Wednesday 29 August 2012

WIP; John Blanke


This is a particularly early work in progress but I need the power of your collective ideas to help me.

I have strived to account for as many known nobles and personalities of this campaign and one particular personality i'd really like to do is John Blanke, a black trumpeter to the courts of both Henry VII & Henry VIII.

There are references to 'John Blanke, the blacke trumpeter' stated in the form of payments made by the Treasurer of the Chamber, he earned a 8d a day, here's his 'salary statement';

But how can I help, I hear you cry.....

Well, I intend to use the body of the trumpeter figure shown below with a head swap but I need a suitable head and I'm having some difficulty finding one to match the image above as closely as possible, so far my best bet is perhaps one of the Swiss heads with a turban but it's not quite as close a match as i'd like it. Any ideas?


11 comments:

  1. More very inspiring work Stuart.

    I think that this is one of my favourite blogsa s it's great to see someone go into such detail when it comes to Late Medieval/Renaissance warfare. I guess that if you want to get things 'right' you have got to do this with these 'periods'.

    Top drawer stuff mate.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Possibly one of the Foundry Afro Carribean Renegades?

    http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=49661

    One has a Tudor style cap on already, or perhaps you could model the hat on with green stuff?

    ReplyDelete
  3. As it appears that all the trumpeters are bare headed in the illustration, so I'd go for a Foundry or North Star African figure and do a headswop? You maybe able to get a single african figure on ebay relatively cheap (not my thing so can't send you a spare i'm afraid)/.
    There was an article on negros in Tudor England in a recent BBC History magazine - which included John Blanke.
    Simon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks fellas, that was just the spark to get me thinking laterally. There's quite a few potentials in the Perry Sudan range

    ReplyDelete
  5. Interesting subject and certainly a point of discussion for the army. Will be a nice touch, great stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Perry Ansar came to my mind as well - you just need someone who has a spare head from the box set?

    http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=2593

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fantastic units, flags are amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Or possibly a spare head from a Perry ACW Zouave set?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Or possibly a spare head from a Perry ACW Zouave set?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I tried one of the heads from the Zouave command sprue but it looked very small ( a bit like the closing scene of Beetlegeuice!) so I thing one of the turbaned heads from one of the ansar spearman sets will be worth a try.

    ReplyDelete
  11. If you wanted bare-headed, I'd have gone with one of the Bija heads and just cut down the hairstule slightly. The plastic they're made from would easily allow a bit of picking and stabbing to get the hair texture right again.

    Love your work, sir.

    ReplyDelete