From PeterD 28mm Perry Figures and Inspiration from Michael York (60 points)

Yes there is a unit of figures influenced by Michael York, and no it features neither Zeppelins nor Musketeers!

So the end of winter is upon us, and even the frozen Canadian prairies are feeling spring like.  Here’s my last entry to the Challenge Version 5, 12 Italian wars foot in 28mm based on the Perry’s plastics and metals.  There are 4 Genoese Crossbowmen to complete the unit to its full 12-man strength plus 8 Italian swordsmen representing the start of a new unit, to be finished after the Challenge is over.

The 4 crossbowmen are pretty much straight out of the Plastic boxes. They appear along with the swordsmen above, and with the rest of the unit below. 

 I believe that there is one foot knight holding a standard and the rest are mercenaries.  The heads all come from one of the two boxes but damn it if I can remember which head comes from which box.  The flag is paper, printed from a file found on the Web and represents a flag flown by French Genoese allies at Marignano in 1515.   I had planned to use another fabric flag like my recent entries, but I put my sheets of flags in that dreaded location “somewhere safe where it won’t get damaged or lost”.   Well I think we know what happened there….

Capuleti’s Swordsmen are a combination of full figures and bits and pieces from the body part farm.   Various component parts are as follows:

·         Two metal figures straight from the Perry Italian command box (the officer and drummer)

·         10 plastic Torsos from the Mercenary and Foot Knight boxes

·         Heads from the plastics boxes plus metal Italian heads.

·         Plastic arms with swords (and matching left arms) from the Mercenary’s command stand and the foot knights boxed sets

·         Plastic sword arms (and matching left arms) from GW Empire state troops box set.  They match up pretty well once you trim down the GW meat cleaver swords.  The GW torsos are too beefy to mix and match with Perry’s but the arms work fine especially as puffy and slashed sleeves hide a multitude of sins (I picked this tip up vis the Lead Adventure Forum and other bloggers).

On the whole I am quite pleased with the unit.  I started out wanting swordsmen using Perry Oval shields but along the way the oval shields morphed into bucklers and the broadswords became two handers and Main Gauche in a few cases.   For the next swordsmen unit (the Montechhi), I’ll go with the lighter armoured figures as they have a better look to my eyes.

While these were in process, my wife commented that the Yellow and Scarlet themed livery was bright, but she acknowledged that they were bright historically.  I used a raw umber wash to dull things down a bit and add shading, but I do have a historical precedent to the unit.  The Capuleti and Montecchi families were based in Verona and involved in blood feuds until certain members were exiled when the fighting got too bloody. I have speculated on an exiled Capuleti founding a condottiero company and passing this on to his decedents.

Sound familiar…well you may recall some of this from your high school English class.   The Bard changed the names and I toyed with the outcome a bit but there you go.  And that gives us the Michael York link, via the Zefferelli Romeo and Juliet (IMHO it kicks the tights clad butts of all other R&Js).  It’s long clip but it’s a great fight scene and easily the second best part of the movie. And yes the Capulet livery was the influence, Montecchi's swordsmen will be in various shades of blue.

From Curt:

Ooh! I forgot about this movie - how very cool, now I must go find it (along with that old zeppelin movie of his). Wonderful work Peter! You are really rockin' it with this new Italian Wars project. I like the mix and match of body/weapon bits, especially the great tip on the GW Empire swordsmen. The yellow and red is a great colour combo too. Great stuff here. 

Thank you my friend for joining us again this year. I always enjoy your often whacky theme entries and admire your single minded focus regarding your new projects. I'll see you, glass in hand, at the tabletop...