as true future standard bearers of the regime.

[Kostis Ornerakis]

Great work as always!

[C M Dodson]

Very nice indeed.

Beautiful painting and a nice composition.

Best wishes,

Chris

[dombom]

Wonderful paint job, very well done

[Flashcad]

Thanks for the likes guys -- glad you enjoyed the small vignette.
I finally found a few more photos of the ladies.










It's a little known fact that all three visited London in 1908 during a renewed "Jack the Ripper" copycat scare, which was all hushed up to avert another public panic. According to trusted sources within the Royal household, King Edward VII took the Tsarina and both Imperial Grand Duchesses for A Royal Night Out on the town, including a visit to a well-known address on Baker Street, (221B). Where he then introduced them to the Private Detective who finally cracked the case. (Apparently it was the Tailor next door that committed the reprehensible crimes -- elementary, I would have thought).


After enjoying a few popular R'n'B numbers from The Ike & Tina Turner Review Tribute Band and admiring the efforts of the three young backing singers/dancers...


...then posing for a few PR photos taken on a red carpet by the gutter press paparazzi, urban legend has it that they all retired to the "Old King's Head" pub for a sing-song with the great unwashed -- and a pint or six of Old Peculiar Real Ale.


Whereupon, around 03:00AM and after several raucous renditions of "Knees Up Mother Brown", they had to be poured back into that hired luxury coach by their Uber driver and driven back to Buck Palace for a day or two of recovery time before catching a private yacht back to St Petersburg.


Or so it was reported by the UK's Daily Mail -- so it must have been true.
... ...

[Kostis Ornerakis]

Wonderful Victorian London vignette!!

[Susofrick]

Hmm, have read something about that address somewhere! Oh, that mentioning of that tribute-band makes me miss the old days at the local bluesclub (really a jazzclub and shutdown 'cause the people in charge decided to book the bands from their youth who all costed too much and draw to little people. A little unkonown guy called Bo Diddley had a great time there, but he wasn't booked by them.

[Flashcad]

Hmm, have read something about that address somewhere! Oh, that mentioning of that tribute-band makes me miss the old days at the local bluesclub (really a jazzclub and shutdown 'cause the people in charge decided to book the bands from their youth who all costed too much and draw to little people. A little unkonown guy called Bo Diddley had a great time there, but he wasn't booked by them.

Bo Diddley?
Now there's a name I haven't heard anyone mention for a very long time.
You must be as old as me...

[Flashcad]

Wonderful Victorian London vignette!!

It's a long-term project that was originally to be based on one of the three short stories in George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman and the Tiger".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... tkin_p2_i3

I then had the "stunning idea" to expand it into a series of scenes with an elderly General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, KGB, Etcetera, boring the pants off fellow members of his London club as he reminisces over his past adventures. Problem is, the pandemic has caused problems with importing kit figures from the UK, so the expanded project has been put on hold for the time being.
However, my interest in doing Flashman's encounter with Sherlock Holmes, (as per the short story in "Flashman and the Tiger"), has been rekindled recently and I'll be making an effort to finally get it done over the next few months; especially as I do have kit figures that will represent the majority of the characters, including Holmes and Watson -- albeit they still have to be assembled and painted.

The King Edward VII figure was a conversion of this chap:-




And here's the younger version of Flashy from "Flashman in the Great Game" -- again, he's a converted kit figure.


I intend to feature several other characters, both fictional and historical, from the Victorian and Edwardian era's.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is based on an Undertaker kit from Andrea Miniatures, while Varney the Vampyre is a slightly converted "Nosferatu" from the same manufacturer. One of the Chronos Miniature ladies is to be Flashy's granddaughter "Selina Flashman" and the other is the, umm, result of his misadventures in Russia after being captured while cowering in fear under the enemy guns at Balaclava, (see "Flashman at the Charge").




I'm not too sure how I'll shoehorn the criminal mastermind of Soho, Fu Manchu and his Femme Fatale hit-squad, into the story, but I'll eventually dream something up...


And Rudyard Kipling will be represented by this guy after I saw David Haig impersonating an Indian potentate in the BRILLIANT 2007 movie "My Boy Jack".




Completely off-topic, but "My Boy Jack", which is based on the play written by David Haig, is a movie that's well worth a re-watch every now and again.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0851430/

It features extremely powerful performances from all four principle actors.
Left-to-Right:-
Daniel Radcliffe/John Kipling
David Haig/Rudyard Kipling
Kim Cattrall/Caroline Kipling
Carey Mulligan/Elsie Kipling


Cheers the Noo

[Santi Pérez]

The diorama of "Tsarskoye Selo" is simply another masterpiece, Flashcad. I love everything in it, as well as the rest of the figures and vignettes included in this thread.

Santi.

[Peter]

Wonderfull brushwork!

And fantastic figures!

[Flashcad]

The diorama of "Tsarskoye Selo" is simply another masterpiece, Flashcad. I love everything in it, as well as the rest of the figures and vignettes included in this thread.

Santi.

I knew I would be using the three Ladies in my planned "Flashman" series of vignettes so instead of fixing them permanently into the diorama I glues pins into the base itself which line up with holes I drilled into the bottom of the figures. This means they're held securely in place, but can be removed from the diorama when I need them for other projects.
I would normally buy multiples of figures that I want to use in different scenes, but that's not an option with the Grand Duchesses because they went Out Of Production and I was lucky enough to get my hands on the final two kits of this particular figure that Chronos Miniatures had available.

Oh, almost forgot. The Tsar Nicky figure is from Spanish manufacturer, El Taller-Hobby Art, who do the most exquisite white metal 54mm mounted kit figures. And I have two more examples of them up my sleeve for use in the "Flashman" scenes I have planned.
Cheers

[Graeme]

I love the ladies in the czapkas.

And what a fabulous streetscape. Tudor half-timbering, Georgian Palladian, Regency stucco, and a Victorian shop front with low Gothic (ish) upper stories. I really enjoyed seeing this because the international borders are closed so I can't go to see the real thing.

The Dragon's pretty cool too.

[Kekso]

Lovely, smooth painting style.

[sansovino]

A wonderful scene with well painted figures

[MABO]

You really add a new part of the hobby to this forum.