Wednesday 11 March 2015

Italian Wars French 5 – Reisläufers 5

After a long involuntary break, I'm finally back with some painted miniatures. During the later parts of January and for most of February, the family's been plagued with various colds, flus and other ailments leaving me precious little time for the hobby. What little time I could scrape together has been focused on painting rather than blogging. But now, spring most definitely is in the air here in Stockholm, and the dreaded "sick period" seems to be behind us, which hopefully means more time for both painting and blogging.

To kick things off, here are the last miniatures to be finished for my two Swiss mercenaries pike blocks to be used in my Italian Wars French army: fashionably late, it's the commanders.


The models are all from Foundry, lovely sculpts with lots of character.


With these miniatures I made the conscious effort to go for bolder "steps" and increase the contrasts on the highlights, as I have become increasingly frustrated with my painting style lately, feeling it doesn't "pop" enough on the gaming table. I'm very happy with how these efforts payed off, and this is a direction I will try to strive towards in the future.


The flags are painted by me and based on designs I found on the Internet, more specifically on the excellent blog Camisado. A highly recommended blog, especially if you're into the wars in Italy during the 16th century. The flags represent the cantons of Bern (the bear) and Uri (the bull) respectively.


The flags are removable, for easier storage and for when I want to swap them – in the event I'm fielding these as Landsknechts they obviously can't have Swiss flags!


Here are some pictures of the two complete pike blocks.




Of course I now want to add another 3 bases to each block, for a truly massive amount of pikes. But this will have to wait until I finish some gendarmes and artillery pieces.

Thank you very much for reading!

31 comments:

  1. These are just excellent, I also struggle to brighten my figures but you hit it square on!

    Ian

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    1. Thank you Ian! Regarding brightening your figures, "just go for it" is my advice. Select paints that you think are just a little bit too bright and try them. I find, even with slightly garish colours, they lose that "edge" when you've applied washes and highlights.

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  2. Excellent work, really eye catching

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    1. Many thanks for your kind words Hendrid!

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  3. WOW - I dare say these were well worth the wait, simply masterfully done. The men under the Bull of Uri never looked better. Makes me wanna pick up the brushes and get cracking with my Landsknechts again...

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    1. Thanks Sören, that is high praise indeed! :)

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  4. Gorgeous, beautiful colors!

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  5. Really good looking minis! Hope you will be able to paint some more this spring!

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    1. Thanks Jesper! Yes, hopefully there will be some more painted minis to show soon. I have my host for Håtunaleken finished, just need to take some snaps first.

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  6. Beautiful figures, you did an awesome job hand painting those flags! Many thanks for the mention as well, I am enjoying watching this army come together.

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    1. Cheers Oli! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for being such an inspiration for this project.

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  7. Some truly bold and beautiful brushwork! Well done, they look fantastic. Great to see your pike blocks coming together and with nine bases they will be spectacular. Good thinking to do some other stuff for the army first though. /Mattias

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    1. Thanks Mattias, very much appreciated coming from a re-enactor. On that note, I trust you'll be happy to know I've corrected a certain error we discussed when I posted the first bases for these units ... :)

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    2. Good news! Finally I can be at peace. ;-)

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  8. Hello,
    Excellent painting !!
    Nikko

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  9. Very impressive paintwork matey !!!

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    1. Cheers Michael! Hopefully the rest of the army won't take this long to finish.

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  10. Lovely bold colours! What an excellent piece of work Jones! One day I'll do Italian Wars....

    Christopher

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    1. Thanks Christopher! I went for bold and it seems I succeeded.

      I'm so looking forward to seeing your Italian Wars project once you get round to it – it will be spectacular!

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  11. Absolutely lovely painting here - the standards really set them off too.

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    1. Thanks Dean! I must admit I wasn't too keen on the flags to begin with but now I'm very pleased with them.

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  12. They are stunning Jonas! Like the removable flags too!

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