A finishing line in 2015....

Firstly, sincere thanks for all the very kind words on the photos of the army, I do appreciate them; they provide great motivation to keep going with the conversion work and detailing. Here are a few more photos left over that I didn’t post before, to help get through that first week at work after the holidays.

Looking at the arrayed army, I’ve now been able to assess what’s required to get them to a finished state – not that they’ll ever be completely done and dusted of course.  My target is to have the Burgundian Ordonnance army done in 2015.

So the outstanding units required to be done are:

-       Pike block: a row of front rank figures with a Captain, advancing (10 figures)

-       Archers of the Guard: a new longbow contingent (18 figures)

-       Crossbow/handgunners: a mixed unit (9 figures)

-       Mounted Men at Arms: to represent Antony the Bastard of Burgundy’s contingent on fully barded mounts (9 cavalry)

-       Coustillers: a support row for all mounted men at arms, carrying lots of flags and banners, etc. This will be the main painting challenge, which the forthcoming Perry’s Light Cavalry plastics will be the main figure source for. Total of 7 units (63 cavalry)

-       Artillery:  one additional wheeled gun and crew.

-       Charles the Bold vignette – currently a WIP.

-       Vignettes – to add a bit of period flavor and dot around the table and campsites etc.

Getting to this finishing line should be achievable this year – allowing me a bit of time to paint some non-medieval figures on the way too - then it will be time to turn my attentions to the Swiss Confederation army, which needs to be about a fifth larger than the Burgundians (...ooh er!).

First Array

So here's one of my New Year resolutions done already - to photograph my Burgundian army, as they currently are, en masse for the first time. I'd intended to do this for some time, but the holidays have given me the spare time and I've borrowed my daughter's Canon camera, as its better than mine. I also used the space provided by my wife's primary school hall, as the photo of the set-up below shows.

I'm happy with most of these - all of them have made a previous appearance on this blog over the last few years as they've been completed. I purchased a pair of value portable studio lights from Amazon which I think are essential to throw sufficient light for photos of model figures en masse - however don't look too carefully at some, as my makeshift sky is  not covering all the corners (sadly no Photoshop to tart them up). 

I'll let the pictures do the talking for now...

Toodle pip and Happy New Year!