A Tale of Two Alexanders (Dragon and TBLeague Alexander the Great review)

Lookin' good!

That’s leagues better, Guv.

Alexander was pretty small. Arrian said he was somewhat less than average height. Curtius said he was not of impressive physique or stature. His companions were all taller than him. Darius' wife confused Hephaistion for Alexander because he looked more regal.

skywalkersaga wrote:Lookin' good!

Stryker2011 wrote:That’s leagues better, Guv.

Thank you very much! I also thought it was an improvement.

shazzdan wrote:Alexander was pretty small. Arrian said he was somewhat less than average height. Curtius said he was not of impressive physique or stature. His companions were all taller than him. Darius' wife confused Hephaistion for Alexander because he looked more regal.

Agreed, although this is somewhat relative. Hephaistion might not have been very tall by modern standards. The famous story of Alexander being so much shorter than Dareios III (who is said to have been tall), for example, is potentially misleading -- he sat on Dareios' throne and his feet dangled in the air, so one of the Greeks placed a table Dareios had used for dining under Alexander's feet, causing some court eunuch to weep over the turn of fortune. Loyalty, irony, and Alexander's short stature are the usual morals of this story. But if you look at Persian reliefs, you would see that Persian kings used a footstool to rest their feet on while sitting on their thrones, so Alexander's feet dangling in the air is not in itself anything unusual (just some servant forgot to put the footstool where it belonged).



At any rate, I doubt we could attain accurate or consistent scale for ancient, medieval, or even early modern people with the action figure bodies and head sculpts that are readily available to us today. Short of the buffer (and therefore inappropriate) M30, the somewhat more average (though certainly quite buff) M33 is the shortest TBLeague available.

Thanks for the excellent review. Your last picture of an Alexander is fantastic.

Ephiane wrote:Thanks for the excellent review. Your last picture of an Alexander is fantastic.

Thank you very much (and welcome), I'm glad you liked it. Still a work in progress...

The original TBL hair looked a bit girly, certainly better with a restyle. I've had the DML one for years and used the head for an old Jedi bash I did on OSW. It would make a decent Agent 47 sculpt actually. The rubber legs on that DML body on mine are still very much intact, possibly due to them never really being unboxed or used much.

Rogerbee wrote:The original TBL hair looked a bit girly, certainly better with a restyle. I've had the DML one for years and used the head for an old Jedi bash I did on OSW. It would make a decent Agent 47 sculpt actually. The rubber legs on that DML body on mine are still very much intact, possibly due to them never really being unboxed or used much.

Thank you very much. I also think it's an improvement, although the features are certainly a bit too fine and not very Alexandresque (I'm making this a word). Interesting idea about the Dragon head. Yes, it is quite old but the rubber legs are in perfect condition, although I too have been keeping it in its box.

As I was re-hairing Theoden, it occurred to me that one of Asmus' other recent head sculpts, that of Thorin (Richard Armitage) lends itself pretty well to portraying an ancient Greek, so I popped it onto the M33 (had to increase the neck hole on the head sculpt) with the parted out bits from the TBLeague Alexander set to see how it looks. While certainly no Alexander, he does look (more) Greek. And it is a reminder that Asmus can do hair -- even though non-synthetic hair would be obviously better.

That does look cool! I had no idea the Thorin headsculpt was 'full size' - I guess I presumed that since it was portraying a Dwarf, it would be too small to go on a regular sized body. Glad to see I was wrong!

skywalkersaga wrote:That does look cool! I had no idea the Thorin headsculpt was 'full size' - I guess I presumed that since it was portraying a Dwarf, it would be too small to go on a regular sized body. Glad to see I was wrong!

Thank you. I actually meant to point that out. Somewhere I had read that the heads tend to be about regular size so I took a chance on the head sculpt and it bears out.

Agree, looks great. Could be one of Alexander's best friends and companions. Maybe one of those poor best friends he stabbed in a drunken frenzy or something.

Ovy wrote:Agree, looks great. Could be one of Alexander's best friends and companions. Maybe one of those poor best friends he stabbed in a drunken frenzy or something.

Agreed, even if a bit macabre -- but fitting. Methinks you are thinking of Kleitos the Black. Poor Kleitos was portrayed by Gary Stretch.

Mighty fine color match to the body, too.

Nice.

dadrab wrote:Mighty fine color match to the body, too. Nice.

Thank you very much. Yes, the deeper shades do come close to the TBLeague male suntan, so it fits pretty well.