General Wladyslaw Sikorski

I got this miniature a couple of months ago and felt compelled to paint it up since I was working on the biography section of the Polish commanders yesterday for part 2 of my September Campaign book. The miniature is a damn fine rendition of the Polish General, Chief in Command and Prime minister of Poland in Exile, Wladyslaw Sikorski.

Probably the single most important person to the Poles and the Polish cause during WW2. He took over as the Chief in Command in November 1939 and started working on reorganizing the roughly 80.000 Polish troops that had escaped through neutral Romania, Hungary and Lithuania to France. After the fall of France he ended up in Britain where he continued to oversee the Polish troops but most importantly of all keep Poland on the agenda - which caused a friction with the Western Allies that saw the Poles as a great pain in the ass for being naturally hostile towards the Soviet Union and asked uncomfortable questions about the missing POW's, especially after the embarrassing situation in 1943 when the victims of the Katyn massacre were found by the Germans.

There is also a great deal of conspiracy surrounding Sikorski's death, his Liberator plane crashed soon after the takeoff during one of his visits to the Polish troops in the middle east. That plane had already been involved in two incidents previously, and it had been left on the airfield pretty much unguarded which raised a lot of accusations of sabotage by the Soviet delegation which was visiting at the time of the accident.

In any case, Poland’s situation may have turned out slightly better, or at least would have had a more favorable position with Sikorski alive by the end of the war. The guy who replaced him was pretty much used as a doormat by the allies. You can read more about him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Sikorski

I painted the miniature to look like Sikorski in his government in Exile uniform. There are few color pictures of the guy and I wanted to get the color of the uniform in particular to be as correct as possible. It was tricky but I mixed dark green and brown colors to gradually get that hard to define tone of his uniform.

I also noticed a pretty funny thing as I was searching for good pictures,  on most of the pictures he looks very serious and kinda tired. The best color picture I could find actually have Sikorski have that "deadpan/tired old man" look that Bill Murray have been using since the movie “Rushmore”.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think he looks similar to Bill Murray on the cover of “Lost in Translation” – and if they make a biopic I can’t think of a better actor to play him for the looks alone (especially nowadays with the grey hair and aged face).

The miniature is from "Recreational Conflict" and listed under "Trent Miniatures" and located in the "Newark Characters & Sci fi" category. The miniature is a bit bulkier and taller than regular 28mm historical miniatures, but totally worth the 2.50 USD for such a good looking diorama miniature. Especially if you are a fan of WW2 Polish history.