Hinsch Arquebusiers - 30mm Flats

Factory Painted

Sorry I've been somewhat dilatory with the posts of late.  Here's a smallish set of latter 16th Century arquebusiers I bought on eBay.  Ten gunners come in the three poses shown plus the group contained one NCO figure.  I'm not certain, but I think they belong to to Keiler's  Bruno Hinsch: Serie 29 - Religionskriege.  Flats experts, please advise if I've got that wrong.

I stripped the factory paint to see what the castings looked like underneath. Not bad at all really, rather small for 30mm and very thin castings, bordering on toylike in style but appealing in their own way. Repainted with acrylics.

New Paint

 

New to me, that is.  Somewhere on my blog travels, and as I recall it probably was the Grand Duchy of Stollen, there was an interesting thread about painting techniques. Mike Siggins replied to it with a link linking Chroma Atelier Interactive acrylics.  What sold me on trying these out was the more controllable dry time.  That seemed a nice fit with the flats as I've stretched the mileage as I can with the Vallejo bottles.

What's pictured above is the introductory set with a dozen 20ml. tubes, plus sample media and an instructive DVD (which I'll admit to not having watched).   This isn't a bad way to go if you just want to test the waters as the starter kits go for around $25 online.  I have to say the results seem to be quite satisfactory so far.  You can control the drying time with water or prolong it medium to long depending upon the choice of media. Just using water seems quite satisfactory to my own needs. You can re-wet the paint on the palette or directly on the figure.

For those of us who like quick results with acrylics, the 7 days recommended cure time can something of a drawback, although of course it has doesn't impact on overall your work rate - things just stay in the completion queue a bit longer while you paint the next figures.  And I think the 7 days is generous, perhaps calculated to let all moisture wick out from heavy application on canvas.  No doubt Chroma wants to avoid disconsolate e-mails from artists who varnished part of their masterpiece into a smeary mess.  I expect to be able to cut down this time with the figures.

Here's the first figure which I just finished painting primarily with the Atelier Interactive.  I'm satisfied, the blending for more subtle shading works well and the colors seem richer than with the standard wargames paints.

      

Period Engravings: Dutch Revolt

Taking a rather different tack here, this thread contains no painting updates. I am still painting, of course. No day feels complete without doing some. However, I've embarked upon a new tack with the flats, testing out artist's acyrilic paints, Chroma Atelier Interactive. Thanks go to Mike Siggins for the tip on these.  More to follow, but suffice it to say now that the normal fast rate of drying can be retarded by means of adding more water or the drying slowed even further by various mediums.  They do indeed blend better but the drawback is a recommended cure time of 7 days before varnishing.  Meaning I have figures done but still in the drying queue.

To the images.  I've stumbled upon a source of inspiration for the Renaissance era, namely the Frederik Muller Historieplaten digital collection from the Dutch Rijksmuseum.

http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/nl/collecties/frederik_muller_historieplaten

Here we have a collection of some 4966 historical engravings, mainly illustrating scenes from the Dutch Revolt/80 Years War. To a lesser degree, the War of the Spanish Succession also gets some coverage.  The images are of a generally high quality, perhaps not as uniformly excellent as Merian's Theatrum Europeaum splendid images of the 30 Years War, but quite a few of these Dutch illustrations are fine examples of the engraver's art.  Just a few examples:

Last but not least, the WSS:

I do enjoy printing out a batch, pouring a glass of port and retiring to the man cave, there to transport myself to bygone centuries.

Spanish Tercio - 30mm Flats

"Watercolor" camera setting

Well, at least a portion of it.  I ran out of men with angled pikes for the 2nd rank but the idea is eventually to at least double this formation.   Most of the flats are from Alexander Wilken's Landsknechte series, with a few Scholtz Conquistadors and misc. pikemen added to the mix. Painted with acrylics, as usual.

At the moment, I'm painting more flats, a few Hinsch arquebusiers suitable for the Wars of Religion / 80 Years War.  I've also got a few 54mm Thirty Years War infantry flats, trying to work up the courage to paint flats that size. The order of later landsknechts & reiters has gone missing, I'm afraid.  Either between the Deutsche Post and USPS somebody fumbled the handoff, or worse - the package was stolen from my mailbox. Hoping it was the former as there's a chance they'll eventually turn up.