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Translation :
Daniel Serrano
Hi all!.
My name is Luca
Marchetti, I was born in Arezzo on
28th july 1960. Nowadays I live and
work in a great old Benedict
Monastery from the VIII century down
the hillos of Chianti Senese.
I’m married with a
wonderful Caribbean girl from 7
years ago, named Loren, and I have a
26 years old son from a previous
marriage.
My passion for
miniatures born from a youth dream,
when I was a little bot, playing
with Airfix and Atlantic plastic
soldiers, I discovered the static
beauty of those military and middle
age figures. Later on, when I
thought that those plastic soldiers
were a part of my past I found there
were little metal sculptures that
you could buy and paint; the famous
iron soldiers in 25mm. Obiously it
was love at first sight.
I joined the Senese
Association, a wargame club. When I
was 21 I found myself deeply
interested in combat rules about how
to fight little armies in miniature
on a table. Obiously we had to paint
them, and we had to do that
perfectly for the eyes of the rest
of members. After 3 years I found
that I enjoyed more painting my
armies than playing those simulated
wars. I left the 25mm world and I
tried the 54mm scale… I remember it
was a Scottish soldier in Waterloo,
sculpted by Piero Jula (today, his
son Andrea Jula is one of my two
associates in Pegaso Models). I
painted it using Humbrol paints,
that were used by all of those who
painted 25mm’ers. The result was a
little horrible so the figure was in
my workroom for some years. I use it
to show the new painters that with
practice they will achieve a great
level.
One day, in Rome, I
saw in a model shop some Napoleonic
soldiers painted in a bizarre way
with little brush-strokes. The
vision was extremely fascinating so
I come in the shop to ask for info.
I found those figures had been
painted by a Spanish painter,
Antonio, who used acrylic paints.
As I got home I
bought the ‘Plaka’ paints and
started to experiment with not too
bad results.
Later in 1986 there
was a show in Sienna showing some
figures painted by Luciano Leni who
was one of the greatest and famous
figure painters in Italy. He used a
mix technique with acrylics, oils
and enamels. Results were
spectacular and I spent hours and
hours trying to understand how did
he do those blending effects. I went
back home with a brand new world in
my mind. I was decided to discover
and know all the existing
watercolors in the market.
That’s how I found
the acrylic colors Liquitex, used by
those who painted pictures. I
started to study mixes and
techniques. I understood that one of
the most important things was to
depict each material like it was in
real, for example, suede had to be
shiny while cotton matt and flesh
satin.
Finally I achieved a
mix for each colour. I mixed Plaka,
Temples and acrylic, obtaining
colours that you can’t finde
anywhere and that were known in
Italy as “the Marchetti mix”.
I showd my works in a
model shop in Siena, ruled by the
great Giani, and most of my figures
were bought by some local collectors
like Dr. Negros de Arezzo.
One day, one of the
organizers of the most important
internacional show in Italy those
days (Cuneo Show), Mr. Luciano
Perano, went to Siena and visited
the local chop. He saw my works and
got marvelled so several days later
I received a letter from the Cuneo
show organization asking me to join
the show. I was frightened but I
accepted the invitation.
When I arrived to the
Cuneo show I took a look to the
works showed there and all of them
were painted with oils!! And of
course all of them looked better
than mines. I took my box with all
my figures and decided to head back
home, I knew my figures would look
ridiculous with all those
masterpieces but Mr. Perano saw me
and asked me what I was doing. I
answered him that I was leaving
because I thought that my level was
far below the show level. He laughed
out loud and took my arm to go back
to show my work. I felt ashamed. I
can’t say a word because I was the
most awarded one in the show in 1989
and named as the new rising star in
the Italian modelism. I couldn’t
believe it. I went from being
anonymous to be a celebrity! I was
in the seventh sky!
Obiously since then I
made new friends and enemies
inaugurating the look people has on
me about being too maniatic,
agresive… but loyal and sincerous
(maybe to much). A hard character!
Since then I
participated in some of the most
important shows in Europe like
Sevres, one of my favourites. On
1989-90 I was confirmed like one of
the best historic figure painters in
Europe and I was the first Italian
to win a Best of Show in Brussels
1992 (one of the most important
shows with Sevres, Cuneo and
Euromilitaire).
I went to a point
where I had the need to create what
I wanted to paint so I started to
sculpt my own figures. Sincerously,
at 30 I didn’t know I had a hidden
skill sculpting figures but I was
being considered as one of the most
original and talented artist in the
hobby.
My friends at the
shows started to suggest me to found
a new brand to offer the people my
figures. I liked the idea of
converting my passion in a job so in
1993 Pegaso Models was born, but
we’ll talk about this later.
Other hobbies I have:
playing online videogames, playing
chess, playing guitar and writing
songs and poems, playing soccer as
goalkeeper. Beside those hobbies
I’ve also played basketball, judo
and tennis. I also love cars and
speed, so much no one wants to ride
with me… But I have to confess that
my weakness are beautiful women,
please don’t offend.
There are a lot of
artists that I’ve admired but I’ll
mention just a few of the most
important when I was a modeller,
between 1987 and 1993: Luciano Leni,
Carlo Invernizzi, Ivo Preda, Claudio
Signanini, Adrián Bay, Jean Pierre
Duthilleul, Julián Hallis, Bill
Horan, Walter Rocco, Martín
Livingstone, Philippe Gengembre,
Derek Hansen, Greg Di Franco, Mike
Good, John Rosengrant.
About sculptors,
Almond’s humanity, Ray Lamb’s
technicism, Bruno Leivobitz’
smoothness and Bill Horan’s dynamic
figures caught my attention.
Talking about awards
I will remark that between the 80’s
and 90’s I didn’t get too much of
them because there wasn’t a Open
judging system show. There was only
a gold, silver and bronze award.
After those years I got a lot of
awards and I’m very proud of them
but tell them all would be excessive
and boring. I’ll just point those
that I remember specially: best of
show in Cuneo, best of show in
Brussels, gold medal in master
painting in Sevres and a second
place in the Cup of Cups in Sevres
that was like a contest between all
the best of shows in Europe. But the
trophy I’m most proud of is the one
that Mr. Hannen (president of the
Sevres show) gave me in 1997, an
award that never was won by a
Italian person and that was a trophy
for all my modelling career… you
can’t imagine the emotion that I
felt when I heard my name in the
hall, with all that people, French
and foreingers… I received the award
with tears in my eyes and I will
never forget the clamorous applause
I got.
The shows, from my
point of view, were more selective
and more cultural oriented, there
were different categories for each
historical period and those, divided
by scales.
And, by the way, it’s
not educative or didactic, nor even
historically accurate, to see a 54mm
roman side by side of a 54mm
Napoleonic.
The future of our
hobby is a very discussed point and
there are a lot of different
thoughts.
Some of them think
that our world is losing adepts but
I don’t share that feeling. When I
started, there was just a few shows
and having 600-700 figures showed
was considered as a success.
Today it is normal to
have 500-600 figures and the number
of shows has been multiplied.
It’s trae that the
incoming of videogames and consoles
is a menace for our hobby but there
are new people around thirty who are
in the hobby, so I thing that the
historical figure world is growing
slowly.
What I’m really
worried about is the idea of some of
the people to see more and more new
figures in the market. In fact, it’s
our fault (producers’ fault) because
as the competence grows, we’ve
started to produce more to become
more important. But think about
this, Poste Militaire was a leader
brand in the hobby and never
produced more than 2-3 figures a
year!
I’m really worried
about that because the new figures
have less life so you can’t afford
costs, I know some of you don’t
believe it but it’s true. That will
lead little producers to close their
business if we don’t change our
market strategies.
The problem is to
deal with other producers, we’ve
tried to settle some lines but here
in Pegaso we have just got a real
and loyal collaboration with Romeo
Models and Elite Miniatures.
The newcomers are
very different the way we were but I
guess that’s normal in the times we
are. In our times we were used to
buy ‘bricks’ of plumb, more or less
well casted (except Poste Militaire,
Beneito, Le Cimier and the old
Serie77). You needed a lot of
patience to clean cast lines and
there were little holes you had to
fill with putty. Today the modellers
are used to buy better products with
better casting and sculpting and
it’s difficult to receive a mail
complaining about bad pieces…
In the other way,
modellers have today a higher médium
level that in our time and I guess
that has something to do with it.
I’ll focus now in my
career as figure producer. The
historical periods that Pegaso
produce are Ancient Era, Medieval
Era and Napoleonic figures. In just
3 years Pegaso was named as one of
the 5 best miniature manufacturers.
The reasons are quite simple: the
study of anatomy, quality on
details, historical and uniformology
accuracy, character’s feelings
interpretation, originality in poses
and subjects. That made Pegaso to be
appreciated in the European market.
Each little piece made in our
workroom born after a long
documental study from Museums and
all around the world experts.
In 1995 we did a
complex and little vignette inspired
in the Agincourt Battle (1995),
between England and France and we
were surprised to win the
prestigious award from the Nuremberg
Fair as the best product of the
year. We were the first Italian
manufacturer to get that award.
Thanks to our
prestige, growing constantly, a lot
of talented Italian and foreign
modellers contacted us to offer
their works, that was a clear signal
what we were in the international
modellers leet.
We won the same award
in 1998 with a french knight in
1346, in 2000 with Genghis Khan, in
2001 with a greek stratego, in 2002
with our first fantasy figure, a
200mm ogre, and finally we won the
award with a laborious and little
vignette depicting the Teutoburg
battle where Erminio, Germanic
chief, slaughtered the roman
legionis from Augustus, considered
as the beginning of the roman army
decadence.
The last award was
won with the renacentism knight in
75mm. That’s the award number 19 of
the ‘Model des Jhares’ in Nuremberg
so we can confirm proudly that
Pegaso Models is one of the most
awarded historical miniatures
manufacturer of all times, not just
between other Italian manufacturers.
Among that we are
also proud of creating an art,
sculpting and painting workshop
visited by the best Artists in our
sector. We have created a kind of
rule, it’s a free school where
everyone can learn all the
techniques and secrets about
painting or sculpting a figure.
I’m very proud of all
that we have achieved with Pegaso in
those 13 years of life and to show
the world a little part of the ‘Made
in Italy’ that is and always has
been a synonym of style and
creativeness.
In this point I will
like to end showing you the spirit
we follow when we plan and create
our products:
“The ingenuous
attraction we have as kids of Myths
and Heroes, can be transformed in a
real passion for military history”
I mean, it’s our
history, the military custom and
wars of those past generations,
building for good or worst, the
world where we live. We can honour
those old men that were our
grandfathers or their enemies,
depicting them in a miniature.
We don’t like wars
althought we just depict armed
soldiers of all times, you just have
to know that we do that with the
same spirit as a child holds a
wooden sword and puts a pot on his
head as a knight helm.
And if this is a way
of still being kids, welcome!
Gracias a Todos Luca
Marchetti.
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