Category: Dark Age

To be honest, looking at the name for number seven below I really can’t make it out.  Is it John De Belloows?  Well whether it is or not that’s what my latest knight in my Footsore Baron’s War army is called.

There are several designs here that I like, and some may well show up on future miniatures and posts, but the first time I looked at this chart I was attracted to number seven and thought I’d give it a go.

I wouldn’t describe my depiction as spot on but as a first freehand attempt of this design I’ll settle for it.  I may do it again at some point but with so many design options I rather like the idea of each knight being different.

Time ran out for me this week so I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, specifically a group shot of what I have done to date.  Unfortunately the next few weeks look like I will be up to my eyes and I may even struggle to get much painting done so for now I’ve just added that task to my list!

Is it just me or was life in lockdown so much easier?

Images of Sir John below.

TIM

This week we have another 28mm foot knight for my slowly growing Baron’s War army – Sir Phelip de Welles. 

I have mixed feelings about this one.

On the positive side I’m pleased with the yellow.  A great colour but so often dreadful to paint with.  Better undercoating seems to hold the key and I am much happier with the results I’m getting these days.  Might just be my eye but there seems to be a bit more depth to the end result.  Whatever the Science I am pleased with how it came out.

On the positive/negative side I have mixed feelings about the heraldry result on the shield, my first attempt at painting a Lion Rampant.  As a first attempt I’m pleased but the head isn’t quite right so that’s left me a little disappointed.  I think what concerns me more was not being able to see how to put it right.  But for the head I’m pleased but it is clearly something I need to practice a lot more.  I would also add that I found using flow aid medium essential. 

One of the challenges with the heraldry was how to break the design down into manageable chunks given the very limited amount of space available on a 28mm shield.  In this instance it was all about getting a basic skeleton shape for the lion and then bit by bit fleshing it out.  Once I got the skeleton form right it became much easier.  I thought YouTube would have plenty of useful tutorials but I found it sadly lacking. I did manage to find something very basic which proved interesting and served my purpose but I had hoped for more.  Perhaps I just didn’t put the right search criteria in.

Images of Sir Phelip below.

TIM

 

 

As well as trying to get one of my Footsore knights done for my Wednesday post I also started work on another one with the aim of playing around a bit with heraldry which is a bit more challenging.  I decided to go with the black and white shown on the right of the second row in the image below.

Now the best I can gather is the geezer in question is a French knight but with all the will in the world I cannot decipher the name hence the title of today’s post.  If anyone has an idea please let me know and I’ll amend the title.  Even if you don’t know but come up with a creative or amusing name I might go with that instead!

As things turned out it wasn’t that tricky to paint after all which was good for moral but leaves me feeling I need to do something more the next time around.

In the meanwhile here are the images of the mysterious French night.

TIM

Here we have the second of my two 28mm neglected mounted Baron’s War knights from Footsore.  This one has been painted in the heraldry of Sire Nicholas de Poyns.  I found his details on a Pinterest image I found on the Parliamentary Roll but I have yet to search out more details on the knight himself.

I’ve never considered myself a quick painter, in fact I would say I am pretty slow.  I could never paint for YouTube, I’d be there all day, but I am enjoying painting mounted knights.  They are taking an age but I’m pleased with the first two I have done.  The real challenge I find with these is the horses and making sure things like the stripes are of even thickness and that they line up.  The end result doesn’t tell the full story of just how much touching up I go through to get an acceptable result (I can still see some bits I’ve missed!).  One day I might get things right at the first time of asking but that will take a lot more practice yet.

More mounted knights are on their way from Footsore, about a dozen or so I think, but it will be a few weeks before I have another one to offer you.  In the meanwhile images of Sir Nick below.

TIM

 

It pays every now and then to remind yourself what you have previously bought and forgotten about.  Going back a good few months I was reminded that I had a spell of painting some Footsore Baron’s War Knights for the specific purpose of clearing my backlog and putting the finished figures up on Ebay for sale.  My overall objective was partly achieved in that I completed all the foot figures I had but wasn’t in the mood to paint the couple of mounted knights that I also had.  Instead I put them back in the cupboard and duly forgot all about them … again.  All this was before I decided to paint a medieval army.

As chance would have it and while searching for something else I stumbled across the two mounted knights once again.  As they were already primed it seemed like a good idea to take on the challenge of painting one to see how it came out before taking the plunge and buying more mounted knights. 

The only real decision I had to make was what colour scheme to go with.  I rather liked the idea of doing black and yellow again as it had worked out well on my recent foot knight but needed to identify another character who sported such livery.  Enter stage left “Sire Will’m de Bovile”.  I have no idea who he is but at some point I will google the chap to learn more.

As far as the painting goes there is really only two things to mention.  Firstly, I dispensed with the idea of masking tape.  Whilst I’m sure it is ideal with an airbrush I cannot get on with it when using a brush, even when stippling.  The folds in the Caparison (is that the right term?) would have made the use of masking tape pretty difficult too.  Secondly, this kind of freehand painting whilst enjoyable and rewarding is, for me at least, very, very time consuming.  That’s not a complaint by the way just an awakening on my part to just how long each mounted knight is going to take me.

My only other comment relates to the banner.  Part of me thinks it is to big (not that I am about to change it) but from what I can see from the bit or research I have undertaken they do appear to come in all shapes and sizes to the point where they dwarf a knight completely.  As to the making of it I elected to once again to use Japanese writing paper.  It has a nice cloth like texture to it.

So, without further ado images of my armies first 28mm mounted knight.

TIM

 

I mentioned in last Saturday’s post that I am attracted to figures which I consider have a nice pose.  Of course this is a personal thing but this is another figure which ticks the box as far as I am concerned.  I like the casual stance of Ulfred.  It’s simple but effective and he has a “don’t mess with me” feel about him, he exudes calmness and complete control.

I went mostly for muted colours as theses seemed appropriate.  The wolf head on his tunic was embossed so no claims to freehand on this one.  Base wise I went for a simple bit of landscape comprising of a a couple of slate chippings, a bit of a twig to form a small broken tree and some Milliput and plaster board dust to complete the groundwork.  Bits of grass tufts were added to the 25mm base to provide some much needed colour.

Images below.

TIM 

This figure came from North Star Miniatures and features under the Lucid Eye heading and is produced by Ziggurat.  The title for the figure is given as “LI-BEL – Fall of Bell”, make of that what you want.  The figure itself is 28mm and in my opinion is  a stunning sculpt and one which is most unusual.

Why unusual TIM I hear you cry.

Well, as you asked, it is a sculpt posed in a way which to my mind is far more 54mm scale or bigger and not a typical 28mm one.  By this what I mean is the sculpt is a miniature figure painters dream not a wargamers style of figure.  As I primarily consider myself a figure painter the pose of a miniature is what often attracts me the most and in 28mm figures the poses are far more often than not sculpted in an action stance.  Nothing wrong with that at all but any figure which isn’t is bound to catch my eye when it crosses my path.  Such was the situation here.  Unfortunately for me the Ziggurat figure range is pretty small and only a few of them have an appeal to me.  I do, however, have my eye on a couple of others including a variant of this figure which I will also purchase in due course.

I’m not entirely sure if this female figure is intended to be a Greek Hoplite but I have based my painting around the idea that she is.  Not a great deal to say about the paint job itself other than that the horse on the shield was embossed rather than freehand but the edging on the shield was freehand and took a while to do.  Every time I looked at it the pattern wasn’t as evenly spaced as I wanted so I was touching up constantly.  I’m sure it is still out in places but I eventually called it a day because I knew I would never ever be 100% satisfied with it.  That’s not to say I am not pleased with it because I am.

I went for a straight forward little bit of base work with just a splash of colour in the red flowers.  I think there is scope to set this figure on a really nice bit of base work so I may well do something with the variant when I purchase it.  I wont rule out doing this figure again at some point either.  The quality of it is superb (as are so many others I might add) and it is hard to believe that it is only 28mm so to prove it is I have included a perspective image too.

TIM

I have done this little chap a couple of times already, in both cases for little dioramas.  The figure is from the Barons War range of Footsore Miniatures and is, in my opinion, a very nice sculpt, so much so that I felt he warranted a base of his own.

Not a great deal to say about the base or the painting on this one other than I elected to go for a Knight Hospitaller look and painted a freehand cross on his tabard.

TIM

As far as my miniatures go this week sees a different manufacture/supplier – Other World Miniatures.  If memory serves me correctly, and at my bloody age it’s doing well if it does, then this was the third of three figures I bought more than a year or so ago.  The other two were a Rat Catcher that featured in Miniatures and Musings No: 40 and a Medieval Knight which I used in a mini diorama entitled The Temptress.  For far to long this little chap has been sitting primed in the to do pile.

I do like figures which I consider have some charachter about them and this little chap falls into that category which is why he appealed to me at the time and still does.  All of which adds to the mystery of why it has taken me so long to get around to painting and basing him.  All in all a nice little two part casting where the arms and the book are a seperate piece to the main body.

I am reminded to take another look at the Other World website as I seem to recall they had some other very nice figures too.  But can I can  justify any new purchases?  Of course I can!

TIM