Michael A. Cobb of Norwood Park, towering figure in military miniatures, dead at 72

Mike Cobb at the World Model Expo in Italy in 2014.

Mike Cobb’s family buried him with one of his favorite paintbrushes.

A collector and painter of miniature military figures, he used magnifiers and tiny brushes to bring old battles to lilliputian life.

“It’s a piece of art. It’s just little,” he said at the 2017 World Model Expo in Chicago.

Mr. Cobb made a big impression out of little things because of deep research and technical skill. He had a particular interest in English colonial history in India, so he read every book he could find on the quest for independence. He collected uniforms and medals from British Indian Army battalions, studying them to mix just the right tints for military garb.

He had a flair for capturing the emotional intensity of battle and the soldier’s weariness in repose.

“He took great pride in his faces. You can see the expressions and the white of their eye,” said his daughter Katie Riggs. “He just had an incredibly steady hand and just the patience to do these tiny details. Some of these brushes are just the tiniest thing. They look like they’re made of two hairs.”

Mr. Cobb, president of the Military Miniature Society of Illinois, died of sarcoma July 18 at his Norwood Park home. He was 72.

The figurines he painted, made from resin or metal, could take months to complete. He’d customize them with handcrafted clothing and weaponry and mix epoxy and paint to mimic the muddy groundwater that soldiers splash through, said Joe Berton, vice president of the MMSI.

Mike Cobb could spend months working on his military miniatures in his basement in Norwood Park, crafting details to make them appear authentic and alive.

Miniature military figurines made by Mike Cobb.

Mike Cobb used magnifiers and tiny paintbrushes to bring old battles and soldiers to Lilliputian life.

Some three-inch scale models can sell for several thousand dollars, but Mr. Cobb was the kind of collector who preferred to give away his creations to friends, said former Chicago Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis, an author, co-host of the music talk show “Sound Opinions” and associate professor at Columbia College Chicago.

“He was one of a kind in terms of sharing his enthusiasm for and knowledge about this tiny art form,” said DeRogatis, who traveled with Mr. Cobb to Stresa, Italy, in 2014 for the World Model Expo. “There really wasn’t anyone involved in the hobby from anywhere in the world who didn’t consider him a friend and enjoy comparing notes with him in a corner at one of the shows or over a beer afterwards.”

Mr. Cobb also exhibited at shows around the United States.

“He was just so influential in the miniature hobby world,” working to bring the World Expo to Chicago for the first time in 2017, according to Berton.

Young Mike grew up on the Northwest Side, an only child who liked building model cars and planes. He went to St. Pascal grade school and St. Benedict High School. During the Vietnam War, he was a military police officer at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Later, he worked in marketing and co-founded the Articles of War bookstore in Skokie.

“Even after years of surgery and years of chemo,” his daughter said he made it to the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City and Belgium’s Flanders Fields battle sites.

Though one operation damaged his sciatic nerve, she said, “A year later, he walked me down the aisle at my wedding.”

His family would save him the foil wrappers from old wine bottles. He used them to sculpt accent items for his figures, “like a pack of cigarettes, a weapon, a road sign or a crushed-up Coke can to go under a tank,” his daughter said.

Mike Cobb painted an Edwardian cake topper for the wedding of his daughter Claire Rodriguez. It included a dog to mimic Rizzo, her Goldendoodle.

He painted an Edwardian couple for a wedding-cake topper for another daughter, Claire Rodriguez. It included a dog to mimic Rizzo, her Goldendoodle.

Mike Cobb giving a toast at daughter Katie Riggs’ wedding.

“He had a side business reselling model kits and figures that people call their ‘Gray Army’ — the unpainted army that lives in your closet,” Katie Riggs said. “He resold military medals and hats to hobbyists, reenactors, plays, costume shops.”

Mike and Mary Kay Cobb, his wife of 37 years, at the World Model Expo in Stresa, Italy, in 2014.

If he wasn’t painting models in his history book-crammed basement, he was “out in the garage, working on the cars,” said Mary Kay, his wife of 37 years.

They met through an auto club for fans of vintage MG roadsters and owned a 1953 MGTD and a 1974 MGB.

“Mike always liked to take three-day drives to Wisconsin with his wife and stop and see scenic things,” said Jeff Powell, who once co-chaired the Chicagoland MG Club with Mr. Cobb.

He made delicious chili — always with beer, never water — and cultivated a garden filled with native prairie plants. His purple coneflowers just started blooming.

In addition to his wife and daughters Katie Riggs and Claire Rodriguez, Mr. Cobb is survived by daughter Lynn Alvarez, from a first marriage to Margaret Peck, and two grandchildren. Services were held Wednesday at Maryhill Cemetery in Niles.