I recently completed a commission for some Crusades era Arab foot and cavalry, using Gripping Beast plastics, but there were also a few Perry Miniatures metal cavalry to complete too. I prefer working with plastic, as metal figures have some serious drawbacks (they destroy brushes quicker than plastics, multi part figures require cyanocrylate or epoxy to fix them together, and if you drop them... they bend / break / chip easily). But there's no doubt that metal miniatures offer much more choice - and when they're Perry models, they're not such a chore :)
There were only five miniatures, and size-wise they fitted pretty well with the Gripping Beast models. I have attempted to paint them in the same style, so two have been finished mostly in black, two mostly in white, and one in blue. The blue is also echoed in one of the saddlecloths and one of the banners. Again, I have employed a mixture of bronze and steel for the armour finishes, with a lot less exposed metal than you'd find on an equivalent European soldier.
I replaced the (small) Perry shields with spares from the Gripping Beast plastic set, and applied the same shield covers (see earlier post); which hopefully also helps to tie them into their plastic counterparts. Interestingly, the archers come in two parts, with the legs and lower torso moulded onto the saddle. The upper body is supplied attached to a metal tag, which meant it could be finished off before attaching to the lower half (with cyanoacrylate).
I've been working on this commission for months now, as the miniatures were provided already assmebled, and in many cases already mounted on multi-bases. This made the task of tidying up (trimming sprue leftovers, scraping mould lines) more difficult, and led to some serious head-scratching when it came to painting!
For about half the troops, I went with what I think of as 'vase colours' - red, black, white, and a hint of golden yellow. I wanted to evoke the painted vases I've seen in various museums.
For the armour and weapons, it was bronze all the way. A simple four-step process (black undercoat, bronze, gold/bronze mix highlight, then sepia ink), with the highlight kept fairly muted, so as not to overpower the eye. Recently-minted pennies was the effect I was going for. Most of the tunics were off-white, and most of the linen cuirasses too. Where a hoplite had a white-painted shield, and white armour, I tried to give him a red or black crest, to tie him to his comrades. Similarly, red shields with white armour, black shields with white tunics etc. all helped to make them look like they belonged together.
Booty-shot of the same trio. They all got a tanned flesh tone, and dark brown or black hair. No eyes on these models. For the most part, the helmets are fairly closed anyway - and the 'natural' proportions of the Immortal Miniatures sculpts meant that my eye technique made them look a bit goggly.
The shield transfers came with the kits, and are superb. The range of designs is huge, and with a bit of judicious slicing, they bend round the curved surface of the shield without too many creases or problems.
Another angle on the second trio. I did a few red or black tunics, and some of the crests are striped red / white or black / white too. All the leatherwork is red-brown (as with most of what I do), and the bases are nothing out of the ordinary either - kit-supplied plastic ones, with clay / sand / glue / patches of green flock and black edging. The whole commission is 138 miniatures, so look out for more posts this week, showing the other two main colour themes (Mermydons in black, and some nautically-themed chaps in blue and white).
After working with the Gripping Beast Arab footsoldiers, I was keen to see how the cavalry looked - and they didn't disappoint! Lots of spares / options, and separate torso / legs, which were especially useful when modelling the archers. Spearmen first though;
Less variety in the horses than you'd find in a typical Fireforge or Perry's set, but not bad. They're lot smaller than the Fireforge Templar horses too - which is accurate, as the Islamic armies tended to favour mares rather than stallions.
I used some spares from the Arab footsoldiers set to add variety, including these teardrop shields. The remit for this commission was variety, so as well as varying the horse colours, I've also finished some of the spearmen in black, some in white, and some (like the chap in the centre) in brighter colours.
Reverse angle of the same grouping. I used different saddlecloth colours too, sometimes matching the plumes dangling under the horses' heads, and sometimes not. Most of the armour was finished in bronze (black primer / undercoat, then bronze, gold highlight, then sepia ink), though some is finished in steel (black primer / undercoat, gunmetal, silver highlight, then sepia ink). This steel finish is different to that used on the crusaders, as the sepia ink gives it a warmer tone.
The main cloth colours used (in addition to white and black) were mint green, french blue, and a deep wine red. All the saddlery and leatherwork are red-brown, though I varied the shoe / slipper colours on the riders.
The miniatures were to be left unbased (hence the fetching green plastic / blu-tack) - the shield covers are Little Big Man studios. I used a slightly different technique with these (to that used on the Irish and Vikings, earlier posts). Instead of applying the decal to a primed shield, I placed them on art paper instead (good quality printer paper works too), then glued the cut-out paper discs onto the shields with wood glue. This was mainly to allow me to 'battle damage' the shields, like I do for most medieval subjects, but it also had the effect of reducing the amount of 'shine' from the decal. In the end, I opted not to battle-damage the shields anyway...
The archers, again using a combination of black / white / bright colours.
The archers were much easier to put together than the spearmen, as I didn't have to worry about the spear butt colliding with the horse flank, or not being able to get the shields in place. The arms are annoyingly at the wrong angle for easy shield placement - nice straight arms would be much better - and next time, I might employ spare left arms from Warlord Games Bolt Action WW2 infantry. The plain sleeves will match nicely, and this will give much more in the way of options when fitting them together.
Of course, no such problem with the archers. The ability to 'twist' the torso allows for more natural (or dramatic!) posing, and no fouling of the horse's neck with shields. The quivers could use a flat back on them, to make them easier to fit to the saddle, and the odd right arm which was actually holding the reins might be good too...
The bow cases were a handy way to add some colour, especially to the archers in black. I was matching these up to some Perry ones which the client had provided, which included slung shields on their backs. I hoped to give these chaps slung shields too... but they looked a bit cluttered, so I left them off.
Reverse angle of the black archers, showing the difference between the bronzed scale armour (left and centre) and the steel finish (right).
More pictures of a recent medieval commission, showing some simple siege mantlets to protect the crossbowmen;
The crossbowmen themselves are pretty much straight builds from the Fireforge medieval sergeants kit, as described in previous posts. I've included them in this shot to show that the mantlets are painted-up to match the same quartered red/white scheme.
Construction of the mantlets;
Cut some 1mm plastic sheet into rectangles 22mm x 18mm. You could use other materials, thin ply or MDF, or even card. If you are matching to smaller / older miniatures, you might want to reduce the height or width slightly. Likewise, if you have huge steroid mutants (Games Workshop miniatures, for example) you may need larger proportions.
I made up some artwork in Photoshop for the front, and printed it in colour onto sticker paper. I use quite expensive good-quality paper, with a smooth finish and a slight sheen to it (though not glossy), so tht acrylic paint flows nicely over it, rather than just soaking in or clumping on the surface. Of course, you can also use decals (Veni Vidi Vici, Citadel Six, Little Big Man etc.), or paint freehand - and if using printed paper, you can use plain paper and attach with wood glue (as I usually do for plastic shields).
Next, I covered the back surface in wood-grain sticky-back plastic film. You can buy this in DIY stores, though mine actually turned up in my local ALDI. The supports are made from lengths of square section plastic kit frame (or 'sprue'), trimmed to approx. 15mm length. The horizontal is attached about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way up, and secured with plastic cement (this handily bonds styrene and sticky-back plastic film). The vertical piece then attaches to the underside of the horizontal, roughly halfway. The support pieces are deliberately not exactly alike, and the angle of attachment varies too. This gives a very pleasing effect when they're lined up.
Next, the mantlets were attached in pairs to 'cavalry' style plastic bases (from Perry Miniatures sets, but I think Renedra do them for lots of manufacturers). The fronts were battle-damaged with a few light scuffs, and some spare plastic arrows (Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses longbowmen kit) painted up to stick in. Holes for these were made using a heated pin, as my 0.5mm drill bit snapped under pressure from my big gollum hands. A drop of plastic cement in the hole was enough to secure the thin arrow. I stuck them into every other mantlet, but if you want more battle damage, you can chop off corners / rip the painted cover / add more arrows.
Finally, I put the scenic treatment onto the bases. If you do this after assembly, as I did, be careful to 'squash' the mantlet into the surface, so they don't appear to be balanced on top (unless your bases are rock / paving / stonework!). In this case, they were based to match Mark's existing collection, so looks a little different to my usual sandy ones.
These could also be made with no heraldry on the front, in which case you could cover both sides with sticky-back plastic film - or paint wood grain by hand. It would be fun to do some with religious scenes, as I do sometimes for my 15th century pavises. The larger, flatter 'canvas' would give more room for artistic freedom.
By chopping a 1.5mm - 2mm square chunk out of each bottom corner, and adding small slices of 2mm - 2.5mm plastic rod or dowel, you could make wheeled mantlets. Sometimes, the mantlets had a dedicated footsoldier to support them and move them around (the 'pavisier'). Sadly, the Fireforge set doesn't include any kneeling poses, so I couldn't do them like that - but if your collection includes kneeling figures, that would look great too.
I did some for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game too, modelled to look like Orc / evil ironwork. I'll post pics of these at some point soon.
I'll get this out of the way first - I get bored painting crossbowmen! I'm the same with musketeers / riflemen / handgunners... I just lose interest painting all those identical weapons. For some reason, this doesn't set in when I paint spears, or swords... seems peculiar to missile weapons.
Anyway - enough my psychological foibles. You can't really have a medieval battlefield without crossbowmen on it somewhere (even if they're just being ridden down by exciteable French knights), so the client requested 24 of them. As with the sergeants, I thought finishing them in two units of 12 might offer flexibility - and this is likely what he had in mind in the first place, rather than being my inspired notion;
Style #1 is quartered scarlet / white. All those in the above picture are from the standard options in the Fireforge sergeants boxed set, with the chap third from left sporting mail-clad arms and head from the Templar infantry set. There are large rectangular pavises to go with these chaps, which feature a black heraldic design - so I've chosen the odd sleeve and hose to finish in black or dark grey, to compliment this.
Style #2 is quartered blue / white. Again, I've thrown in some mailed arms, and gain I've chosen hose / sleeves here and there to echo the heraldic design on the pavises - in this case, gold / yellow.
My favourites - the archers. Only 12 of these chaps, but they were fun to put together. They use Fireforge bodies and heads (apart from the chap at extreme left, who sports a Gripping Beast head); combined with the arms from Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses archers. I used a combination of short sleeve / amiled sleeve designs, as many of the arms in the Perry set are far too 15th century for this sort of model. The limited choice was not a problem, as the Fireforge bodies are quite dynamically posed - so the same arms on two different bodies makes for a radically different look.
No unit colour scheme for these chaps - though they mostly sport Opal Fruits / Starburst acid colours; bright green, orange, strawberry red, lemon yellow. The remaining garments are mostly unbleached wool (off white) or red-brown leather. The sheaves of arrows are taken from the Perry Wars of the Roses set, but the quivers are Wargames Factory Orc ones, or Gripping Beast Arab ones. Despite what Hollywood shows, most medieval archers kept their arrows in barrels, then grabbed a handful before battle commenced - sometimes in a bag, or wrapped in a cloth, but often just wedged in the belt or carried in the hand (to be stuck in the ground later).
The last element in the army is a unit of twelve 'bargain basement' peasant spearmen. The design cue was unarmoured / basic, so I went with the cloth hooded heads from the Fireforge set. There are only two designs of this, so I've tried to vary the skin / hair tone and the colour of the hood to make them look less like clones.
I used four different schemes for the shield designs, red/white, black/white, blue/white, and burgundy/gold. The idea here is that some local lords have donated shields to their peasant levy, but everything else is their own - so they have a basic spear, and their clothing is mostly unbleached wool, or dyed various vegetable colours (green, brown, grey). Yes, I know there aren't really grey vegetables, but you get the idea - neutral colours!
The shields are all backed with red-brown woodgrain adhesive plastic. In a future post, I'll show such a shield being created.
The next attempt at modelling the same chaps both foot and mounted was to be a unit of 12 sergeants. I opted here to split the unit into two colour schemes - allowing two units of six to be fielded instead;
The sergeants had to be easily told-apart from the knights, so I went with unbarded horses, and no shield blazons. One half of the unit has variations of blue and white on their shields, plus blue / white quartered surcoats. This means they can be fielded as the retinue of a knight - as the six knights (see previous post) feature one chap with the same colour scheme.
As with the knights, each pairing uses matched shields / weapons / heads. The keen eyed will notice that the legs on this particular pairing don't match. On horseback, he has mail cuisses. The backstory (excuse...) for this, is that he retains the lower leg protection while fighting mounted, but abandons it for convenience and lightness when fighting on foot. It also meant I could vary the foot poses, as the Templar infantry set only comes with four mail-cuisses-equipped body styles.
Another of the blue / white pairings. The sergeants are all armed with spears, which required some cutting-down of the lances for the mounted versions. To further distinguish them from the knights, they can't all afford beautiful thoroughbred white chargers either - this chap is mounted on a bay. Although his gret helm seems to have gone the journey, he has at least retained his leg armour when dismounted.
The shield designs vary, some stripes, some quartered - and the style of shield varies too - but the colours remain the same, reinforcing the 'unit' appearance.
Green and white sergeants - all the same thinking was applied to these as to the blue / white - even down to the option of pairing them with a matching knight (see previous post).
Worth mentioning the shields at this point. Normally, unless the shield has moulded 'wood grain', I paint the backs the same way - a nice dense 'light leather' colour, followed by lines of red-brown and chocolate-brown for a grain effect. This is how I did the knight's shields. These chaps get a slightly different approach, with a combination of red-brown base, with chocolate-brown and black lines. I chose to make the switch for a couple of reasons; firstly, the leather items (shoes, saddlery) I normally paint red-brown, and the way I do shields is meant to replicate leather-covered wood... so it seems sensible to use the same leather colour on all items. Secondly, though not used here, I have acquired some red-brown 'wood grain' self-adhesive film, which gives a nice pattern without taking as much time. You'll see it later in the footsoldiers from the same commission. The red-brown colour matches this plastic film nicely.
More sergeants, this time mounted on grey horses. I have shied-away from piebald and other colourful horse finishings, as the troops themselves are quite bright. So almost everyone gets a white (actually known as grey), grey, or brown / bay mount. This diamond pattern on the shields is one of the variants (along with diagonal stripes, quartering) used to suggest uniformity, without actually being all that uniform.
Reverse view of same. I have more pictures of the sergeants, but I've run out of things to say about them... :)
Apologies for the long gap in posts, as I have had some things to contend with beyond painting / modelling. Hopefully the next few posts - which are all part of a commission for the same client - will make up for it a little (individual apologies being sent out to those who have had their commission work delayed).
This commission was for some medieval knights / sergeants / footsoldiers, with a specific set of parameters for each unit. The first 'unit' was to be six knights, modelled both mounted and on foot;
Each of the knights was to be distinguished from the sergeants (see later post) by being mounted exclusively on barded horses. For this first pairing, I went with a horizontal 'bar' in mint green and white - like the Pacer sweets I enjoyed as a kid (that's vert and argent for you sticklers!). I chose matching heads for the foot / mounted versions, and used one of the surcoated bodies from the Templar infantry set for the dismounted knight. I also chose to use the same weapon, and the same shield design - hopefully making it clear that he's the same chap.
Rear shot of the same - the heraldic design is a Veni Vidi Vici shield transfer of a hydra. These knights are not supposed to be actual depictions of anyone historical, so mythical beasts and geometric designs were used to keep them generic-ish.
I love orange - so there had to be a knight in an orange scheme. Often, I pair orange with green; but on this occasion I didn't want to clash with my 'green knight', so I quartered the orange with white (the white helps with keeping the models nice and bright too). I took the same approach as for the other knights, in that I selected matching head / shield / weapon. I suppose I could equally have armed each of the mounted chaps with a lance instead. Perhaps Mark will commission lance-armed versions of his knights in future :)
Rear shot of the same. Again, I used a mythical beast for the blazon - most of the VVV transfers I have are black, so again it makes sense to keep the colours light; otherwise a black design might get 'lost'.
Light blue - another favourite of mine, and usually / often paired with scarlet. Again, I didn't want to clash with a later red knight, so the blue is quartered with white. The weapon matching is not exact here, as I liked the idea of at least one knight with his shield slung and a huge two-handed axe in use. The mounted version does have an axe, but not the single beard design which the foot version is wielding. Mark - if this jars, let me know and I'll try lopping the axe head off and replacing with a matching design.
Rear view of same, showing the geometric 'sun radiant' design (this time nicked from a box of Greek Hoplites). From most angles, the axe difference is not noticeable - and most often, they'll not be seen on the field of battle at the same time anyway :)
Another bar design, this time using wine red and white. The base style differs from my usual, though some of the steps were similar. Firstly, I used bought-in 3mm MDF precut bases, which I have used elsewhere but usually round rather than rectangular. I cut down the figure base and superglued them in place, as I normally do, and then disguised the base edges with a clay filler (again, as per usual). To match with the client's own basing style, I then omitted my usual sand-coating stage, and just gave the clay two sealing coats of PVA. The PVA sets flexible but hard, and makes a great base for the brown 'mud' colour which was applied next. Finally, I was back on familiar ground (pun intended) with a smattering of green surface texture.
Rear view of same. The green ground cover I use is a mix of Heki railway scatter, with assorted green tea leaves / mixed herbs / shredded raspberry leaves mixed in. This is meant to replicate blown leaves over grass - something medieval man would have experienced a lot of, given that most of Europe was still pretty tree-covered in the 12th / 13th centuries.
I love these eye-catching chequerboard designs, and they're great fun to paint. I knew I wanted to include one, but I agonised over the choice of 'opposite' colour to go with the white. It finally came down to a straight fight between blue and black, and I reasoned that if I went with blue and hated it, I could easily overpaint with black. As it happens, I really liked the blue. The heraldic design is a wavy Spanish cross, in red this time as the blue was just a shade too dark for a black one to work well.
Not sure why I didn't do a reverse shot here... and chose instead to show them charging the other way. Anyway, it shows off the chequerboard scheme nicely.
I recently painted some Wars of the Roses guys in a mostly yellow / white scheme, and thought it might suit one of the knights. I'd already done several 'quartered', so I thought I'd ring the changes with a diagonal stripe, or 'bend'. This was the beginning of the trouble. First, the stripes were much harder to get at the correct angle than a horizontal or vertical line. Then, the yellow I chose was a bit feeble and needed multiple coats. Next, the yellow-on-white looked odd (and broke a heraldic rule - as it was metal on metal, argent / or). I solved the latter by striping the yellow with thin black lines, so now the two metals were butted against a tincture. The next issue was the charge, or shield design. I had about 70 to choose from, and they all looked wrong. I toyed with the idea of having no charge at all, then took inspiration from football shirts, and placed small 'rose' badges at top left.
Reverse of same.
So, that was the first part of the commission, next up is another foot / mounted combination - the sergeants.
