Early Don Trioni art

 

Back in day (1972-76) I eagerly awaited the arrival in my local library of the latest edition of American Heritage.  This was a hard bound magazine with always interesting articles on American History.  I was esp impressed by a series on battles of the American Revolution that featured a battle painting of some incident during that action as well as a couple uniform figures.  These were done by a new young artist named Don Troiani.  Although familiar to most of us now, back then he was the new kid on the block.  His style of painting was much different then today,; less realistic but with great charm.  And the uniform details were amazing to someone just studying the period and learning about it. The battles he did were outstanding.  I think Fort Griswold and White Plains were my favorite.

Interestingly through my friends in a reenactment group (the 43rd Regiment/2nd Pennsylvania regiment:  Hello Tom and Mark Vogley!) I not only knew people who were models for his paintings but once quickly got to met him.    Since then I have always had a affection for his early work much more then his newer more realistic work.  So recently it was fun to find on the internet a bunch if his uniform studies from these works.  They were from a auction site (Heritage Auctions.com)  and had been sold about six or more years ago.  I am posting them here for mine and others enjoyment.

If anyone has copies of any of his battle studies from these American Heritage article I would love to see them.

In addition there were a number of illustrations done by Don for the National Park Service.  At Saratoga a number of "waysides" (historical markers) include illustrations done by Don with research provided by Tony Tommel in the 1980's.  In addition I know through the staff at Guilford Courthouse that he has done a lot of work for them.  Many of his illustrations were printed in Tom Baker's book on the battle.  Here are a few of these illustrations which are posted on the internet and I believe are in the public domain.  If the owners of any of these pictures object to having me  post their art here I will remove them right away or give then credit.

Here are some of the Saratoga and Guilford Courthouse art.  First from Saratoga NHP:

Here are some from Guilford Courthouse NHP:

It was great fun to go down memory lane, and also see how a famous artist has grown and developed his talent over the years.  These are great for using as uniform studies for our miniature soldier.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.  Again if you have any that have not shown I would love to see them.

Work in progress: KPW militia

 

Slowly making progress painting the Puritan militia figures from Brigade games.  These are typical civilian dressed figures representing the field forces sent to combat the native warriors or defenders if the local town.  The figures are nice with good details and pretty easy to paint.  But being used to mass painting uninformed regulars its a bit different having to make up civilian colors and make sure each figure is different.

Once done I will be mounting the figures individually on round bases.  And since they will be handled a lot extra garnishing to protect the painting.

Next up will be the Wampanoag warriors of Philip himself.  In addition I have a number of wagons and more armed civilians on order from  Warfare miniatures USA.  These are I believe the League of Augsburg line ief figures.  The wagons can be used for all of my miniature collections and the figures are wearing the correct clothing for the period.  More on these once they arrive!

Painting will be on hold for a couple of days as we are off to visit Maine this weekend.

Wings of War game

 

In cleaning up the basement and garage I found my collection of Wings of War (now Wings of Glory) WW1 planes.  They were well protected but the cards were a jumble so it took a couple hours to sort them out and find all the playing aids.   I set up my game mats and a couple of the planes just to cheer myself up and get in the mood for a game.  There are a couple people on the internet who have made solo play rules which I am interested in try out soon.

German Planes:

Allied Planes:

One thing I have enjoyed is repainting some of the models.  I like the planes as they come but gave repainted a few.  These include a number of Triplanes as the Jasta 19 with their distinctive yellow and black tails:

And a number of Nieuport's for the Lafayette Escadrille:

Here is David Putnam's Spad I painted based on a picture of his plane.  Flying with him is fellow American ace Eddie Rickenbacker:

I am planning on repainting the two SE5a's I have for the 56th Squadron and the aircraft flown by Arthur Rhys-Davids and James McCudden.  I have always liked these planes and these two men were some of my favorite aces:

And George Guynemer's Spad which is right out of the box and great looking: