Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Painting Challenge Theme Round II - The Villain(s)



For my submission for the villains challenge, I present the Man Eating Lions of Tsavo.  The original lions were notorious for eating railway workers in British East Africa in the Late Victorian era.  They have been immortalized in books, films (The Ghost and the Darkness) and in stuffed form at the Field Museum in Chicago (I've included a shot of the real McCoy at the Field).  They decided that humans were more abundant, slower and tastier than regular Lion Chow.

More details can be found at the link

The figures are 28mm Ral Partha lionesses and were primed at least 10 years ago and possibly in the last millennium!  The original lions were males, but male Tsavo lions are maneless and a little sickly so it works as the other key differences between lions and lionesses are not visible on the figures.  I added a potential victim, gifted to me by Padre Mike in one of his visits last year.

The longest lived lion took numerous rifle hits and finally succumbed to 3 close range shots from a Martini-Henri.

Recent scientific research as reduced the number of kills accredited to these two puddy-tats.  Chemical analysis shows that one lion consumed 10.5 and 24.2 humans respectively.  Personally I think there are some questions that science doesn't need to answer.

6 comments:

  1. A great idea Peter and nicely realised.

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    1. Michael
      Thanks. Truth be told, it was a dig through the spares bag on deadline date that got me started. But once I found the first lions, the wheels started rolling.
      Cheers
      PD

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  2. Nice to see the different interpretation for this round . These are rather fine.

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  3. Love the lions and ... hey, I recognize her! It's going to take more than two puddy tats to take that Queen of the Jungle down! Nice work, Peter.
    Michael (shivering in some of that polar vortex weather that makes it feel like the prairie)

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  4. Nice work Admiral and when in doubt, print the legend!

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    Replies
    1. Conrad

      I never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
      Cheers
      PD

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