Victoria Miniatures: Van Diemen's World Figures

For Wade’s Birthday I ordered him some Van Diemen’s World Devils from Victoria miniatures. Victoria Miniatures is the brainchild of Victoria Lamb, whose work you may be familiar with if you were interested in Golden Daemon competitions during the early 2000s. Victoria was one of the pioneers of OSL technique, winning the 2001 Slayer Sword in Australia (Sister Joan). She now has a small business in Adelaide that produces finely detailed miniatures.

 

 

The Van Diemen’s World Devils are based on the iconic aesthetics of the Australian Digger, particularly those that fought during World War I, at Gallipoli, the Middle East and the Western Front. Approximately 330,000 Australians fought overseas, which represented 13% of the male population at the time.

 

 

The casualty rate (killed or wounded) was 64%. This had a massive impact on the psyche and ethos of the nation; there are very few country towns in Australia without a cenotaph honouring the fathers and sons who fell protecting other people’s freedom. Having travelled to Europe on several occasions myself, it is an awful long way to go and serve in that manner. It is the strangest feeling; going to places like Crete in the middle of the Mediterranean and finding row upon row of Australian war-graves (WW2).

 

"Greater love hath no man than to give his life for his brothers."

The sculpts themselves are beautifully detailed and clean. There are no mould lines that I can see and the faces are exquisitely characterful. They weren’t particularly expensive (not that that was a factor Wade, I promise!), which is a nice change and I wasn’t charged any shipping costs. Most importantly, the depiction of the slouch hats is spot on. Wade also picked up some female soldier heads so that we can convert some Aussie women in uniform to add to the platoon.

 

 

I’m hoping that my gaming group will be able to help Wade get these guys and girls painted before Easter time next year, which will mark the 100^th anniversary of the Australian landing at Gallipoli. Consider that a challenge guys (you know who you are…).

See you across the table,

M4cr0