R is for Real Armeria or 'Royal Armories'

Having looked at museum exhibits from Brain the last two days (as well as the knights we looked at in a past Papo post; also from Mr. B), it was rather fortuitous I picked this up at Sandown last Saturday, well, actually Mr. Little as good as gave it to me at the end of the show - so big shout out to Mercator Trading.

Before cleaning

I give you Philip III of Spain (and the various other places he claimed!) C1570-1621 wearing his Milanese-made Parade armour which I'm assuming is on show at the Madrid Royal Armories.

I think I first saw these in Plastic Warrior magazine about 20 years ago (?), and I seem to recall there are others (I remember two?) to find (my back-issues are in storage so I can't check), also; I think there are larger versions, more like the Marx and Aurora kits, but I might be making that last bit up as I go along?

Or maybe the Marx or Aurora kits - someone else made some large knights, one of the Japanese kit makers; Crown? Aoshima? - were the larger ones, also made-up for sale in the museum's gift-shop?

After cleaning

Whatever the facts, the smaller ones as seen here are exquisite little polystyrene kits, a tad smaller than 54mm (closer to 50-mil or 1:35th scale) made-up and painted as a commercial exercise, the smaller and larger plinths also being in styrene, as is the base-plate.

He needed a dusting and re-gluing but I tend to shoot the show-stuff as I'm doing the initial sort and before I get round to cleaning, so the four-way image above has him teetering . . . the camera may never lie, but it can hide a multitude of sins and this two way highlights the poor finish, but he is now glued firmly back on his plinth.

Decoration is minimal with a gunmetal wash, silver over that and an over-paint or wash of a nice pale-gold which shines well in the light, minimal colour has been applied to the saddle-cloth and the horse gets a few splodges of thinned-black, however, all this appears to have happened after assembly so the sides of Phillip and the armpit area are bereft of decoration,

You can also see a richer, yellower gold used for highlights on the horse furniture and saddle and the only damage I can find is the very tip of the sword has been lost, but a dab of paint at some point will all but hide the fact it's not there.