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01/04/2022 12:58 pm
Most of you know I love to make dioramas and figures. My mentor and hero was Howard Shepherd "Shep" Paine, a military historian and builder of dioramas and window boxes modeling historical events. He wrote many how-to books that I absorbed and for those of you that built those fantastic Monogram models back in the day with all the figures and accessories along with a multi-page tutorial to create your own dioramas, he conceived, designed and built the prototypes for virtually all of them. Born in July of 1946 in Berlin, he was a month younger than I and sadly died of a stroke in 2015. There are quite a few biographies a a slew of images of his works.
When Franklin Mint commissioned 'Shep' to make the prototype of their pewter sculpture "To The Last Man" commemorating the siege of the Alamo, I had to buy it just to have a piece of my hero. To their credit, the Mint did a fantastic job with every casting perfectly chased and finished. Shep was always great at imbuing emotions and drama to his figures and it really shows in this battle vignette. The scale is roughly 1/24.
01/04/2022 1:01 pm
Thanks so much for posting this Rich! I haven't seen it for quite some time and never, ever photographed so well as right here! It gives me chills!
Jack Dodds and Jack Dodds reacted
01/04/2022 4:11 pm
What a fantastic diorama. You are right Rich, the figures are filled with emotions and drama.
Thanks for sharing this fine Franklin Mint piece and the story of Howard Shephard 'Shep' Paine
01/04/2022 6:41 pm
Great diorama of a famous event in Texas and American history. Thanks for posting.
Ed Davis
Inverness, Illinois, USA