Remember a very long time ago when I posted a wild west diorama showing a saloon with a group of desperate looking men posing for a photo? Well, its been a long time since I last looked at that scene and imagine my surprise when I saw how much things had changed at that saloon.
The season had changed from winter to summer and there was no sign of the photographer and looking at the scene I am not surprised that he had hightailed it.
Bursting out of the saloon was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid who after downing a quiet beer or two inside the Long Branch saloon had suddenly realised that a group of tough looking men had gathered outside no doubt eager to claim the reward money on the two wanted bandits.
As they shot out of the saloon (literally) the quick shooting Sundance took down a young cowboy and a drunken Mexican in the blink of an eye and noticed an older man on his knee loading his rifle. Butch was eyeing up a steely eyed Wyatt Earp on his right who was aiming straight at them. A couple of bystanders who had just decided to take an early afternoon whisky was taken aback by this sudden turn of events but no one had noticed Doc Holliday with his shotgun standing near the edge of the saloon forecourt.
Did Butch and Sundance manage to get out of this fix? Well, like the real life events, nobody really knows, and that is how I want to leave my new scene, but look at the nameplate, isn't that Liberty Valance and Jack Wilson waiting in the wings?



This scene consists of eleven 54mm figures from Andrea Miniatures fixed onto a saloon backdrop also from Andrea. The saloon was repainted with watered down colours over where "saloon" is written to give it a sun dried and faded look. I decided to remove the canopy over the boardwalk as I wanted the light to get to the whole frontage and I replaced this with real wooden struts. The majority of the figures used to be set on single bases and I repainted these. I also wanted this scene to be in summer rather than winter so a lot of scraping took place removing the old snow scene. I utilised the original homemade base but replaced the nameplate and just for originality added Liberty and Jack next to it.
Not much can be seen of the interior of the saloon on these photos but I printed off on photocard a generic image of a western saloon interior and fixed this to the back of the doors in a looped manner fixed at the back to give a 3D perspective. The top and bottom of this was covered with dark card. I think this gives a better effect than just plain black card. I have shown a flash effect photo of this to give you some idea of what I mean. The printed nameplate I edged with the same type of wood as the canopy struts to emphasise a wild western look.
What I wanted to portray here was movement, hence the Mexican appearing to fall backwards and the flap of Wyatt Earp's coat as well as the running of Butch and Sundance.
The whole scene is much like the original incarnation of this scene; a bit of fun. As far as I know, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday never met Butch and Sundance, and as far as history tells, Butch and Sundance met their ends much further south of the border. Or did they?

Superb, all my favourite westerns rolled into one. A great idea, well executed.
Well done Sir.

Thanks Bob.

That is some serious imagination!

Beautiful ,great work and painted

Mobo

Thanks Winfield and Mobo.
Thanks very much Nap. I don't get on here as often as I would like as it takes me much longer to paint than it used to. The old eyes you know.
John

Nap,
Would you mind sending me a private message. I would message you but its been such a long time I have forgotten how!!

Thats brilliant

This is fantastic John, love what you have done with the figures and the scene itself.
Steve

Excellent work...

Wonderful presentation of all these old figures John.
The scene will definitely catch the eyes of passers-by at shows.

Cheers,
Andrew

Excellent! Full of action!