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A practical example of what I mean by my "unending search for perfection".

As a practical example of what I mean by my "unending search for perfection", may I tell you something about a series of miniature replica helmets my wife Byrne and I made in the 1980s?  Our miniatures are one-fifth scale.  This produces a helmet about the size of a hen's egg, which would lie comfortably in the palm of your hand. Yet despite their tiny size, we reproduced in our miniatures every hook, leather and spring of the original, all fully functioning.  If you click on my photograph on the left, it will enlarge, not to the size of the miniature, but almost to the SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL HELMET!  This will allow you to examine its finish and detail much more exactingly than would be possible in real life.  The photograph of the miniature on the right shows it with all the catches released, so that you can see how the plates making up the front half of the helmet pivot up and back so that it could be fitted over the wearer's head.

For an independent assessment of our work, perhaps I may quote to you what E. Andrew Mowbray wrote, as Editor and Publisher of Man at Arms, The NRA Journal for the American Arms Collector, in an article on page 10 of volume twelve, number four, July/August 1990.  Mr Mowbray's opening words were: "Sadly, we have all become accustomed to the disappointments that usually follow close inspection.  What looks splendid at arms-length, frequently appears a good deal less grand when put to magnified examination.  Not so in the case of the limited series of one-fifth scale helmets lovingly crafted by a husband and wife team in Kent, England.  In this rare instance, the article under  study survives the merciless stare of the glass brilliantly, all the while confirming a near-insane dedication to detail and accuracy on the part of the makers, Magnus and Byrne McLeod."

If you entrust me with painting a portrait, you may be sure that I will not rest until I have made it as perfect as I can.  What to me is a perfect portrait?  To quote myself, "A perfect portrait is one that brings to life before your eyes a person, and not just the physical features, but the whole personality and character.  A perfect portrait should reveal more of a person than might well be visible if the subject were before you in person.  Clearly, in a perfect portrait, a very high degree of realism is just the starting point."         

Our subject was a close helmet 'for the field', in other words, for use in battle, made by Queen Elizabeth the First's craftsmen in Greenwich, in about 1585.  The original helmet is Inv. No. IV.41 in the  Royal Armouries, HM Tower of London. The then Master of the Armouries, the late AVB Norman, gave us permission  to make the necessary study of the original.  Hundreds of measurements and numerous photographs had to be taken of the original, and templates, drawings, tracings and notes made, before every detail could be reproduced in a perfect miniature replica.  Nearly four years were devoted to this, and to the development of special tools and techniques, before we could begin work on our first miniature helmet.  At every stage we strove for perfection and ignored the passing of time.  Each completed miniature was granted a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the Master of the Armouries, initially AVB Norman and latterly by the current Master, Guy Wilson.

In the sixteenth century, the Queen's armourers, working by hand in Her Majesty's Greenwich workshops, made helmets which were as individual as people's faces.  Despite its beautiful form, each helmet has small imperfections in symmetry and idiosyncrasies of detail which give it an individual character and what I can best describe as its 'expression'.  Capturing the original's 'expression' in a miniature replica was the most challenging and enthralling aspect of our work, and the element which, in our view,  turned our model making into an art form. On the left is a photograph of the original in the Royal Armouries, accession number IV.41, the photograph © The Board of Trustees of the Armouries, and used here with their courteous permission.  This beautiful photograph was taken by the official photographer in HM Tower of London, Jeremy Hall.  Our miniature is directly in front of its prototype, and not some distance beyond, as it appears to be. You might like to click on it and compare the helmets for yourself.  In the original helmet, the gorget plates which protect the neck were riveted tightly to each other, which is why they have rather a flat appearance.  In the miniature they are correctly joined and articulated by leather straps.  Happily, the original has since had its gorget plates separated and re-leathered, so now it looks just like its miniature!  Where our miniatures do differ from the prototype is in their finish.  We decided to make them represent the original as it would have looked when new, undamaged by use and by four centuries of cleaning.  To this end we went to much trouble with the burnishing of the plates, to reproduce the right degree of  reflectivity in them. This can be judged from contemporary paintings.  Another example is the hook you can see on the right side of the bevor, the plate that protects the chin.  There are minute flecks of gold on the original, indicating that it was once gilded: we accordingly gilded the hooks in the miniatures.

My photograph on the left  illustrates one of the special tools we had to make in our quest for perfection.  A hair-fine steel rod protrudes from the remodelled tip of a fine syringe needle.  This rod can be wound in and out by turning the knurled disk on which the tool is standing.  The rod can be used to transfer measurements in thousandths of an inch from the depth gauge on a vernier calliper to the least accessible points on miniatures.  Next to the tool lies a bevor, the plate which protects the chin.  I sometimes feel that it  is my favourite plate in this helmet.  The hook is a safety catch which prevents the visor catch button from being operated inadvertently.  The three leather straps will hold and articulate the two front gorget plates which protect the front of the neck.  Yet every plate is beautiful in this helmet...  The original was made almost at the end of the era of armoured knights, and centuries of evolution had brought the forms of functional armour to perfection.  In the photograph on the right, the visor and upper bevor are raised.  Every curve, every form is utterly beautiful.

If you would like to know more about the miniatures, please email me at magnus@portraits-by-magnus.com and I will tell you more.  Armour has fascinated me since childhood.  If you would like a print of one of my photographs, or of, perhaps, the miniature in profile and other views grouped round it, we could negotiate a price.  I am sad to say that you would not be able to persuade me to make you one of  the actual miniatures.  The Tower of London's website is http://www.armouries.org.uk/tower/index.html;  the Royal Armouries at Leeds (the home of the national collection of arms and armour) has http://www.armouries.org.uk/leeds/index.html . Fort Nelson, the setting for the national collection of artillery, is at http://www.armouries.org.uk/fort/index.html .

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