First post of the year: 28mm XVII c. black powder cart & guards

 Hello friends, and Happy New Year 2021

I hope you have had a good beginning of the year,

during the Christmas holidays I have painted an army scenic base or objective-base; a black powder cart. 

I want to paint some generic miniatures for the logistic part of my XVII c. armies, in this particular case, Spanish Tercios. I have started with this strongbox/cart, for black powder transport and storage.

 

I remeber I bought this little model from North Star 1672 range a couple of years ago, in mdf ,and it is very easy to build and paint. 

The miniatures are a converted Wargames Foundry ECW siege engineer, a little dog (Tercios Miniatures) and a Spanish sentry with a firelock from Phoenix Miniatures. I needed a guy with a firelock musket, because Matchlocks muskets near black powder storage have the tendency to detonate the whole rearguard of your army, so better to be cautious with this!

In order to paint the cart I first used a dark brown paint, with a brush, and then I tried a new technique with "Ammo Mig"  chipping fluid, applied with the airbrush, after a few minutes I used the airbrush again to paint the gray color over the previous layers, and that's where the magic starts...

I rubbed the grey paint with a brush moistened in water, and  thanks to the chipping fluid product, the gray paint was wearing away in a realistic way, revealing the brown layer below. 

Then I applied varnish, an oil wash to get it dirty, and a light dry brush of light gray on the edges.

Finally a drybrush coat  of earthy colors and some dried mud in the lower parts.

As final details, I put a small black flag with the Burgundy cross in red, since they are typical colors of Spanish artillery, and we know that the black flag with the red cross was used by Spanish and Imperial troops during XVII c.. and on top of the cart, I put a small chain. 

Regarding the miniatures, as I already mentioned, they are the well-known Foundry siege engineer, who I decapitated and replaced his head with a versatile Warhammer Empire militia head. 

The guard is a Spanish musketeer of the now extinct Phoenix Miniatures, with a musket of the same brand. The uniform is in a typical color of Flanders Tercios during  the 1670s; light gray and red facings. 

I hope you like this little project.

Cheers!