I bought a box of Mars Tufekei to go with my Ottoman army. I was intending to use them as line troops, not skirmishers, as you get a lot of guys with muskets, and Tufekei don't seem to have much of a battlefield role.
Now Mars have a reputation for producing slightly ugly figures. But then so did Strelets, and they actually paint up okay. But these guys really are horrible, and it is beyond my painting skills to render them as anything other than passable at a distance.
I set up the booth for some pictures, but couldn't get the lighting right. Probably improves the look of them. I did a red and a blue unit. These are the reds. I should probably should have got another box or two, so I can put together units with meaningful poses. Or perhaps not, as that would only increase the number of units I'd need to hide at the back.
The command group look okay, except for some stray paper that adhered itself to the varnish which I only noticed when I took the picture.
The funny hats are authentic, but aren't well rendered.
I have more of these, but in "mufti" rather than parade ground dress. Perhaps they'll look better. Or maybe not.
My. Those are horrible figures.
Mars reputation for ugly figures is well documented but you have done a decent job on them, they look fine. I was going to get some of their 30 years war figures, now they are a real mixed bag, some nice figures but some real horrors! They will probably look good on the table though.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm not so sure the job is decent, the awfulness of it all is concealed in some indistinct photography. I find that by painting in things like contrasting buttons and the odd moustache you can get away with a blocked in paint job and magic dip varnish. My regret with the figures I'm using and the paint scheme adopted is that many, many, years ago I resolved to paint muskets for my early 18th century troops black. I think the look would be improved if I painted them brown and gave them gun metal barrels. I have no intention of repainting the whole lot.
DeleteUgh!
ReplyDeleteThat sums it up, I think. On the other hand, the anatomical proportions are better than on a lot of modern 28s.
DeleteI have a soft spot for Mars figures, used a lot in my 2 TYW armies, can be a bit 'quirky ' I admit
ReplyDeleteI think these are my first. I don't think I have any in any of my other armies, unless I picked up some in a random bag of figures given to me by someone at work. Part of the issue is that they're going to look a little blobby next to the other figures I'm using. The TYW figures look a lot better than these, despite similarly low scores on PSR.
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