Painting is going really well on my 10mm English Civil War project but then they always seem to in the opening week. I've completed my first unit of Royalist English Civil War Pikemen, having finished basing a further two stands of Pike and the block's Command base as well. I've used three of the excellent models from "Pendraken Miniatures" code EC5 Foot Command to represent the Elite Pike Unit's officer, drummer and standard bearer.
The officer's colour scheme is based upon that of the King's Lifeguard of Foot officer depicted on the cover of "Soldiers of the English Civil War (1) Infantry" by "Osprey Publishing". As with the Pikemen the model was initially undercoated with Vallejo Gunmetal Grey, washed with Black Shade, and then had his armour and sword dry brushed with more Gunmetal Grey. His civilian clothing was painted with Vallejo Heavy Blue and then washed with Blue Shade. As apparently the fellow's sash should be in the 'General's colours' I painted it Heavy Red to show him being in the King's service. I picked out his boots with Heavy Ochre and then washed them with Umber Shade.
Both the drummer and standard bearer were painted along similar lines to that of the armoured pikemen, with just a couple of variations. Those who've previously seen me 'wrestle' with 28mm Napoleonic French drummers will appreciate how I struggle painting the cording, drum skin etc convincingly with my preferred 'black outline style'. So I 'cheated' again by simply painting the entire instrument with Heavy Ochre. A wash of Umber Shade (which is quickly becoming my trusty "Games Workshop" Devlan Mud replacement) hopefully brings out the detail of the drum's ropes etc.
The standard bearer has had some minor conversion work done on his flag pole, in order for it to accomodate the rather large flag depicting the officer (and company) to be Captain Robert Leven. I originally purchased the range of 10mm flags sold by "Pendraken Miniatures" but found these to have a few gaps in their range, most notably King Charles' Royal Banner. In addition, although nice, they simply didn't do the job for me and seemed a bit small and fiddly. If there's one thing I like about the English Civil War its the huge flags that the men carried into battle. Thus I've turned to 15mm and although they are a tad larger than was probably normal, you can certainly see who is who on the battlefield.
Because of the larger size I did consider making my own, and there are some good websites out there that either offer free flags or provide detailed templates/guides for you to make them yourself. However I went down the far easier, though rather expensive avenue, of purchasing a page each of Royalist and Parliament 15mm flags from Richard Lowles and "Battle Flag". These flags look excellent, arrived very promptly and were extremely well packaged. But at just under a tenner a sheet they're a lot of money for essentially a page of printing. Doubtless you pay for the time it took to create the flags in the first place.
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