Bill Brewer was another master modeller and painter who is sadly no longer with us. Founder member of the South London Warlords, proprietor of the Rye Stamp and Hobby Shop, and paintbrush for hire, the quality of Bill's painting and scratch building was inspirational.
As far as i know Bill's work first gained (inter)national exposure through the pages of Battle - from which the above scans were taken. All 3 images are of the same Renaissance game staged during a club meeting in 1977. The first 2 illustrated an article on the Warlords ('With the Warlords', June 1977).
The majority of the figures in use are, of course, Hinchliffe.
Duncan MacFarlane seems to have been a fan as Bill's work featured frequently in the pages of Miniature Wargaming and Wargames Illustrated.
More on Bill Brewer shortly.
7 comments:
over 20 years ago I had the misfortune to briefly live "sarff of the rivaa" and used to visit Bill in his shop, he put me on to the South London Warlords, and I went down to their place a few times. Frankly, they were an unfriendly bunch (that was then, I know a few SLW types these days and they are all diamond geezers) with the sole exception of Mr Brewer, he was a real gentleman, and happy to talk about his painting and have a game with a newbie. I was quite sad when i heard he died, even though I hardly knew him.
Some would say they are still unfriendly.
Strange post. I was thinking of Bill Brewer only yesterday and actually painted some medievals... then you post this. Spooky.
Top bloke.
Wow, I still have that copy of Battle magazine somewhere.
I remember how those pictures of his Polish Winged Hussars really caught my imagination at the time, and had me pooling my pocket money to buy a copy of George Gush's Renaissance rules.
I first visited rye stamp and hobby shop when I was 10. I am 51 now 😀. Bill was a master painter and it was from seeing the figures he did,that started me painting. I am still painting now😀. Thank you Bill. I will not forget you.
I knew Bill since he first opened his stamp shop in Peckham, in fact I was the first customer to ask bill if he would stock wargame figures, asking if he could get me some of the very first mini figs, I visited his shop several times a week, and built up armies bought from him, my ECW army consisted of over 5000 figures, Bill was a great person and I will always remember him, Rod.
Around age 12, I visited the shop while on holiday in London from Arizona. I took a few photos (not nearly enough) of Hinchliffe Ottoman Turks he painted on display in a glass cabinet. Oh how I wish I had just a few of those wonderful figures. The visit and photos inspired me to emulate his painting style as I slowly finished my Turks over the Intervening decades. I still have some of the issues of Battle shown here and find all his Renaissance figures inspirational. What a talent he had.
I started painting wargames figures, buying a few random Minifigs figures from Bill's shop each week. He asked me what I did with them. I told him I just enjoyed painting them and was filling up my mantelpiece with them He suggested that if he gave me a few lessons and my standard was OK I could paint some for him. I seemed to have made the grade when he gave me a painted Greek hoplite and another unpainted nine and asked me to complete the unit. He had difficulty seeing which was his. After that I regularly did work for him. We lived in the same street so I was invited to his house to pick up or drop off work. He often gave me the time-consuming jobs like standards and medieval heraldry. I was always pleased to see some of my work in his showcase at Salute. This album is mainly made up of medieval figures we did as a desk display for an American customer. He did the figures and base and I did the standards - always somewhat overscale as specified by Bill. He was a really nice guy. http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/818992
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