28mm William Prince of Orange, 1672.

 

Hello guys,

In this post I want to introduce you to my "command base" of my small Dutch army for  the Franco Dutch War of 1672-1678: William III of Orange, as commander-in-chief of the army, accompanied by a musketeer and a mounted trumpeteer.

my inspiration was this painting:

            mounted trumpeteer on the left, on foot, and William on the right, dressed in green

The miniatures are from Warfare Miniatures and North Star 1672; 

-William is from Warfare Miniatures, unmodified, I have only added some shoulder ribbons (from Front Rank), the miniature is a good sculpt, very recommended. I have painted it inspired by the aforementioned painting. he is riding a white horse. For the painting I used Vallejo and Foundry paints, especially for the horse, I used the Foundry Triad of "Artic Grey" until reaching white, I am satisfied with this triad because it makes smooth transitions between triad colors, and as the paint has little covering power , leaves a subtle transition from grey to white. As a negative point of these paints, is that painting over the dark gray primer is very time consuming because they cover very little and several layers are needed ... so my strange advice is: paint the first layer with a grey (Vallejo) and over it, paint the Foundry triad.

                                               

-The musketeer is a Dutch musketeer from North Star 1672, painted as a member of  Konigsmark regiment, inspired by the fantastic illustration in Bruno Mugnai's book, "WARS AND SOLDIERS IN THE EARLY REIGN OF LOUIS XIV VOLUME 1 :The Army of the United Provinces of the Netherlands 1660-1687" this book is an absoluty MUST for all of you interested on Franco Dutch war or Dutch military...   The painting was fast and simple as it is only in blue. I used Foundry blue triad.

                                                       Konigsmark's musketeer on the left.

Finally, the horseman with the trumpet is from Warfare Miniatures, from Gardes te Paard, with his characteristic uniform, with the loose sleeves,  sold by Barry Hilton's great range of late XVII miniatures.  I painted it in red, like in the painting in a different color than the rest of his unit, typical of the musicians of that time. I was not brave enough to paint the "W" and the crown over it in the back of the trumpeteer's coat... maybe in the future, when I paint the whole cavalry unit.

                                                

On the cornet "pennant" or whatever is called in English the cloth that hangs from the trumpet/Bugle I have tried (within my limited possibilities) to hand-paint the Orange-Nassau coat of arms, I hate painting those little things and I am a huge fan of decals and pre made flags, but in this case I had no choice but to paint it free hand, please don't judge me harsly.

The base is mdf with a little bit of DAS PRONTO putty in order to place William on a somewhat higher ground.

Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, Spanish General, War of Devolution 1667-68

 

Hello mates,

In this quick post I just wanted to show you my latest addition to a parallel project I am doing, which is the War of Devolution, a transition conflict between 30 Years War/Franco Spanish War and Franco Dutch War, I mean transition in terms of uniforms and equipment, because it occured in late 1660' decade.

The general I have painted is Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, Francisco de Moura Corte Real (13 December 1621 – 26 November 1675) was a Portuguese nobleman who served as Viceroy of Sardinia and Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. Despite being Portuguese, his family remained loyal to Spain when the Portuguese revolt began in 1640.

The miniature is a full conversion from a North Star 1672 French pikeman lower body, and 1898 miniatures "Don Juan Jose of Austria"  upper half body. I am quite pleased with the look of the miniature, in my opinion it has the look of a 1660' military leader, with the blackened armor and the distinctive collar of that time, just before cravattes became more popular.

the other miniature is a Walloon ensign, in Dutch or English armour, I used muted tones for the coat, as I have seen these kind of colours in contemporary paintings.

the miniature is a pikeman from North Star 1672.  The flag was made by the very talented Mats Elzinga, using Castel Rodrigo's coat of arms in one side of the flag, and Spanish royal coat (of 1667) in the other side of the flag.

I made a blog entry with a piece of history for this conflict here:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-defense-of-dendermonde-1667.html

Under Castel Rodrigo's administration, the Spanish Netherlands suffered a French invasion during the War of Devolution.  After the peace of the Pyrinees in 1659, Spanish forces in Flanders were at its minimum, and no soldiers were sent from Spain or Italy in the last 4 years, so Marquis of Castel Rodrigo had to resort to Imperial troops and some German regiments in order to bolster the defenses of the Spanish Netherlands.

Despite his efforts, when the Louis XIV invaded the country with 70.000 troops,   the governor had only 20.000 troops, and he placed them in the most important fortified cities,  so the first year of the war, a lot of villages and towns fell into French hands in a Baroque "Blitzkrieg". In 1668, Spain signed peace with Portugal and sent several thousands men to reinforce the Army of Flanders, also the rest of the countries, feared a full French conquest of the area and forced the Sun King to sign a peace treaty in favourable terms.