With that greeting completed, I’ve posted a few pictures below of some painting I’ve been doing over the Christmas and New Year period as part of Curt Campbell's fine Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge VIII, which I am participating in.
This first post covers some Flemish Horse from 1688, being the regiment of Pfilips de Vichet. The figures are mainly 25/28mm figures from Wargames Foundry, with a couple of Dixon Miniatures added (the standard bearer, and the equerry to Count de Vichet). The fine standard is from Flags of War.
I swapped out a number of horses from the Foundry Marlburian range and used Foundry ECW horses, which fit perfectly. I did not undertake much in the way of conversions, although I added green-stuff feathers for the regiment, and gave Count de Vichet a new sword arm which produced a more martial and inspiring pose on his rearing horse.
Although the figures are painted for my fictional Laarden project, set in 1688, I’ve tried to replicate authentic colours for the uniforms where possible. In this regard, I’ve used the paintings of Philips Wouvermans and David Teniers the Younger to try and get the colours and “feel” of the cavalry uniforms correct. Other details can be found in the excellent book, “Spanish Armies in the War of the League of Augsberg, 1688 – 1697”, now published by the Pike & Shot Society, which covers both Spanish armies and the Flemish, German and Walloon forces raised in the Spanish Netherlands.
I normally try and paint my own flags for units, but I decided against that here. This is mainly because the standards produced by Flags of War are so wonderful and easy to use, and partly because I was short of time for the Challenge submission!
As regards what’s going to be here on the blog in 2018, long-term readers will be wary of any of my predictions. Life in the guise of family, work and friends inevitably gets in the way of everyone’s hobby aims, and I’m no different. I am hoping to post a few more figures, research, book reviews and ideas for wargaming the second half of the seventeenth century on this Blog in 2018. I think that the second half of the seventeenth century is a wonderful period for wargaming and, with luck, the material I'm hoping to place here on the blog and in the linked Google Drive folders will be of interest to someone out there.
There will also be more 2mm Thirty Years War material. Curt and myself are continuing to play-test the rules, and I'm starting to prepare the additional figures I need to recreate Nordlingen 1634.
There’ll be some more posts in a day or so with some additional 25/28mm Laarden-related figures, so I very much hope you can join me for that.
Beautifully done! I always liked those Dixon figures, very characterful - were they sculpted by Mark Copplestone? - and they seem to go well with the Foundry figures.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, William. Yes, the initial set of Dixon Miniatures were sculpted by Mark Copplestone in 1987, and were first made available in 1988. Gary Morley did the second set of figures for the range in 1989. The Dixon figures fit perfectly next to the Perry-sculpted Foundry figures, as do the more recent ranges from Warfare Miniatures, Ebor Miniatures and 1st Corps.
DeleteWhat a pleasure to look at such beautiful figures, wonderful job!
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil. Hopefully, fingers crossed), they'll be joined by others soon!
DeleteA Happy New Year to you too Sidney! Wonderful work on your Laarden project and I'm very much looking forward to follow your further progress throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nick! A Happy New Year to you also, and I hope you enjoy what's planned to appear here on the blog in 2018.
DeleteWonderful stuff, you blog entries are always informative and interesting and looked forward to.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Phil - and thanks again for following so faithfully all these years. (And, apologies in advance for my old jokes being recycled!)
DeleteThose are splendid..love the shades on those uniforms!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, JJ!
DeleteWooow I love these! is the regiment real ? I have no heard of that Count de Vichet, I need to read the Spanish Army in the League of Augsburg war again! your miniatures are very inspiring, keep painting ! ;)
ReplyDeleteSaludos
Hello Jose! Thank you so much for commenting. Your very thoughtful comment is a really important one, and goes to the root of how I painted this (and other Laarden) regiments.
DeleteThe regiment is indeed a real one, featuring in the campaigns against the French in the 1660s and 1670s. There was also a de Vichet regiment of Horse in the Spanish line at Lens, in 1648. Like so much of the armies of the Spanish Netherlands, the precise details of their uniforms and standards are as distant and nearly-lost as the names of some of the battles in which they fought - Seneffe, Cassel, and so on. Tried as I might, and with the sources available, I could not find details or information on the regiment's uniforms or standards. As you will see from the “Spanish Armies in the War of the League of Augsberg, 1688 – 1697” book, even the standards of the Spanish Foot catured by the Frech on the Nine Years War are unlinked to the uniforms from which they were taken. We have the theme of the standards, and the colours of the cloth, but we do not have the details which we, as wargamers, really love.
Rather than being discouraged, I have tried to use those starting points as a way of trying to recreate (as respectfully as possible) the "look", themes and "feel" of the uniforms from both the Flemish, German and French art of the period and the Pike & Shot Society book.
So, you are quite correct in that the precise uniforms worn, and standard carried by, the figures are not verifiably accurate. But I hope they are "near enough" not to be too far off, and still remain as respectful as possible to the combatants on both sides of this wonderful and (for many) forgotten, dusty part of history.
Lovely paintwork indeed!
ReplyDeleteA very belated thank you for the kind comment, Michael! Thanks so much!
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