Captain Blood's Perry Mounted Men at Arms. P.157 Another company of men at arms

[Captain Blood]

As my friends and correspondents will know, I've been waiting for these babies for what seems like an awfully long time, so having picked up a couple of boxes at Salute, now I intend to enjoy them! 

Someone remarked to me 'why would you bother assembling plastic figures when you could get straight on with painting metal ones?' (After half an hour scouring off stray lumps of metal and socking great mould lines, presumably).
You may feel the same. Each to their own. My answer is because I find modelling these figures fantastically creative and enjoyable. To see how much character and animation I can squeeze out of the components. Plus, they are simply wonderfully characterful figures to start with. I'm not sure anyone has truly captured the look of a period - any period - as well as Michael Perry has with the models in this range.

So I've already slung a few figures together, and will be doing many more over coming days and weeks. I figured I'd show a WIP thread here as I go. I know people like some of what I've done with previous releases in this range (I know, because  people have copied what I've done - and that's fine. I hope people will be inspired by these excellent figures, the pleasure to be gained by modelling them, and what can be achieved with them  )

This will also provide a bit of a review as I go along, and hopefully some modelling hints and tips and watch-outs 

First up in a little while...

[Captain Blood]

Okay, here we go. The first one I made up will be the Captain of my Milanese Mercenaries. I've gone for the body wearing the German gothic armour. And for the horse. There are two types of horse armour included, and both ingeniously fit over the horse itself, just like real armour.

I've chosen one of the new heads from the MMAA set in an open faced sallet. I don't like all the new heads in this set, but I do like this one. Suitably cruel. I also used the new helmetless head - as a head! It was just too much to resist, and everyone knows what happened to nobles on the losing side in the Wars of the Roses... This necessitated a tiny bit of conversion work adding a bit of hand to the rider's right arm. Then lots of poly cement to soften up and mess up the hair and add bits of gore to the underneath of the severed neck.

Please note by the way, the figures are not cleaned up yet, just quickly scraped over with a scalpel and stuck together. The tiny shavings of plastic will be brushed off and all the glue will vanish under the paint.

The front plates of the horse armour don't seem to fit all that well. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or maybe they just don't fit all that well. Either way, you can see I've used a shedload of poly cement to blur and cover up the join at the breast. This will vanish under the paint, I do assure you.

[Blue in vt]

Excellent!  I can't wait t watch this progress.  I find myself on the metal side of the fence but "watching" an artist of your caliber and creativity with these new excellent plastic sets may...eventually ...change my mind.

Cheers,

Blue

[Captain Blood]

We shall see...

Next, we have a straight build from the box with no fiddling around. This one is a knight in shining armour, pure and simple. Except that I wanted to visualise him riding down some poor fleeing infantryman after Towton. Which is mainly what mounted troops did at this time to be honest, rarely being used in set piece battle as such.

This one is in the Italian horse armour - a much neater fit over the gee-gee. The rider has couched lance and a high-domed visored sallet with bevor. I have tried to make him stand up in his stirrups as he impales the fleeing peasantry. Swords are all added separately by the way. Getting the angle at which swords hang naturally right, is part of the art of getting these figures looking good...

[painterman]

Richard
This is an excellent thread, which I (as many others) will follow with immense interest - so firstly thanks.

A great start and I love the pose that you've created - suitably gorey for the middle ages.

I found that rubbing down the sculpted-on horse harness, when adding the barding/armour helped somewhat with the joints and how the armour sits overall on the horses. It maybe that they'll be small gaps that can't be avoided however with some horse-build combinations?

Fantastic - he'll look stonking when painted.
Awaiting more already...haven't started mine yet 
Regards, Simon.

PS - the WR and EA ranges are Michael's sculpts by the way...

[Arlequín]

I'll echo the other comments, I'll be watching this thread with great interest. Poses so far look great!

With the price of metal now, I sometimes feel like I'm watching Top Gear here nowadays, there's all these Wargaming Clarksons whizzing about with their 'Maserati and Porsche' armies, telling me what I'm missing and it ain't wargaming if it ain't metal etc.

Metal is all well and good, but there is no way you could ever get the variety and potential of these figure 'kits' in a metal range.

[Keith]

Damn you .. I was content to let you have all the fun with these, but that first one has just tipped me over the edge. I'll be ordering tomorrow. 

[Captain Blood]

Heh heh. Sorry Keith...  

PS - the WR and EA ranges are Michael's sculpts by the way...

Thanks Simon. I knew that, but had forgotten which was which for a moment there   (Edited my OP to credit the right Perry!)
I read your blog review, and found it very useful, as ever. I shall try the barding rub-down before the next armoured horse  

Meanwhile, here's the next one... He is a lighter horseman - I am going to make a mix of knightly types in full harness, and reinforcements for my metal scurriers, prickers and what-have-you. I have used the body type with a livery coat over armour, and added one of my favourite heads from the original WOTR box. I have used this head on about 20 figures now, but it always seems to adopt a different expression whichever pose you put it in.

This one is waving his sword to encourage his comrades in the hunt for fleeing fugitives. Tiny bit of jiggery-pokery with the sword hand to get it at that angle.
I've added an empty scabbard to his belt. The horses really are superb. Not sure how many combos you can make up using the different halves and many different heads included, but it must be hundreds. On this one I've used the horse's head with the basic chamfron.

[painterman]

Am loving that third one - good job these aren't copyrightable, as I'll copy that one for my Burgundians. Also one of my favourite heads, that gets saved for such models where a stirring battle cry is required!
Is there a full frame coming here Richard ...one more WIP build to still come perhaps?
Simon.

[dodge]

nicely done matey,

now get some paint on will yer! 

Please

[Captain Blood]

  Yes, you remind me not to build too fast, Roger, because if I make up 24 of the buggers in a few days flat, then I shall then have rather a lot of painting to do for the next few months!

Am loving that third one - good job these aren't copyrightable, as I'll copy that one for my Burgundians.
Is there a full frame coming here Richard ...one more WIP build to still come perhaps?
Simon.

Copy away Simon 
I have three more already made up plus a couple more in the works. More tomorrow...

Meanwhile, I've also long been anticipating the conversion possibilities of the MMAA set for the foot figures in the first two C15th sets. In fact - because it turns out that the left arms in the MMAA set are integral to the mounted bodies in 'reins-holding' position - the scope is not quite what I'd hoped for...

Still, the new set does open up a lot of additional possibilities.
So I've been working on a few more foot figures too...

Here is one of the mercenary command bodies, with the addition of a new head from the MMAA set - the armet with the impressive feather tower plume. I've also added a right arm from the MMAA set - in the German armour - plus drawn sword. The left arm comes from the Mercenaries box, but lacks the rondelle plate or besagew protecting the armpit. So I simply sliced one off one of the many surplus arms in the MMAA box, a dab of poly cement, and bob's your uncle - another unique figure

[Johan]

quote (captain Blood) The horses really are superb. Not sure how many combos you can make up using the different halves and many different heads included, but it must be hundreds.

Richard 3 body halves x 3 other body halves x 7 different heads x 3 (no armour, italian or german armour) gives us (without changing any stances of the horses)
a staggering 189 different possibilities. This means 15,50 boxes before you have to repeat the horses. If we multiply by 4 basic bodies x an endless amount of different heads of whom most can be put in different positions and the extremely large choice of weapons and weaponarms.... well you have thousands of possibilities before you HAVE to repeat yourself and then you can start cutting and changing parts of the body / arms / heads 

[Dr Mathias]

So far, so good

[OSHIROmodels]

I think I'm going to enjoy this 

Are you going to need some oval holes by any chance 

cheers

James

[Helen]

Looking great Richard. Love the severed head conversion.

Helen