Tercio Creativo miniatures showcase and review : French "30 Years War" fantasy miniatures.

 Hello guys,

A quick update on my XVII c. warbands.  This time I painted a couple of excellent "Tercio Creativo" sculpts, from his "Gallic usurpers" faction, aka French, with a slight fantasy look, but historical enough for me. My only complain is their scale, 32mm heroic scale, so a little bit bigger than my other miniatures from other manufacturers like Anno Domini 1666 (28mm small), Bloody Miniatures (28mm standard) or Bicorne (28mm mid to big).

The first one is a cuirassier with a curious helmet but historical as I could see in military museum of Paris, Les Invalides, some examples of these kind of helmets are in my previous post.

This cuirassier is over armoured, by mid XVII no cuirassier would be dressed with that amount of metal plates, but the miniature is nice, and his weapon is quite interesting, an Axe-pistol:

The painting was quite simple, just a dark metal colour, washed, drybrushed and with some simple edge highlight, it was fast, I did not want to spend hours with that dark armour, and I matt varnished it. The cloak is foundry blue, I am quite happy with its result as it looks smoothly painted and clean.

The other miniature is a conversion of a Tercio Creativo guard with French halberd. I cut his head, which was also a cuirassier head with a sunrise expression , and glued a metal head with a XVII c. cabasset in French or Dutch style , nicely done by Reiver Castings miniatures (Thanks to Rob Anderson who kindly donated a bunch of these).

I like the  Fleur de Lis on his chest cuirass that identify him as French. I painted his trousers in the same blue tone of the dismounted cuirassier's cloak, in order to give some cohesion to the warband.

With these two miniatures, I have a total of 3 Tercio Creativo French, and I plan to build a modified Mordheim warband or just play Donnybrook or Encamisada.

The third mini was painted a year ago or so, and is the leader of my French enfant perdús, from my Siege of Girona 1684.

I will add more miniatures from this brand, like a flag bearer, a sniper, a duelist... And from other brands maybe some common troops  maybe from Bloody Miniatures and Anno Domini 1666. The only problem with Anno Domini 1666 is that its miniatures are more realistically proportioned, and are more slim and less bulky, but otherwise fantastic sculpts like its King's Musketeers and Cardinal's Guard! 

Here you can see some unpainted examples

from left to right: Tercio Creativo, Bloody Miniaturd, Bloody Miniatures and Anno Domini 1666.

All these are Tercio Creativo miniatures, some of them very useful for XVIIc games.

conversion on the right

More 3D printing beauties: World War 2 tanks

 Hello friends, It has been a month since my last post, I will update the blog soon with some painting minis, but in the meantime, in this little summer entry, Let me introduce to you some vehicles in 28mm and 15mm, for Bolt Action and Flames Of War respectively.

A hobby colleague is very well equipped with 3D printers, and he has brought these WWII vehicles 3D printed for me. For my German project (1944 and 1945), and for my ambitious Far East project of Japanese, Chinese, and Manchukuo armies/vehicles. 

The vehicles I have ordered are practically impossible to get them from the main manufacturers in plastic or resin, because no one seems to produce them, so I finally opted for this fantastic technology, as I have done earlier with XVII c. stuff.

The first of them is a 28mm  Jagdpanzer IV L/70 Alkett, a vehicle that I have always liked, and that I was lucky enough to see in the tank in Saumur tank museum, in 2015, the only one left in the world of this variant.

In my opinion the model has a pretty good quality, the only thing that seems poorly designed are the tracks which I will have to cover with mud, and I also will add some stowage  and plastic parts of other kits in order to give it more flavour and improve the general looking.

The second vehicle is a 28mm 6 ton  Vickers tank, used in small numbers by the Nationalist Chinese army in 1937,  It is an odd vehicle that I loved when I saw it in action during the battle scene of the most excellent film "Nanking Nanking" (2009). 

the third tank is a Japanese Type 89 medium tank of the early thirties, that fought on Manchuria and Shanghai in 1931, and then in China, Mongolia, Malaya, Philipines....  the model is in 28mm and In my opinion, the best detailed of all, specially the tracks!   I got 2 versions from different sculptors.

later model (best quality)

Earlier model (worse quality)

And finally, the two antagonists in different scales :)

I hope you like this little post, I am looking forward to paint them as soon as I come back home from my holydays!

3D Printing, Work in Progress & miniature comparison for GERONA 1684

Hello friends,

 In the last two weeks of January I have been preparing some projects I have, most of them have to do with my "Gerona 1684" campaign, including 3D printing of a Spanish officer's design that I commissioned a while ago and that I have in metal. Build a siege artillery position, make a 17th century military camp, and paint a French siege assault unit. Also some comparison of a miniature brand, Tercio Creativo.

To begin with, 3D printing stuff... As I have mentioned on previous posts, a friend of mine and hobby colleague has 5 3D printers, some of them are resin, that he needs for his profession, and fortunately he also has a dental scanner that can also scan miniatures. After the success of scanning some gabions in the past, we have scanned an officer that I commissioned to a freelance sculptor a while ago. As I have that officer in metal, we have tried to scan him and print him in printer resin.

my friend's basement

For the test we had no gray resin left, so it was done in black resin, and the details are not so noticeable. In my opinion, the detail of the metal miniature is superior to that of the resin printed copy, but If well painted, it can be used without problem.

Of course, with some software knowledge, one can do wonders with the design of the mini, and modify the miniature in the computer! Maybe in the future the conversions of miniatures could be done in the computer...

Next thing I am doing is an artillery position, mostly scratchbuilt, with some plastic gabions from Renedra, and "chevaux de Frise" from Warfare Miniatures .

An Old Glory ECW cavalryman converted into an enthusiastic infantry sargent, using the lower part of the body of a Warlord Games' plastic musketeer (also ECW range).

I also had  a project of a XVII c. military camp, using as inspiration, contemporary paintings, and the core set of the miniature encampment is the nice box of "terrain crate" from Mantic, absolutely inexpensive, just 27 euros for 4 tents, sleeping bags and campfires...  also some spare bits from Games Workshop and other manufacturers, all together can make a nice Renaissance or Baroque military camp for almost every European power. 

Finally, here you have, in resin, a miniature from "Tercio Creativo" a Gallic Grenadier (left), from a game set in a alternative history called "1650 a capa y espada".  Although the miniature has a "fantasy" look, I think it fits  as a leader of a storming party, with his French classic helmet, used from the 1660' onwards. a cravatte, tabard an some armour. So he will lead my French enfants perdús into the breach!

                                               compared to North Star 1672 French Pikeman

                                              compared to North Star 1672 Swiss Pikeman

                                                         compared to Front Rank Pikeman

Some more examples of miniatures from tercio Creativo. I like the look of the swordsman with some plunder bag. Also the officer with pistol in a 1650-60 outfit is quite nice.

This brand is highly recommended in my opinion, its miniatures cost about 8.5 euros, and its quality is very good, both in resin, as well as in proportions and design. I find them great for heroes and leaders of the seventeenth century games.

Cheers!

Some XVII century review & comparison

Hello all!

Here I am again, this time some reviews,  Last week I received an order placed on  excellent North Star 1672 miniatures,  I already have almost all their references, but I wanted the D'Artagnan miniature they produce. The miniature itself did not look impresive in the web page, but in the flesh is much better, well sculpted and detailed. I like it a lot for my foot King's Musketeers unit.  The only thing I did not like too much is the sword, too broad Imho. Apart from that, a good officer miniature for all French armies of 1670's

The next batch were some 1672 mounted dragoons, very good miniatures, both the riders and the horses (smaller than their line cavalry counterparts). Initially, I wanted these miniatures to represent veeeery late Franco-Spanish War (1635-1658) Spanish mounted Arquebusiers, painting them with different earthy colours and using some earlier miniatures for command group.

I have not decided yet how I will use these figures... they seem suitable for mounted carabiniers or arquebusiers for Franco Spanish War, Portuguese Restoration War, War of Devolution etc., apart from their main target, 1672 Dutch war (and onwards), so as you can see, very versatile miniatures.

Here you can compare it with a superb TYW horse arquebusier from Russian manufacturer Avanpost miniatures.

Next comparison pic, you can se some metal Tercios Miniatures, next to Avanpost resin figures. the Tercios are a command group, and Avanpost some artillery crew.  in terms of detail, I must say Avanpost are superior, indeed, they are one of the best sculpted miniatures I have ever seen, and very cheap! they are not heroic 28mm miniatures, so not so well fit with Renegade or Bicorne ECW ranges but they fit well with Tercios Miniatures, Warlord Games, Perry, TAG etc. Very nice miniatures all of them.

Finally 2 musketeers, again Tercios and Avanpost. I personally dont like very much the style of digitally sculpted miniatures, but Tercios are well researched and done, BUT some of the poses are a bit stiff or "wooden"(not this one). I will use both of them together in the same army or in skirmish games.

Regards!