Sunday 25 January 2015

The Rebasing Continues....


Following my initial attempt at some new bases with my lighter guns here are the heavier pieces crewed by Landsknechts. Most of these miniatures were painted before I started this blog although some of the Old Citadel figures in among the crew were done more recently as were all various bits of gun paraphernalia on the bases. As with the first guns I am really pleased with how they turned out.The figures lend themselves beautifully to the little vignettes you can make on each base. I am not sure anyone will every top the Landsknecht Figures the Perrys did for Wargames Foundry. I thought about putting Gabions on the bases but decided against this as I would rather be able to add them to the front of the bases but then remove them if I want. I already have some old resin Gabions I bought off ebay but I may do some specific bases that can be added to the front of these in the future.

Landsknecht Gun Battery




"Have a care!"



Aside from the four heavier guns I have also based up a lighter piece by The Assault Group. It's a beautiful miniature, with great attention to detail. The crewman with the linstock is by Old Glory while the other two are by Citadel, sculpted by the Perrys in the early 90s I think. I have to admit I am not so keen on a lot of the Old Glory artillery crew models, I think I will sell most of mine, but a few of them have real character. I especially like this guys large hat!

Smaller Landsknecht field piece


Regarding the guns the last piece I based up is to go with the other 5 guns I showed in my last post. It's an organ gun, by Old Glory I think, with generic early Sixteenth century crew. It's a pretty useful model as the crew could represent Spanish, Italians or French.

Ribauldequin or Organ Gun


I have also rebased a big infantry block, the Reisläufer. I spent ages trying to decide what size bases to use but in the end I went with the system James Roach uses on his blog, http://olicanalad.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/playing-about-with-basing.html, as I think it looks very effective and I like the idea of my pike blocks being in very close order. I wanted the banners to be on command bases surrounded by Halberdiers, Officers, Drummers and Pipers. The photo from above shows these two bases in the centre of the block. These two command bases were quite hard work as I wanted to show these figures off without them being completely covered by the flags. As some of the command figures are in dynamic poses it made putting them all in very close order a complete nightmare!
I still have 24 figures for the very front of the block to rebase. The pikemen were a pain to get off the old bases without all sorts of pike breakages and entanglements. I am not looking forward to redoing my 250 or so Landsknecht pike!

The Swiss with Skirmishing Arquebusiers to the front

The Reisläufer

The Reisläufer from above to give an idea of how they are based up

Below are my first rebased Cavalry, the Men at Arms for the very early 1500s. A mixture of Wargames Foundry and Assault Group figures with all the horses by The Assault Group. This is one of my favourite units in my collection and they were pretty easy to rebase.

Milanese Men at Arms

Milanese Men at Arms

Finally a unit of mounted crossbowmen, Perry Miniatures with a few head swaps. The method of putting horse in looser formation on deeper bases really works well and also allows for a bit more modelling scope on the actual base. Unlike the close order Cavalry and Infantry they are not so crammed on. I am looking forward to putting my Stradiots and Jinetes on these style bases.

Next up I have my Spanish infantry to rebase. I reckon the whole collection could take months, especially as a lot of it is currently stored away, but I am keen to persevere as I really think it enhances the figures no end.

Mounted Crossbowmen

Mounted Crossbowmen

9 comments:

  1. Have you posted or will you post a tutorial on how you have painted such beautiful figures. I love how the colors POP and draw your eyes to the detail.

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  2. Looks very cool. Some really nice figures painted very well.

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  3. Stunning collection of miniatures! Lots to draw inspiration from for my own project.

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  4. They are looking good with the re-basing. Nice!

    Re-basing is always a hassle, but seems to working for you. The Milanese MaA look particularly splendid.

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  5. Thanks for the comments guys.

    Victor I don't think my painting is quite at a standard where a tutorial is needed. The trick I always use is to undercoat the figures in black acrylic and then drybrush them white. This makes them look like a kind of ghost. I then fill the colours in from there, I like the results and it's also quite a quick technique.

    Hendrid, the rebasing is going quite well at the moment but there is a long way to go yet and I am already flagging! It also seems to require ridiculous amounts on glue, paint and flock.

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  6. Do you use Acrylic paints or Oil paints for the figures over the black undercoat and white dry brush.

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    1. I only use acrylics. For the black and white I have large plastic bottles of art acrylic but for most of the other colours I use Games Workshop paints (some old habits die hard, haha!).

      When I paint onto the White drybrush I tend to do the whole of a colour at a time, so for example for grey I will do the base coat, then wash and then drybrush before moving onto another colour. At the end I do the flesh and pouches, belts, shoes basically the bits and pieces and then put a wash on these bits. I don't tend to ever do any highlighting.

      My armour is simply black drybrushed with various metallic paints depending on how shiny I want it to be.

      I hope this helps

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