Meisterzinn - 40mm Home Casts

Readers of this blog will well recognize these familiar Nurnberger Meisterzinn figures.  I have most of the molds for the Renaissance range, although my collection is lacking a few: the sword-wielding knight,  the foot cavalier (sword or pistol), the wagon set and the nice artillery pieces. But this is most of them.  Yes, they're a pain to cast but the figures do have an appealing toy soldier look.  I also have the color pamphlet Zinnfiguren aus Meisterzinn which shows painted examples of all the castings.

Armored men. I rather wish the tournament knight had come with a detachable shield, making him more useful as an early 16th century man-at-arms, but still it's a good figure.

Classic landsknechte although the standard-bearer is more of a hybrid figure to my eyes.  According to Ross MacFarlane the trumpeter can be converted to a pikeman and I can see where that would be an excellent way to get more mileage out of this mold. 

The halbardier is more of a "tweener" who can bridge the gap between the early 16th Century and later, but the musketeer and mounted figure look like 30 Years War, hence the Matthaus Merian backdrop.  The musketeer comes with mold cavities for two heads but he's somewhat oversized relative to the others.  The rider cuts a dashing figure.  Although so far as I know of the 30 Years War, figures bearing lances are usually depicted in 3/4 armor, he appears to have some conversion possibilites. He could be easily become a standard-bearer,  or replace the lance with a musket and you could have a nice dragoon.

Lastly, although it has nothing to do with Meisterzinn, here's a quick shot of what's in the painting queue.

Back in the Saddle

Picked up a new camera.  Haha, at Costco - one of my least favorite places to spend an hour or so.  I stifled the impulse to abandon my wife with the cart amidst the warehouse-roaming hordes in favor of watching the 49ers game in the TV section. The camera is a Sony Cybershot DSC-WX150.  Very strange that the insurance company allowed nearly triple the coverage (and not much at that) for replacing the old obsolete Sony than they did for the Nikon.  There's no Macro function which concerned me somewhat, but all the shots here were taken with it, so I think we can surmise that it's at least competent with the closeups.  The blame for any bad shots can be attributed to my indifferent photography skills.

Here's a couple WIP shots of the custom 40mm semi-rounds, designs from the talented hand of amateur scupltor John Bertolini.  John has kindly given me permission to cast my own.  I like these for the French on account of the full coats without turnbacks. I did a few things such as filing off the moustaches and adding the bayonet scabbard, but essentially they're faithful to the original design.  The figures are good match in scale and "semi-roundness" for the Prince August Karoliners and the NCO carries a Prince August pole arm.

Here's a nice feature of the camera, creating photos using a Picture Effect mode.  The Renaissance flats in this post were shots taken in Watercolor mode.  The effect is kind of cool, like artist's illustrations from a book.  It  might make for an interesting excercise experimenting with painting them that way from the get-go.

Reinforcements - 30mm Flats

I recently received a spot bonus at work, allowing me to rationalize getting more flats.  These three sets offered by Alexander Wilken really caught my eye. The figures are actually edited by Wohlmann; but unlike a certain large and well-known flats dealer, he doesn't overcharge for acting as middle man, nor for the shipping costs.  Figures now en route from Germany.

These quite caught my eye: the reiters are disinctive and although both sets of landsknechts are in marching poses, I think they won't look at all bad combined together in a battle formation.  I tried using Picasa's Invert Colors function on these, essentially it turns the photos into negatives.  I'm pleased with the effect, a bit strange but effectively accentuating the beauty of the engravings.

Meanwhile, I'm still working away on the 40mm customs and hope to pick up a new camera this weekend.