Friday 24 April 2020

Reconquista! Spanish Caballeros Hidalgos

This unit of Caballeros Hidalgos, like the Ghuzz Horse Archers featured in my last post is another unit that was speed painted with a view to getting all the units finished in time for Partizan. That said, I am now quite tempted to paint up the rest of the Christian Spanish horses to match these as although they are far from the best I can do they don't look too bad and it's a great way of getting the miniatures into the condition where they are suitable for the table top.

In future, I am contemplating painting one army up to my best standard, then one or two speed painted. This would greatly increase my output. I've had no negative comments on the various wargames fora or social media thus far, in fact quite the opposite.

The miniatures I chose for the unit are a mix of Perry Miniatures. Gripping Beast from their (Early Crusades and El Cid ranges) and Crusader Miniatures (from their Dark ages El Cid range).  There is a gripping beast falling horse conversion and in there too to which I added a Wargames Foundry mini from their "Death of Harold" vignette pack in their Bickley Norman range. The saddle and the stirrups were sculpted using ProCreate putty. The Ebob horses (on license and snapped up by many sculptors many years back) certainly helps to add a degree of homogeneity to the unit. I also wanted to keep the homogeneity and distinguish the Christian Spanish units from my Normans which have a large array of shield designs etc so I opted to go for an analgous colour theme within the unit.








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22 comments:

  1. Nice unit ...like the colour scheme I might use this for a unit in the future

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  2. Lovely stuff Darrell. I agree on the Ebob horses they do bring it together. I started on a theme for my first unit of Spanish and liked it so much kept it through the entire army.

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    1. Thanks Paul, I'm considering doing a retinue type of thing with the shields so units of spear, crossbows jinettes and caballeros, then onto another colour. Not sure at the moment..... :)

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  3. Hello,

    Very nice painting !!! I like the unit's overview and the bases too.

    Nikkobourges

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  4. Really incredible output, especially when you consider the quality. Wonderful stuff.

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  5. Lovely unit. I like white and blue color scheme and how they work with brown-yellow bases.

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    1. Thank you Dmitry.

      When appropriate I started using lighter bases in general many years ago as the lighter type allow the colours on the models to 'sing' so's to speak.

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    2. Interesting observation. Not consciously, but I came to the same approach:)

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  6. Those are awesome, I am so borrowing that paint scheme. Well done!

    Cheers
    Kevin

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    1. Thanks Kevin. For me it was the WAB El Cid Supplement by James Morris.

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  7. Top work. I like your idea of painting one army to a high standard whilst speed painting others. You can bet the speed painted army would win the battle though?

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    1. LOL. You're not wrong! The number of times I've had a painstakingly carefully painted unit leg it off the table top in turn one or two is countless LOL

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  8. Wonderful painting and basing Darrell and a good tip for lighter bases which I will have to try when I get around to doing another period.

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  9. Hi there, I really love this work! could you tell me how you went about painting the flag embroidery? it's very clean.

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