To Scotland - Forward the Scouts

So the retinue of Jon de Hastinge is finally begun.

A Lion Rampant unit of Bidowers

 By which of course I clearly mean, painted models are finally ready.

Now this little group has taken time, delayed as they have been by a regiment of French Nap's sat on my limited painting space (no room to put projects to one side nowadays!), but they are finally complete.  Not that they make are startling contribution to a retinue, being worth a mere two points.  But it is a definite beginning.

As a paint job, I toyed with whether to do the retinue in a quick style using a glaze for shading - in principal ideal for the grimy Middle Ages everyone has been taught to envisage since Monty Python and other revisionist representations in the media took hold - or go for a fully detailed painting style; I opted for the latter, want models I could be as proud of as possible on the tabletop.

Most of the work is four or five layers built up, in mainly brown themes for this unit.  I wanted them to appear as relatively impoverished mercenaries, or levies.  Largely unarmoured and perhaps hailing from the Welsh Marches.  The lord has generously provided them with some hoods in his colours for identification and some helmets.

Their leader is but slightly better equipped with a Falchion and Buckler:

Owain, loyal to any purse well paid.

 For the basing I wanted something I hadn't really used before on any of my historicals, and to suit the region represented I wanted to get away from the dust and sand of my Peninsular, Dogs of War and Ancients armies.  Well this is set to represent Britain, so lets make it wet.

Ripples...

This first unit is really only a test for the techniques, and I don't think this first go is quite perfect, but the intention is to put puddles, and standing water on the bases - using model railway water scenics.  More on this as I refine the methods.  The rest of the basing is wall filler, painted of course, with dark heathland static grass rather than lush lowland or Mediterranean scrub.

Overall there are a number of techniques used on these models, which serve well as a test for the later infantry batches, aside layering there are a handful of washes uses and for once, no drybrushing.  Midway through I felt the look was terrible, but it came together before the end and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Hopefully these men can pave the way for an advance into Scotland under the flag of Hastinge...