Thursday, July 4, 2013

Landsknecht Sharpshooter Team


I realize that its gone a bit quiet here on the blog these past few weeks. Summer has made its glorious appearance and so outside pursuits have taken priority at Schloss Campbell-Hanks. Nonetheless, I've not been completely idle on the hobby front and to back this up here are two lads ready for their puff-and-slash debut.

One of the things that wrapped up a little while ago was the Seventh Season of the Lead Painters' League. I had a great time participating in this event, managing to get a wide range of stuff assembled and painted over the League's 10 weeks. Some of my efforts were well received while others were, um, less successful, :) but that's how it goes and I had a blast working on each of my entries and especially enjoyed seeing the work of my fellow competitors.

At about the half-way mark of the League, an anonymous follower of the competition generously awarded three prizes to several submissions that struck his/her fancy. I was both surprised and delighted to find that my Spanish Civil War Moroccan Regulares was one of those lucky enough to be singled-out for a prize - a choice of a pack from the fabulous offerings over at Lead Adventure Miniatures. How very cool!

My fifth LPL entry: Moroccan Regulares
It took a little bit of hand-wringing as so many of the models from Lead Adventure are brilliant, but I finally made up my mind - deciding to choose a characterful Landsknecht Sharpshooter Team from their Bruegelburg range. 


These Lead Adventure miniatures are beautiful sculpts, crisp, clean and with loads of character. One reason that I went with this pack was the fabulous dwarf 'spotter', calmly teetering on his stilts, identifying the target for his colleague below. 


A pre-op shot of the dwarf spotter.
While on the whole I really liked the sculpt of the stilted spotter, I thought that his pose seemed a bit two-dimensional as the alignment of his body, arm, spyglass and stilts were all on the same vertical plane. So I cut him along his shoulders, under his gorget, and with the help of a little pinning and sculpting putty I repositioned his torso 90 degrees in an attempt to make his pose a little more dynamic (I also gave him a bit of a hunchback as I thought it would fit in with the sensibility of the period). Overall this mod seems to have worked alright, and as an added bonus his right-hand stilt now serves as an impromptu musket rest (I think they called them 'Swinefeathers') for his sharpshooter partner. (I also had to replace the stilt's foot-strap to allow the firelock's barrel enough room to pass through.)


As the figures have an almost cartoonish quality about them I wanted the groundwork to reflect this while also serving to compliment their colourful garb. So I added a load of grass, shrubs and flowers to give the base a verdancy bordering on the Disneyesque. It seems to work fairly well, with the tree also providing a backdrop for this garish duo. 


Again, my great thanks to the League's anonymous benefactor - I really had a wonderful time working on this vignette. Cheers!

30 comments:

  1. What a wonderful piece of modelling and a sublime paint job! A fabulous piece of work all round, not to mention an incredibly generous benefactor!

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    1. Thanks very much Michael. Yes, this little prize really made my day and the subject matter can't help but make me smile.

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  2. A truly fecking unique piece of kit but beautifully done Curt.

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    1. Cheers for that, Francis. It was a great little project to work on during these hot summer days.

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  3. What a fun little vignette! Congrats on the award, too!

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  4. Great vignette. Well done on winning and then painting this prize.

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    1. Cheers Sean! I hope the prize-giver visits to see what I chose to do with his/her generosity.

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  5. The a superb vignette you created with very creative pose!Well done Curt!!

    Christopher

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    1. Cheers Christopher! High praise from someone who's been doing superb work.

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  6. Great choice Curt and well painted. That was a great season in my estimation and I miss looking at the entries every Sunday. You all did a fine job this year.

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    1. Thanks very much, Anne! It was a lot of fun both participating and watching the season unfold. Like you, I'm rather missing the Sunday morning ritual of looking at entries and voting. Thank goodness the Tour is on as I'd be bereft of summer entertainment!

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  7. It is fantastic, and you have done a wonderful vignette. These figures are very nice and perfect for a not too serious skirmish game.

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    1. Muchas gracias, Juan. You're right, they probably would be great for a quasi-steampunk themed game.

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  8. Nice work dude - beautiful stuff.

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  9. Aha, it's a tree! At first glance I thought it was an explosion marker (which confused me a little)

    Colourful chappies and a very effective conversion. Lets hope the spotter is sable on his stilts!

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    1. Hmm, I suppose it could be an explosion marker at a glance. (Tough to stay on stilts in the midst of all that, wot?!)

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  10. Its a real delight Curt, well done!

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  11. A really delightful little piece there.

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  12. That's a treat, nice work Curt.

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    1. Cheers Dave, they were a lot of fun to work on.

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  13. Thanks for your comment Andrew, it was a fun challenge to mod the dwarf and I really liked painting the puff-and slash of their uniforms.

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  14. Beautiful, really beautiful!

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Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)