Old Pics- Curtey's 13th Century Medievals

I managed to get a very old laptop to miraculously start purely on spec to see if I could retrieve any of the pictures on my painting that I knew were on the machine. As the damn thing refused to hook up to my router it was a case of burning the images onto a writable CD and plugging in an external CD drive into my newer laptop and going through the painstaking process of saving each image! Basically it took a few hours which is time I would rather have spent painting but hey ho..... there are many more pics in need of retrieval on that steam powered machine too!

These mini's were painted up for a client a few years back which is why they are not based.

The first lot are a mounted and foot version of Richard I and painted as requested by the client. I seem to remember that the miniatures came free with a Wargames Illustrated subscription.

Here we have some 13th Century 1st Corp Medieval miniatures. Again painted as requested by the client.

Painting Justinian Byzantine Heavy Infantryman Step By Step Part One

A few weeks ago I took delivery of some miniatures I had had my eye on for a while; namely a decent number of the new Aventine Miniatures Early Byzantine range. I splashed out a bit and bought a unit of Extra Heavy Infantry, two units of Armoured Infantry with archers for the rear ranks, two units of nomad Steppe Horse Archers and a unit of noble Steppe Warriors! Quite a haul really.

On receipt and the prerequisite inspection of the miniatures I was amazed by the quality of sculpting and the sheer depth of detail. Not only in the sculpting but the attention to detail in terms of additional equipment yet in the extent of the research that must have gone into creating the models. Aventine Miniatures are astoundingly good.

I'm going to do a review of the miniatures as I collect them so that will have to be a topic for another post but please, take my word for it when I say that these miniatures are superb.

OK, onto the painting! The first twelve models of the unit. One thing I had to bare in mind was that I was painting these miniatures for the table top en masse, thus I needed to take a few shortcuts such not painting in eyes and instead leaving black areas where they eyes settle on the face, dry brushing metals instead of painting in each scale. (I once had a GW High Elf Army in which I had religiously painted in very scale on each model. The army took several years to complete!! Crazy!)

Due to certain health concerns I predicted that I was simply not going to be able to get out of the house to get to my usual usual suppliers for paint etc and it wouldn't be long before they to be temporarily closed so I managed to grab five Army Painter matt black undercoat via the net just prior to the lockdown. Happy with this I then cleaned and primed the miniatures only to discover that the after spraying carefully the surface was glossy and the primer had pooled! Not a great start! (Those Army Painter Cans are now relegated to use on terrain only). I have a couple of cans of Halfords Matt Black Enamel which was a godsend this saved me from hand priming mini's with Humbrol Matt again. It's not that I dislike using Humbrol Matt Black Enamel, it certainly has it's uses. It is bit of a faff on applying it and to be honest the company changed the formula somehow quite a few years ago and the stuff has not been as good since. It's a bit like comparing the old Testors Dullcote to the new stuff. No comparison in my humble opinion.

I did have a jar of Golden Acrylic Black Gesso, which always leaves a very flat, very matt surface on the miniature so I was able to salvage the next batch of four which was a huge relief. You might ask, why not just use the Gesso in the first place? The reason is that although Gesso gives a brilliant flat matt finish that really accentuates the details on a model,, it is quite a fragile coat and can be brushed off quite easily. Thus I prefer to prime with a spray primer before applying an undercoat, which could be Gesso or Vallejo Air Matt Black 'Primer' which is really an undercoat.... but I digress.

The mail was simply a dry brush of of Citadel Bolt Gun Metal (or equivalent) darkened with VMC Matt Black, then Citadel Bolt Gun Metal, then Citadel Iron Breaker and lastly Citadel Runefang Steel. The whole thing was then given a wash of watered down Nuln Oil. This I may have applied to thickly and next time the mix will contain a little more water. It is important to dry brush each layer with a slightly more deft touch each time only brush the lighter tones on the highest of ridges (if any) on the armour. If i remember tomorrow I'll take a few snaps of the metals and colours in order of use as a visual reference is a most often lot easier to remember.

For Iron and Steel I have stuck to using Citadel paints over the years as I have had no problems with coverage or inconsistencies in the pigment. I have used Army Painter Paints which are much smoother and have a good amount of pigment but I was going to be dry brushing so the question of a smooth finish did not enter the equation.

Citadel Paints for the Steel/Iron Armour:

The scale and lamellar armour on these heavily armed Byzantine Infantry would be made of steel or iron plates but I wanted a bit of a contrast between the the mail and the scale/lamellar so I chose to paint this particular armour as if it had been gilded. Opting for a bronze look I picked out a selection of Vallajo Game Colour metals as they are packed with pigment and as I would be dry brushing again this was crucial.

The scale and lamellar was painted with VGC Hammered Copper and when completely dry given a  slightly watered down wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade. It was then just a case of light and lighter dry brushes of VGC Brassy Brass, VGC Bright Bronze and finally a mix of 70% VMC Bright Bronze/30% Polished Gold on the absolute high points on detail. I might end up painting a final highlight of this armour at a later stage dependent on how the colours work together on the model later on.

Vallejo Game Colour Paints for the Lamellar/Scale Armour:

The flesh was painted on in thin layers with a base coat of Army Painter Tanned Flesh followed by a watered down wash of Army Painter Flesh Wash and left to completely dry. I was not concerned about the wash bleeding into the eye sockets which I had left black as this gave them a warmer, fleshier quality. Then a layer of Army Painter Barbarian Flesh followed by a layer of Army Painter Elven Flesh on the highest points of the cheek bones, the upper lip and a highlight on the chin (which would be reflected light). Finally the lips were painted in with VMC Brown Rose and a very fine highlight of Salmon Pink.

Army Painter Paints for the Flesh:

And the Lips:

Front and Back Views of the Miniatures:

Close ups of two of the miniatures so you can see some of the detail at scale!

Afterthoughts? In retrospect I had not considered the size of the extra large shields when it would come to getting the brush into some of the lavish detail so I would have opted to drill and pin but leave the shields aside and glue them in place when the models were complete.

Next up will, surprisingly be Step Two!

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.

Close Ups: