The Knights Errant join the Armee of the Marquis

 Hi all,

Work has continued apace on the new unit of Knights Errant that I'm looking to add to my Bretonnian army for use in both Oldhammer games as well as Oathmark. 

These guys were a lot of fun to paint and also quite a challenge.  There is a LOT of fabric to shade properly on the horses themselves, and the sculpting on the faces of some of the troopers is a little soft and proved difficult for me to complete to my satisfaction.  In reality the sculpts are probably fine but I'm long out of practice on painting the fairly gracial faces of humans in comparison to the exaggerated features found on goblin, orc and dwarf figures.

...either way...they are done now and its time to move on.

Here is the whole unit and below are individual shots of the unit members.

 

I Turn My Attention Back to the Army of the Marquis

  Hi all!

All those months of painting goblins and orcs....wolves and boar ...has compelled me to work on something completely different for awhile. And to work on something with a completely different color palate.

And so, I find myself returning to the Armee of the Maquis d'Saud-or...the small bretonnian army that I painted up 5-6 years ago.  This army is composed entirely of 5th edition Bretonnian figures sculpted by the Perry twins in the mid-1990's.  While these are decidedly "Middlehammer" figures you cannot deny that they are superb sculpts and paint up a treat.  Currently the army is infantry heavy with a unit of halberdmen, a unit of spearmen, two archer units (one of which can be used as scouts...the squires w/bows) a small unit of 7 mounted squires, and a unit of 10 knights. 

 

This small force has been seeing a lot of action in my recent Oathmark games and I really enjoy the way they look on the table...

 

So I've decided to add some to the force by painting another unit of shock cavalry...and for this I will stick to the 5thed figures and add a unit of 10 Knights Errant to the Marquis' forces.

 

I always loved the simpler paint jobs that were given to these figures by the studio painters and I've had these figures in my collection for a number of years now ...so, I am happy to finally have the motivation needed to get them on the table!  

Here's a early WiP pic of the knights as I was starting to figure out color schemes and block in the first colors and flesh tones. 

As you can see I will be mounting them on the cloth barded horses that are typical of 5th edition...at first I wasn't hugely fond of this sculpt, but it has grown on me....particularly with the variation that can be achieved when you employ some of the many optional metal horse heads that were included in this range. You will see that I used several of these head variant in my existing knight unit...but as the Knights Errant are meant to represent less experienced unit of knights I have opted to use the basic plastic heads for all the horses except for that of the hero which will have the metal head variant befitting his rank. 

 As with the first unit of knights I've opted for basic Heraldry with quartered surcoats for the knights and caparisons for the horses.  While somewhat basic on an individual basis I think this makes for a very striking unit on the table that doesn't appear as "cluttered" as some knightly units can that have a ton of complicated heraldry.

For colors I've returned to the same palette as the previous knights and selected the more muted tones again.  I'm really fond of all these colors and feel that they are a nice change from the pure primary colors traditionally associated with heraldry. Here they are a little further along in the process

In the foggy recesses of my mind I'm slowly coalescing my thoughts around these color schemes....basically each color being representative of particular noble family in the Lands of the Marquis.  When these families intermingle through marriage some interesting color combinations are created for their sons to wear in combat.  For example...you may notice that the leader of my first Knight unit has quartered salmon/grey livery (and portcullis Shield).

 

...while the leader of the Errants unit will have salmon/white livery (it looks orange now but will highlight up to that salmon color.)

 

...the presence of salmon on both leaders surcoats suggests that they are brothers, or at least closely related.  I will further reinforce this connection by also giving the Errants hero a shield with the Portcullis on it.  The rest of the unit will have plain shields.

Anyway...as I said its something I'm still pondering on.

Highlights have been progressing on the Caparisons and surcoats....here is the current state of the project.  Most colors have been highlighted...just the hardest one left to do...the White Livery....I see a hundred layers in my future!

 I hope to be back with some updated paintjobs on these guys as the years comes to a close.

Cheers,

Blue

Organ Gun...Studio Shots

Welcome back!!

Thank you all for the kind response to the last post...you have certainly encouraged me to have more fun with scenic shots in the future.

Today I wanted to present to you the more formalized shots of the Organ gun and its crew.

This is the first war machine I have painted in many years (other than a swivel gun) and I had forgotten how much wood grain was involved!  I know many folks tend toward painting some of these old Bretonnian models as painted wood...and I was certainly tempted to do the same.  However my view of my Bret forces is that they are a hard fighting field army located on a land grant on the margins of the Empire...not those fancy parade armies you have back in the heart of Bretonnia...so I opted for unpainted wood.

I made a somewhat heretical decision with the wheels as well and went with these later edition spoked wheels rather than the solid ones this piece was originally sold with.  I've decided to keep my solid wheels for some of the heavier artillery...it seemed to me that this lighter piece could use the spoked wheels more "realistically"...and I like the way they look.

The crew are are a mixed bag.  Our shirtless friend Gaston is actually from the earlier Citadel Bombard release...but I had to use him.  The other two armored crew members are from the 3rd edition Bretonnian releases.

I was pretty conflicted on what to do about his shield.  My stash of Bretonnian shields is fairly small and reserved for my knights at this point.  So I opted for one of these 5th edition (??) Empire shields.  I've used a number of these on my mounted knights as well so it ties in on that level.

The gun and crew were really fantastic figures to work on.  My love of the Perry brothers sculpting increases with every one of their figures I paint.

Cheers for now!

Blue

Bretonnian Knights ...Finally Finished? Part 2

Here is the final batch of the Bretonnian Knights that have been haunting my painting table for the past couple of years.  Now that they are done I'm really happy with how they have turned out...its been a long road to completion...

This batch includes the command section for this unit and a bonus model that I will probably use as my Army Standard Bearer in the future.

Musician

Standard...Ok, so he is not completely done...The actual standard will be forth coming...(shut up Kober!)

Leader...I'm particularly fond of this color combo.

And finally here is the Army Standard Bearer...and Opera Singer

While I had the figures out for these photos I tool the opertunity to capture moe of vignette image with a few of these knights and some of my other Bretonnian models as well.

Thanks for watching this never ending parade of knights!

Cheers,

Blue

Bretonnina Knights...Finally finished...?

Well...they made it onto the table at Oldhammer In the New  World...but they weren't really finished.  They didn't have their shields and the bases were only sanded...they weren't done.

...of course they paid me back for this indignity by running off the table at the first chance they got...so...well I guess I learned something there.

Anyway.  Now they are done...the cowardly bastards.  I'm certainly hoping that they prove a little more resilient in their next encounter.

Anyway...lets look to the pictures.  Here are the first half of the unit.

Oldhammer in the New World Prep Part 3

Alright...lets get this out of the way...

Yes...this is another Prep post...

and...Yes the Event is already over...

So what...?

I'm gonna milk this event for all the Bloggy goodness it has to offer...so that means you have to suffer through another "Prep" post while I download and process photos from the actual event.

...you'll be ok I promise...:)

So here goes...

I spent last Wednesday night touching up details on all the horses and riders.  I also selected shields and started to get the base colors on those.  This last task led to a long stroll through my shields box trying to select just the right shields for these guys...this took away from painting time but was alot of fun. 

I have a lot of shields.

Anyway...here is the status at the end of Wednesday Night.

Group shot

And here are the individual shots so you can see the shield selections a little better.

And lastly here are the shields that I'm working on for the Knights that are already finished.

Looking good right? 

Blue might actually pull this off right?

Yeah...ummm...no...

So...this is where my plan went a little off the rails...I had been underestimating the amount of time it would take me to pack for the event...and in the end Thursday night turned into a night out with my wife at kids to the fair (Yay!  Fried dough!) and packing.

...no painting was accomplished...sigh.

In other words this is the way the knights were goning to be when I pulled into the event on Friday.

...My only hope is to work on them whenever I could on Friday and Saturday in order to have them on the table by Sunday.

Not ideal to say the least...but I'm finally enjoying painting this unit....even on figures as large as these mounted ones its the details that really bring them to life....it feel good to finally be at that point.

Cheers for now.

Blue

Oldhammer in the New World 2015 Prep Part 2

Greetings all,

Work on the horses and riders is progressing and I managed to get all the barding on the mounts completed last night.  This is a major milestone due to the sheer amount of cloth on each of these horses.  There are still lots of details to finish up but in some ways it's down hill from here.

So this is a quick up date to show you the progress on the mounts. Here you go.

I wasn't excited by these plastic 5th edition horses when I started on this unit...but due to size I felt they were the only option for these Knights.  But I must admit that the variety of heads (both plastic and metal) really add a nice variety of poses and the sculpting on the cloth is quite good...so they are growing on me.

Tonight I delved into finishing up the details on the horses and getting started on the shields.  I'll put together an update on that in the morning.

Cheers for now.

Blue

Oldhammer in the New World 2015 Prep...Part 1

Well....what a crazy summer it has been to this point.  As you could probably tell from my lack of Blog output I have been extremely busy with RL concerns the past few months.  Work and family are very demanding on my time during the warmer months...

...but one thing has been keeping my spirits up...and that is thinking about the Oldhammer in the New World Event that is now just a few days away!  

So here is a brief run down of what I'm trying to get accomplished Hobby-wise in the last few days before I head out the door.  As I knew that my time would be very limited this season I have also kept my goals fairly limited...and hopefully achievable...:)

First off I'm very excited to finally get my Bretonnian army onto the table for a game.  Long time followers of this blog have seen this force build slowly over the last two years and it has been mostly completed except for the hard hitting part of any Bret army,....the Knights.  So my principal for this years event has been to complete a unit of 10 mounted knights...plus a hero

Progress on these has been sporadic for more than a year but I have really been focusing on them for the last couple of weeks.  Painting horses is one of my least favorite parts of this hobby but I have been pushing through.  I have five knights pretty much done at this point and six more nearing completion.  Here are some pics...First some close up of the riders very much WIP

Bret Knight update 1

Howdy all,

I just wanted to post a couple of WIP pictures of the unit of Brettonian knights that I've had sitting on my desk for many weeks.  I've been having trouble deciding what colors I should use on them and how involved I wanted the heraldry to be.  In the end I opted to go for fairly basic designs using all the colors that were employed in my other units.  This will give the whole force a bit of coherency but still allow the knights to stand out a bit from the peasant rabble.

As you will recall with the other units of this army I used a Dark Green and a Dark Blue as the unifying colors...and then each unit had a tertiary color to make them unique.  So added to the blue and the green are: gray, salmon orange, brick red, golden yellow and to brighten things up I will also employ some white. 

So this weekend I managed to get the base colors on all the knights (except the general)...just breaking the inertia and getting moving on these feels really good and I think they will look very nice in a big unit.

Here is where I am at this point

Cheers,

Blue