Author Topic: A Borgia Mini-Plog! - (pg 3. Gendarmes Complete!) (Read 8887 times)

Stuart · « **Reply #30 on:** October 21, 2020, 07:34:57 PM »

Those arquebusiers are awesome, excellent job on bulking out the arms to make them more voluminous.

Really impressed with them !

olicana · « **Reply #31 on:** October 22, 2020, 04:45:48 PM »

Red border, yellow border?

Easier to say than "red lorry, yellow lorry".

Is there a significance, probably not. There are not that many images or descriptions of flags from this period so I suspect that quite a lot are made up. I'm not saying this is definitely the case with Pete's Flags, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was either.

It could be a flag associated with any one of the brothers, or daddy, of course but, if it is, it doesn't help you much because they were prominent at different times. Daddy Pope would most likely use the Papal arms and not his own in any event because Papal arms were superior in the pecking order (so he, and his personal guard, would carry those, not his family coat of arms).

There are a lot of made up 'variations on a theme' out there (when it comes to flags) because it's the best and only way to go in many cases.

Even doing known flags from written descriptions isn't an exact science unless it is a coat of arms. It's a bit like asking people, who have never seen an elephant, to draw an elephant from a simple description - no two pictures will ever be the same.

My advice, when it comes to flags (and much else besides when it comes to the Italian Wars) is not to think about some things too much, don't get hung up about them, and go with the flow. In a lot of cases, the answers are NOT KNOWN.

I've been interested in the Italian Wars for 20 years but I can't say I've learnt that much that's new for the last fifteen of them because nearly everything is a rehash, or a new take, on the comparatively little material that has been previously published and it nearly all uses the same scant sources. When I started out I thought there would be far, far more information than there is.

The printing press might have been invented in 1440 but, apparently no one wanted books on contemporary military history, uniforms, flags, etc. so authors wrote very little about them. The average Joe, on the streets of Rome or Venice, wanted Mills and Boon, or books on the Romans, so Italia Amazonia, which delivered printed parchment using powerful homing pigeons (called Drones) way back then, stocked those instead.

Caveat emptor. Some of this reply is fake news.

HappyChappy439 · « **Reply #32 on:** November 21, 2020, 02:54:03 AM »

Quote from: olicana on October 22, 2020, 04:45:48 PM

Red border, yellow border?

Easier to say than "red lorry, yellow lorry".

Is there a significance, probably not. There are not that many images or descriptions of flags from this period so I suspect that quite a lot are made up. I'm not saying this is definitely the case with Pete's Flags, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was either.

It could be a flag associated with any one of the brothers, or daddy, of course but, if it is, it doesn't help you much because they were prominent at different times. Daddy Pope would most likely use the Papal arms and not his own in any event because Papal arms were superior in the pecking order (so he, and his personal guard, would carry those, not his family coat of arms).

There are a lot of made up 'variations on a theme' out there (when it comes to flags) because it's the best and only way to go in many cases.

Caveat emptor. Some of this reply is fake news.

Thanks for the heads up! I'll probably use both versions in that case!

Another quick update from my end though! I've been (very slowly) painting up some Gendarmes to go along with the Borgia force.

These came in the group of 6 I bought Cesare in way back when, from Steel Fist Miniatures, and they're lovely figures (though I did have some trouble getting their heads to stay on at first!), so I wanted to take some extra time on the barding to personalise them a bit, while also keeping in the general red/yellow colour scheme (although I know historically gendarmes would be in a whole array of colours in the field)

The first one took way longer than I expected to get the lattice-pattern down, but I'm quite happy with how it's turned out!

With the second red ~~Char Custom~~ horse, I saw the horns on the horse's head and had the idea to add flames to the barding to act as some kind of, fiery hell-horse (and to go faster, naturally). The patterning is loosely based on some contemporary engravings of the Battle of Fornovo

And finally for a little bit of a breather, I did one with some plain metallic barding, with just the reins patterned in Borgia yellow/red to tie him in with the rest of the bunch

And here's some shots of the group all together

I figure the Gendarmes themselves are possibly a tad anachronistic for the time Cesare is wandering around in Romagna, but not by too much to break suspension of disbelief! But just in case, I've avoided any overt Borgia symbolism on the barding, so they can be used for either Louis XII, or some later Papal cavalry as well if needed!

Let me know how they've turned out!

levied troop · « **Reply #33 on:** November 21, 2020, 07:21:07 AM »

Magnificently turned out

That lattice work was well worth the effort!

commissarmoody · « **Reply #34 on:** November 21, 2020, 09:40:27 AM »

They are looking great!
Looking forward to seeing more in the future.

HappyChappy439 · « **Reply #35 on:** November 22, 2020, 03:33:53 PM »

Thanks both! I have three left in the pipeline for that unit (with some Perry plastic horses mixed in, so hopefully those end up looking the part!)

Frostie · « **Reply #36 on:** November 25, 2020, 12:44:47 PM »

Love the Gendarmes, they look great!

I love this period I have my collection, some painted, in 15mm

HappyChappy439 · « **Reply #37 on:** December 23, 2020, 10:13:37 PM »

Hi again!

I've been working at finishing off the rest of the unit of gendarmes, this time a mix of Steel Fist with some Perry bits thrown in as well

The first is an unmodified Steel Fist figure, (with incredibly fancy sleeves!)

The second is a Steel Fist gendarme, mounted on a Perry plastic horse, the original figure's horse had a full caparison which I didn't think quite fit in with the look I was going for (so I'm saving that for later!). Thankfully the Steel Fist and Perry figures scale basically 1:1 so size wasn't an issue at all

And finally the standard bearer is a full Perry plastic man-at-arms, with a green-stuff skirt to renaissance him up a bit. The flag is attached to a piece of brass rod so it can be swapped out for other banners if I need to