A Carolingian Army, step by step

[Stewart 46A]

Thanks for the update Lluis, you are indeed a busy boy.

Stewart

[Colonel Kilgore]

Those Ottoman sergeants will look good in the Carolingian army, Lluis 

Seriously, they look great. The green / brown combination on the cavalry shields works particularly well.

Simon

[martin goddard]

Jolly nice.




martin

[Lluis of Minairons]

Here you have at last a new installment on the Carolingian army I was commissioned.

Now it was the turn for a first medium cavalry squadron to be painted. As I suspected, mounted units do require more effort than foot ones, despite being less figures there. This has likely had some impact on my painting speed - besides of already mentioned factors.



As a start, I painted helmets and chainmails first, as I always do when such elements are present in a figure (due to metallic paints drybrushing usually staining unwanted neighbouring surfaces), and then I went for horses. I configured a wide palette for them, mostly consisting of 70.950 Black, 70.984 Flat Brown, 70.871 Leather Brown, 70.983 Flat Earth, 70.874 Tan Earth and 70.951 White, with random leg markings and head markings also in white.



Only when horses were finished I started painting the non-metallic surfaces of riders, using roughly the same palette previously used on medium and heavy infantries. Willing to give a (fake) impression of uniformity to eventual viewers, shields were painted using only three colours - mostly 70.891 Intermediate Green, but also a few 70.940 Saddle Brown and 70.912 Tan Yellow.



The standard selected for this squadron is one of the Oriflamme variants one can find on the Net, deliberately chosen to match in colour with the shields.



Please note that flag edges have been masked with green paint. I do highly recommend to always mask those annoying white paper edges. The difference is spectacular, even if your paint shade does not match 100% with flag's own.

Hope you like them,
Lluís

[Colonel Kilgore]

Very nice again, Lluis.

And I completely agree on painting the edges of the flags. As you say, the colour match doesn't need to be spot-on, and it makes a huge difference.

Simon

[martin goddard]

These keep looking nice Lluis!

martin

[Stewart 46A]

Great Lluis, that look stunning as always.
Your painting techniques are beautiful

Stewart

[Sean Clark]

You mention this is a commission. I am hoping it's smeone that I know and get to play against, because this is a beautiful army!

[Stewart 46A]

Sean
The army will be in attendance at the Weymouth War Weekend in November

Stewart

[Colonel Kilgore]

I might just sit and watch, and marvel 

Simon

[Lluis of Minairons]

Mmmmh... After some time inspecting my own pictures, I've noticed something I deeply dislike.
And I hate delivering something I'm not happy with.
I'll get to mend it, while I start working on the next batch.

[Sean Clark]

Sean
The army will be in attendance at the Weymouth War Weekend in November

Stewart

I was hoping you'd say that!

[Lluis of Minairons]

Mmmmh... After some time inspecting my own pictures, I've noticed something I deeply dislike.
And I hate delivering something I'm not happy with.
I'll get to mend it, while I start working on the next batch.

Well, the thing annoying me was the overall look of horses backs - I mean, their groins as seen from the rear.
While still working on a second cavalry squadron, I've mended those odd to me looking backs. This is what these look like (compare to the third picture of my latest installment):



As said, I'm already working on a second horse squadron. This is their current status:



All the best,
Lluís

[Stewart 46A]

Thanks Lluis , you are a perfectionist
Looking forward to leading these in battle

Stewart

[Leman (Andy)]

This really is turning out to be a very impressive army. I also agree about painting flag edges. I quite often see a beautifully painted unit with a spectacular commercial flag tarnished by leaving the flag edges as white paper. Such a pity.