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Sunday, January 20, 2013

36 Knights! - last of the Hungarian heraldry

During the medieval era, armor was sometimes "blackened" in order to protect it from rust.  Blackening consisted of coating the armor with oil and burning it off or boiling the armor in oil until the oil cooked into the steel and then burning off the excess. Armor which is painted or lacquered black gives the same visual and also provides some anti-rust protection as well.

Thanks to a combination of Google and a fellow blogger in Turkey, I found the artwork of Hungarian knights below.  In each instance, the artist chose to show portray Hungarian knights in blackened armor.  It's up to us to guess whether it was painted, lacquered or blackened on!

As I discovered when painting the Royal Banderium, painting black knights in 15mm is a tricky business.  My version consisted of priming the knights black and then painting them with a Vallejo Gunmetal + Black mix.  I then drybrushed lightly with Gunmetal.  I was sorely temped to work up the brightness from there but that would defeat the point of painting black(ish) knights!

Painting heraldry consisted of me clicking through a Hungarian website until I found an icon I could paint.  Then I'd wheel my chair over to the painting table to do paint it, one shield at a time.  Underneath those shields are a few notable failures.  Hats off to you fellows who paint medieval armies and heraldry exclusively!


Once I started basing these up, I discovered that swords and lances covered up the shield of the figures to the right, obscuring a portion of the effort.  Arg!  That would not be a problem with Impetus basing!






All Essex figs.  Commanders and camp to finish this project up and then, it's Saga time!

44 comments:

  1. WOW !!!

    Very inpressive sight of all the knights in the last two pictures !

    Stunning work !

    Best regards Michael

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    1. Thanks Dal! I may have gone a bit over the top with the banners but they were just a bit ordinary looking without them.

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  2. Fa-bu-lous ! I would really like to have such an army! A great work on those colorful knights!
    Best,
    Phil.

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    1. Phil, so there IS one army from history that you don't have? ;-)
      Thanks sir!

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    1. Thanks Paul! And you are a Medieval-centric painter that I tip my hat to. All the shields and livery. Yikes!

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  4. Very handsome shieldwork. Your last two group photos are colorfully striking. Well done!

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    1. Thanks Jonathan! I don't think you can miss them on the tabletop, even in 15mm.

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  5. Really good, i might be getting into 15mm soon, and seeing you work is inspiring stuff!

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    1. Thanks Max! Painting up 28mm Saga Vikings has me thinking I'd like to scale up and maybe paint some WoTR. But then, I wouldn't be able to knock out 5-6 armies a year. And it would be much more expensive. And I don't quite have a partner for 28mm projects. Still, I'm thinking about it!

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    2. It's good to have a change every now and again!

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  6. Very impressive indeed.

    Mind you, I did the same for my 10mm Hungarian army ;)

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    1. Seb! Ok, I need to dig out your 10mm Hungarians and take a look. I've never painted 10mm as 15mm seems as small as I can go!

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    2. They're on my former blog.
      you can get links to different units there:
      http://www.artdelaguerre.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1146

      I'm sorry I can't give you better links

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  7. Nice job, Monty. Your free-hand shields are great!

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    1. Thanks Brent! Now if only I could use them in Maurice, lol!

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    2. Hmmmm, maybe some time travellers to assist the Sultan?

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  8. Black plate caused me some troubles but the solution is generally the same, metal+black added. Neat work, time to siege Vienna I guess?

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    1. Thanks Andrew! Yes, a showdown with the Ottomans is in order!

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  9. Marvelous stuff!! I can see you clicking through the heraldry and saying to yourself "Sir Not-appearing-in-this-army" ;-)

    I've done the same Gunmetal + Black thing as well as use an old Ral Partha dark metal paint called "Steel." Another technique I would test out (might not work for the little guys) is using Tamiya Color "Smoke" or P3 "Armor Wash."

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    1. You are so correct! Early on, I tried to paint the icon at the top of the page of the knight with a cross in his hand. I fiddled and fiddled and realized it was beyond my ability. Animals are a different story!

      I've heard good things about P3 Armor Wash. I'll see if I can scrounge that up and give it a go.

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    2. Yeah Tamiya Smoke is kinda tricky (and gets sticky when it starts to dry), but is great if you want to give metals an oily appearance. Great on gears and hydraulics(?), but may or may not be great for blackened armor.

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  10. Hi Monty,

    stunning work on the shields, I really like all your Hungarian Army, thanks for sharing your passion with us; it will be nice to see all of them on the field;

    Cheers

    Gilles

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    1. Thanks Gilles! I'm quite excited to field this army under V2. The Szeklery horsemen could really be tough with the changes.

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  11. Really wonderful 15mm work you do Monty!

    Christopher

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  12. Great looking units! Really impressive, big fan of Hungarian armies and this ones a good one.

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    1. Hendrid! Thanks for your compliment and thanks for following.

      I just discovered your blog...excellent posts, projects and painting! I've never seen the Black Army reference material you posted. No matter how hard I look, I just can't uncover all of the good stuff out there on the internet and blogs! I'll be back to read it from start to finish. And I look forward to your 28mm version.

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    2. Your welcome Monty :-) I know what you mean about finding things on the internet and sadly Hungarian source material is pretty rare, certainly in english anyway.

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  13. Fantastic Monty. Can't wait to see this army all together.

    FMB

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    1. I can't wait to crush my opponent Brandt under heel and taunt him with something vaguely Hungarian. I may have to see if I can learn an insult in the language.

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  14. Beautifully painted unit - very, very eye-catching. Best, Dean

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    1. Dean, you're ahead of me in Saga! I love your new Berserkers.

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  15. I didn't know that! Now I know why armors are black in military museum :)

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    1. I owe you for all your help on Ottoman history, the photos and links to the museums!

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  16. Yes these have come up well Monty .....all those flags ! Looks great. Yes Impetus basing would have been a bonus ....but they still do the business. Love them.

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    1. Thanks Tarty. It was close but once I was done basing them, I felt like they needed the boost that only banners can provide. I don't know when or where but I'm pretty sure I'm not done with Impetus painting and playing.

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  17. Great stuff Monty :)

    I've had to do blackened armour for my 30YW cuirassiers (I should have done it for other troops with armour, but didn't). My method was black undercoat, dry-brush with Vallejo Oily Steel then wash with thinned down black ink. That seems to have done the trick nicely.

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    1. Oooh, that's a great combo. I just dug your cuirasiers out and that is the look I was hoping for. Hmmm, a thinned ink wash might be in order for these boys. THANKS for the tip. I will be using this!

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    2. I can only second that tip... Used it on my LOTR minis all those years back and it works like a charm!

      Nice heraldry BTW!

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    3. I have the black ink. Now I need Vallejo oily steel and some armor to paint. I do really appreciate this guys. The only way I can get better is with practice and quality tips like this.

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  18. Nice.

    I ran Later Hungarians for a bit in DBM back in the 90s. They're a fun army.

    A pencil rub for the graphite shine over black followed immediately by fixing with clear spray can work nicely for black armor or gun metal. I've done it a few times, more for guns than armor.

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    1. Thanks Allen! I need to try that when I go back to painting musket armies.

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