A blog is a great tool for keeping me motivated and recording my various hobby projects. It can be a bit of a double edged sword. Two weeks after my last ‘Workbench update’ and I have very little progress to record!
Lord Callan’s Retinue – first three figures
My main focus has been to start on Lord Callan’s retinue. I did have the retinue assembled and they are now primed and painting has started.
Before I write any more of this blog, I must acknowledge the influence of a certain ‘Captain Blood’, AKA Richard Lloyd. You can see most of Richards work over on the Lead Adventure Forum and I provide a link below. Richard combines some very clever conversion and modelling work with superb brush work and a choice of colour and livery that is simply sublime. Add to the clever way he has blended actual historical retinues to some of his own and it’s fair to say that he has produced the best units that I have seen. Oh and his basing work is pretty damned good as well.
Lord Callan with the first of his retinue.
So having painted the ‘Lord Callan’ model from the Wargames Illustrated Giants in Miniature collection, I thought that I would give him a small retinue of Bills and Bows to lead into battle. Having seen the way Richard has produced his units, I have done my best to take some of his ideas to give Lord Callan’s units a slightly different feel from the rest of my army.
The next three figures on the bench!
Lord Callan’s Colours are black on red and his main Coat of Arms being a white lion over a golden wheatsheaf. In case anyone is interested in the provenance of this Livery, it is based on the two best pubs in Bingham, The White Lion and the Wheatsheaf! I decided that I would give Lord Callan the White Lion as his main Sigil and just use the Wheat sheaf on the Banner when I get to it.
Rear view of the W.I P.
The three figures above are very much a work in progress with their faces and bases still needing to be finished! You can see that I have stolen some of Richard’s ideas, with the pole of the halberd in House colours and the helmet and buckler also painted. I’ve also done quite a bit of swapping of heads and arms from the various Perry sets to get a ‘Veteran’ look to the unit, allowing me to claim an upgrade in the Bill Hooks game.
More of the retinue in progress
And the final three makes twelve!
Once the Billmen are completed, the plan is to add a unit of Veteran archers and at least one more banner man to stand along side Lord Callan, although I may use the horn blower below…
The next batch on the work bench
As you can see, I also have some other distractions that I am working on. The sharp eyed reader may have spotted three genestealers….
Gene Stealers!
They wont be making the retinue! I found them half completed in the loft when getting down the Christmas decorations, so decided to finish them ready for the next time we play Space Hulk….but that’s another entirely different subject!
If you would like to have a look at Captain Bloods original work on the Lead Adventure forum, here’s the Link:
CAPTAIN BLOODS LEAD ADVENTURE FORUM THREAD
If you are not on the Nevermind the Bill Hooks face book page you can see some very inspiring work here as well:
NEVER MIND THE BILLHOOKS FACEBOOK PAGE
THE COMMERCIAL BIT
Almost all of the paints, miniatures, bases, basing materials and anything that you are likely to need for your hobby are available POST FREE at the time of writing, from my shop. The Links will open in another tab on your device.
Perry’s WOTR plastic range are here, including some nice army deals!
You can see our Woodlands scenics range, including water effects, here:
Gamers grass tufts can be found here:
Vallejo plastic filler and Milliput is available here:
MDF bases can be found here:
You can find all the Vallejo Model colour paints here. If you don’t want to browse, just enter the paint number into the shop search bar;
The full Sarissa range can be found here.
Happy Modelling!