Renaissance Stuff

To get back in the saddle, I chose to paint a few 28mm bods. These take longer to paint, so the more comfortable pace did good.
As the order in which they are placed from left to right is quite random, here's a list of what's what instead:

• a Perry horse archer from the light cavalry set, 
• two Hasslefree ladies bought on their Black Friday sale,
• two Pro Gloria (now Warlord) landsknecht captains.

I bet the pictures are still too grainy, sooner or later I'll fix the flash, for now I'm working with natural light and the flash of my telephone, which is obviously not enough.

I took a lot of time painting most of these, experimenting with washes and layering and whatnot. I think they are some of the best I have produced so far. For example, I found that a burnt siena wash adds a nice hue to skintones. 

You also might be able to see that the bases are heavily decorated - the foot figures will more or less be commanders & other important characters, so I took some time with that as well.

When painting the pirates, I also found out more about how dark and bright colors interact - getting there after a few years of painting. I put this to use on this figure. The only concern I have is her height - even with bent knees, she's taller than my stocky Landsknechts, and even the other, earlier version of this character in a standing pose with straight legs.

You might not be able to see, but the little red rock looks like it is inlaid with other rocks - perhaps a better resolution photo will show. For the sake of safety, I also counter-balanced the slotted base with little pieces of lead.

These two had been stripped and painted again to a better standard, I think they are very cool figures.

There's a larger 28mm purchase coming in, plastic foot figures (GW Empire, Perry and Warlord), all Italian Wars related... I hope I'll be able to paint them as well. Assembling the plastic figures with all the variations I have available is fun at least.