Ok, today's post is just a sort of update of what I'm working on - no new units, but some things you might find interesting.
Painting is progressing but at a glacial pace now. A busy time at work, and an imminent house move, means the units aren't getting finished very quickly. I'm currently working on a second unit of French ordonnance archers, and I have lots of other things planned, which will take up all this year and probably much of 2022 as well! This is the list of my to-do list, some constructed, others still in the planning stage....
1 - A second unit of 20 French ordonnance archers.
2 - A second unit of 20 French francs-archers.
3 - A unit of 40 French infantry with polearms.
4 - A unit of French dismounted men-at-arms.
5 - A unit of Burgundian archers.
6 - Another unit of 50 German / Swiss pikemen.
7 - Various units of mounted crossbowmen.
8 - Various commander stands.
9 - An assortment of other cavalry.
Yes, that does look like a lot now that I've written it out....
So I'm currently painting the second French ordonnance archer unit - here is a picture of it assembled before I started painting it. I'm past the halfway point, but it won't be done for another few weeks yet.
It's more heavily converted than the first thing, let me show you a few details....
I've got a chap who does green stuff sculpting conversions for me - I've used him before to sculpt padded jacks onto some metal pikemen, and some riding boots for a few figures in the earlier archer unit. I got more of the boots sculpted for this unit, as they are supposed to be dismounted 'mounted' infantry. I also had the bright idea that some of them could have some mail added, so that they are wearing sleeveless livery jackets over mail shirts, making sure to pair them with arms wearing mail. I'm very pleased with how these came out.
Three of the models in this unit are also Wargames Foundry conversions - the Foundry WOTR range was sculpted by the Perry twins way back in the 80s. It is a very mixed bag, some goofy looking sculpts, and others are fantastic. I wish they could be mixed in with their modern WOTR range, but they are unfortunately much smaller. I wanted to have a try at giving them new legs to make them taller - I've done this before with some Old Glory pikemen quite successfully. Fortunately I found a seller on ebay who sells them individually - I bookmarked various ones that I thought looked good and the conversion would work on. Here are three of them. You need to make a clean cut somewhere below the waist, so it's much easier on those wearing coats or livery jackets. It won't work (or is beyond my skill) on most of the ones with full uncovered plate armour. I'm going to resculpt the hems of their coats to cover the joins and bring them a bit lower. The proportions might look a little odd from some angles - small arms perhaps? - but I will position them carefully in the unit so it's not glaringly obvious. On the two with polearms, I removed and drilled out their original weapons and gave them some better ones.
I also converted one of the Foundry light cavalrymen in a similar way - remove his legs, and give him new plastic Perry legs. I sat him on a metal horse, and also gave him a new plastic hand to make him into a mounted crossbowman. It worked very well I think! The Foundry riders fit on Perry horses pretty well, but do have funny stubby little legs.
I wanted to have a go with the heavy cavalry too, to bring some much needed variety to my large men-at-arms units. It seems the Foundry range has just four basic heavy cavalry bodies, with lots of different head variations - one with a livery jacket, one with some sort of fancy coat, and two in uncovered armour. Again, it would be too tricky to do it on the uncovered armours, but the other two work PERFECTLY. This conversion has one of the bodies wearing a coat and a cool kettle hat / bevor combo. I gave him new plastic legs and put him on a plastic horse. I also gave him a new right arm, cut off just below the shoulder, and to make the left arm match better i was actually able to remove his elbow-plate and replace it with a plastic one, which required some extensive carving.
I've got a few more of these i'll do one day - the body with the livery jacket is going to work very well I think.
While on the subject of cavalry, here are the first three mounted crossbowmen I've painted up. They are metals on metal horses - these sculpts are actually supposed to go on the larger plastic horses, but I fought they'd work better on the noticeably smaller metal horses. One of them has had a head swap. I've got a total of 20 mounted crossbowmen on the work bench, many of which are converted more extensively. I'm painting them one at a time when I need a break from infantry, and once I've got 5 done I will base them up.
Next, I just this week got another greenstuff commission delivered. I got a few more of the riding boots and mail combos, which I've used to make these chaps with swords and bucklers. The arms are converted too, made from several pieces to give them short mail sleeves over plated arms. The idea is to represent either less-well-armoured men-at-arms or well-armoured archers fighting in close quarters. Inspired by various Graham Turner paintings. I don't have a job for these guys yet, so it might be a long time before you ever see them in a unit.
And also a preview of whats to come with the French polearm unit.... I needed infantry in advancing polearm/pike poses wearing livery jackets over gambesons and mail shirts. These are variations of earlier pikeman conversions he's done for me. I'm really looking forward to getting this unit together!