Continuing from the previous post I was keen to maintain the conversion and painting momentum and was still having fun painting cavalry so it only seemed natural to create some more light cavalry armed with crossbows.
As before the figures are Perry Miniatures Light cavalry plastics converted with sculpted additions and heads from Steel Fist Miniatures. Led by a mounted captain also from Steel Fist Miniatures.
The flag is a Schutzenfahne typical for bodies of mounted crossbowmen or arquebusiers of both Imperial and Swiss armies. Here are two contemporary examples both from around 1500, note each also features an arquebus.
I had great fun creating and painting these. The primary source, as before is The Triumph of Maximilian I, the black and white version for ease of reference for sculpting and the later painted version for the colour references on both riders and horses.
For further reference, once again I returned to my copy of 'The Ultimate Horse' by Elwyn Hartley Edwards. It's full of large format colour horse photographs with notes on colouring and breed types and is presently £3.50 on Ebay, get your mitts on a copy !
I did find myself down a bit of a rabbit hole in attempting to replicate some dappled grey horses which pushed the limits of my patience but despite each taking a few hours I am happy with them......there must be a faster way though ! It's important to push oneself though.
Here are some group and individual photographs prior to basing.
Old GW plastic head on this one
Head on this one is from a Wargames Foundry marching pikeman
It was great to base these up and even moreso to see all of the light cavalry together, here's a few photographs.
I feel I have certainly done that little project justice. I keep returning to the Perry plastics for conversion potential. There will hopefully be more of the same at some point. Lots of fun doing these and I really like painting the horses, each one is a challenge.
As ever I have a few things jostling for position to be the next completed unit, I think something a little more simple may prevail.
Bye for now
Stuart
Stuart the are spectacular. Whenever I see your miniatures I am torn between my current approach of "paint well but quickly" to get big units on the table v the care you take to replicate images by conversions and then painting. So well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Richard, try both I guess ! perhaps give the slower approach a go for some command figures and/or those in the front ranks?
DeleteAnother lovely addition to your forces, cracking work once more, really like the captain, cracking miniature, super modelling and painting all round.
ReplyDeleteThanks Donnie, yes that Steelfist Landsknecht captain is a great figure. The head it's supposed to have is on the standard bearer with the lancers. I used a different Steelfist Landsknecht head from one of the command groups I think
DeleteContinuing a great project. These look really fine. It's good to read of someone who enjoys painting horses. They really add dash to the tabletop. I guess if you have the patience to do all that conversion work you have it to paint greys. A visual treat.
ReplyDeleteStephen
I would be interested if you would write a couple of lines about your approach to painting the eyes of the horses. I see a number of photos elsewhere where this has not been attempted at all and feel sometimes it let's down the otherwise splendid painting of other painters and it can be particularly noticeable on horses that are lighter in colour. No disrespect is intended to those who make that choice, but just emphasising that I'm interested in what you do.
ReplyDeleteStephen
I go with the source image (from the above mentioned horse book) sometimes they just appear as almost black and others not. Often the eyelids are flesh coloured or the same colour as the coat so I represent that. Perhaps for the galloping horses I should make the effort. I shall do that
DeleteThese are great Stuart, they will be perfect for some German Peasants' War games as well
ReplyDeleteSplendid work on your mounted crossbow men! They look excellent and the horses are awesome!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain