Latest WIP

It might not look like a weekend's work but suffice it to say that this chap has kept me busy!

The stand of Sir Henry Willoughby which I completed in January marked the first of three units that I have been putting together to represent the Calais Garrison and this figure is being prepared to represent the Captain of the garrison in 1513, a noble and career soldier by the name of Sir Richard Carew.

In this conversion I have strived to represent the early work of King Henry VIII's Greenwich armourers whose style during this period was very much transitional and subject to a number of influences*. So here we have an armour with earlier aspects such as the small tassets hanging around the fauld complemented with contemporary features such as the heavy lance rest, raised pauldrons (shoulder defences) a broader breastplate and an elaborately plumed armet.

* if you're interested in this have a look at Osprey's 'Tudor Knight'

I'm quite pleased with this figure so far, it has taken a lot of patience - careful filing and scalpel work and I had to wait until the green stuff on the shoulders was rock hard to enable me to file a sharp curved edge. More to come as I paint up his unit.

On that subject I would really appreciate your thoughts and comments on a matter;

I have made a slight change to the way in which I work over the past 3 weeks or so; I now always have 4 figures on the go, each of which are from different units, at the moment for example I have a landsknecht, a billman, an arquebusier and the above knight. I've found this has increased my output as it gives me some variation in what I can paint and it keeps it more fresh and engaging. It's working for me so i'm going to keep it up.

However, it does mean that completed units will take a bit longer (wasn't it long enough !) but could be produced in a reasonable succession and variety. Each unit has its own aspects of interest such as flags, conversions, bits of historical interest and so on which I can either withold until an entire unit is complete or I can update as i'm going along with WIP's like this so which would you prefer? I know my output is fairly slow anyway and thank you for your patience and continued encouragement, it makes it all worthwhile.

So what do you reckon?

All the best, and please do speak your minds.

Stuart