'Mercenary' from GregB: Renaissance Mercenary Commander

28mm Renaissance Mercenary Commander from Wargames Foundry. He looks a bit confused. Probably because he is all by himself in my kitchen, and not surrounded by his troops.

For some time now I have been captivated by the efforts of Curt, PeterD, KenR and others (apologies to those who I missed) in the "Italian Wars" setting.  Every so often, I get all charged up and think "hey, I'm going to try that period too!" until I read a bit about it and get confused in, like, five minutes.  I don't think I could come up with something that will make sense, and the uniforms of the era easily intimidate my brush, and so I wander off to find something else to paint from my current 10+ "ongoing projects". 

We should all get to wear pants this yellow! And with some armour. Why not?

Still, these bonus themes offer the chance to try and stretch your range a bit, right? Curt said to me once "It is a painting challenge, after all" and that always rings in my head. I believe the Italian Wars were replete with mercenaries, so I thought I would paint a mounted mercenary officer, and this theme round seemed like the ideal moment to dip my toe into the war.  This is a 28mm figure from Wargames Foundry's Pike & Shotte range.

I believe a more proper setting for this fellow would be to surround him with 50 pike-bearing figures...but for now, he'll do.

The figure is supposed to be carrying a spear...but that never arrived from Foundry (sigh).  All the same, he looks like he might be gesturing casually toward something, so I think it still works overall.

"Where are my troops?"

For colours...well...the mercenaries of that era seemed to dress flamboyantly, if nothing else. I just made sh*t up for some colours - yellow pants, red hat, light green-blue...is that a coat? Cape? I'm pretty sure it's a cape. Whatever.   But I love the overall outfit.  There is some nice armour under there too - you can just see it on the riders' thighs.

So, just one figure.  Won't count for much, but will look nice on the shelf. And besides, it is fun to experiment! Maybe someday I'll try painting a Landsknecht or two...I mean, anything is possible, right?  Those pike blocks sure look astounding once they are painted up...

Thanks for looking!