Here is another unit recently added to my Italian Wars collection. This time out we have a mob of Swiss pikemen from the cantons of Bern, Appenzell and Solothurn.
Usually I prefer to paint my own figures, but I’m a relatively slow painter and I wanted to get this collection to a playable state sooner rather than later, so I've enlisted some help from a few pals from around the globe to assist me in moving this project along. Those who come back later will see some of the other work I've received from friends along with more of my own efforts.
The majority of figures from this unit were commissioned from the very talented John over at 'Jacksarge Brushes & Battles'. As I enjoy doing the composition, banners, pikes and basework, I had John focus on painting the figures and I took care of the rest. I just added a wash here and there and a few spot highlights so they better blended with the rest of my collection - I'm very pleased with how they turned out.
These figures are Dave Andrews sculpts from Wargames Foundry. While they may be a little long-in-the-tooth I find that they are really lovely castings; nicely proportioned and conveying a wonderful sense of movement. Being designed for the Burgundian period they are perhaps a bit early for the Italian Wars, but I reason that only 17 years separated the two periods and the charm of the figures outweighs the sin of being somewhat sartorially old-fashioned.
To be honest after my previous Landsknecht pike unit I wasn't really keen on doing another formation in a charging pose as they are complete swine to base and take up about twice the space as a regular unit, but I couldn't help myself when I came across these models while browsing the WF catalogue. Oh well, I reason that these levelled-pike units can be used to denote veteran or particularly large-sized units so I'm happy with having a few in the collection.
Not happy to leave well enough alone, I painted up a few more models to help round-out the unit. There's a standard bearer buried in there that's mine, along with the horn player in the rear rank, the mounted hauptmann overseeing the lads and the poor landsknecht out in front, having a little lay-down.
The banners are a mix from Pete's Flags and a few resized from the Perry boxed Mercenary plastic set.
In this last shot you see the pikeblock being screened by a unit of Bernese halberdiers I painted previously, and led-in by their somewhat peckish mascot, 'Daisy'.
Thanks to John for the great collaboration on this unit - it was a lot of fun to work on.
Thank you for dropping by folks – I hope you all have great day!
19 September 2010, 06:53:43 PM
