A man of many ponchos

Alexander Aloysius Breed

Seeing as I was working on a painting of the long suffering Earl yesterday, it seemed only right to finish the weekend with a little wip of the marshal who is competing for the affections of the Earl's sweetheart.

The lawman himself is almost as long suffering as the Earl, but for slightly different reasons. After his family was murdered and the culprit escaped he completely lost his rag, handed in his badge and went off on his own personal vendetta... aaand it kinda just went downhill from there until eventually he fell in with a very wrong crowd and got himself shot. But luckily for him a young lady found him, strapped him to a horse, took him home and patched him up. And in spite of him being both grumpy and squinty they ended up getting along very well indeed, much to the Earl's chagrin.

I have attempted the lawman a fair few times by now, and I'm still struggling to get him just right. One of the reasons being that I kept changing my mind about his age. Seeing as he is inspired by the ever fabulous actor Anthony Zerbe my DVD collection has grown considerably since that fatal afternoon where I first came across him in Rooster Cogburn to a point where I've even invested in a box set of season 11 of Murder she wrote because he was in one of the episodes. No matter what he does he always seem to steal the show :-) Also, this is the first time I have shared the lawman's name with anyone. If anyone out there is a fellow Zerbe admirer his middle and surname should ring some bells ;-)