Spanish Knight and Almoravid Horse Archers- On the Painting Table

The On the Painting Table posts will be primarily unfinished painting or conversions. I just thought it to be a good label to have on my blog as it nice and descriptive and thus speaks for itself.

So...... on the painting table I have, one unfinished Spanish Knight for my Late 11th/Early 12th  Century Spanish Reconquista project. He was actually from a unit that has a full compliment of knights minus one as I made a bit of a horrible miscalculation when cleaning up and under coating a unit earlier which is now complete! The mini is roughly half way to completion. His mail, cloak, fabrics and 'turban' have been completed but I have yet to paint the steel helmet and sword and finish the shield. I will add the various base colours, highlight up and then give the mini a last look over to see if anything needs muting, dampening down or highlighting up.

I also have nine half finished Almoravid Horse Archers sitting in front of me. Almoravid armies did not have home grown horse archers. It is more likely that these somewhat noteworthy soldiers were Ghuzz or "Turkomen" who had migrated westward on a small scale, certainly in very small groups. definitively seen in Almohad armies (1172-1212) where they are recorded as receiving higher pay than that of a regular soldier as they were prized for their skills on horseback with the composite bow. Despite there being no direct evidence of their presence in the earlierr Almoravid armies I have made the assumption that very small numbers of these warriors might well migrated West across Northern Africa to seek their fortune in Morocco and Spain.

These miniatures are almost there. I just have to add the final base coats of paint and highlight up. I'm a bit concerned that they look a bit pastel in tone so I might have to rework some of the larger areas in a darker colour. As a final touch I'm going to be adding some basic patterning to some of the fabrics to help break up the large areas of colour.