WIP French Crossbowmen II

I was going to wait until these figures were integrated with some others and based before I revealed them but considered them worthy of their own post as quite a bit of work went into them.

The figures are from the Perry mercenaries boxed set and pretty much assembled straight out of the box but with a mind for sculpting. All were inspired by a single image of from a contemporary tapestry of 1513 depicting a French crossbowman defending the walls of Dijon;



It's been a while since I had last had a foray with some green stuff so I thought this a good opportunity to have a go and see what I could come up with. These guys are loose interpretations with this image as a starting point. In fact, none of them wear a woolen hat so there's still plenty of scope for some more. I'll probably have a go at some pike to beef up the Therouanne garrison figures I have.

These earlier WIP photographs show where i've made some additions;

They were relatively easy sculpts but they did require a bit of thought and patience; each arm was sculpted in a separate sitting so that the detail wasn't squashed or obscured as I worked.

In addition to the above image I also scoured various woodcuts and re-enactor photographs for some extra help as to how cloth would sit or move.

Here are a few individual shots;

I'm quite pleased with the way they've turned out, quite a simple step to pulling the figures into the early 1500's which I think i'll repeat.

Bye for now.

P.S. there's a nice meaty blog post on its way in a couple of weeks :)

Stuart