Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've wanted to do a crusader WAB army for a long time, so I've been converting away, gradually, trying to get things somewhat ready for painting. I've converted a bunch of Perry Miniatures 1090's Normans to get them a little bit further into the crusades. Not really a fan of some of the other manufacturer's miniatures, these are different story. And of course I like to make things very different than your normal Perry Miniature Normans. I dare to be different.

The Perry's sculpt some beautiful looking miniatures, so I was a little concerned about converting them. Their Hospitallers are nice models, but not quite what I wanted to do for everything. I wanted some sleeveless tunics also. Trying to move these guys a bit further into the 1100s-1200s and get out of the 1090s.



Note the plastic shield is a GW High Elf shield. This is what I came up with after looking at reams of reference materials.



I do not however plan to put caripsons on every horse, just way too much work, but quite a few of them will have them.



Can't wait to start painting these, but I need more.

The final army will be around the 1000 pt mark, hopefully by then Conquest Games will have their plastic foot soldiers out, for my full blown expansion.

Wow i love those they look awesome love that high elf shields size.

I love historical minis, nice gs work.

Looking very good
nice work!

Very impressive sculpting. I envy you!

Great sculpting work. Im impressed by the detail on the garb

thanks guys much appreciated.

Next batch, this time some actual Perry Holy Order types on my converted horses:


As I'm doing this, the more I'm thinking about paint.


My thoughts at this point is not to paint them exclusively as Holy Order Crusaders. I do like color, so I'm leaning away from doing a bunch of Hospitallers or Templars or Tuetonics or whatever.

Yeah they look really good cant wait to see some paint

one thing you may consider, to bring a sense of "accuracy" into these knights, is to paint their tabards in order colors (which, as far as i have found on google, they are almost all white, black, red, or blue with black or white crosses on them), and then paint their shields in their own individual heraldry...

Also, found an interesting image, which may provide inspiration to "create" your own knightly order for the crusades:




Also, rather than doing a knightly order type army, if you felt like going all out, you could paint in an individual country's colors (ie, French, with a middling to pale blue, with golden Fleur-de-lis; German, yellow with an embossed shield, having a black "german" style eagle; English, yellow with a black lion rampant, and red "head dressing" on the horses)

Ensis Ferrae wrote:one thing you may consider, to bring a sense of "accuracy" into these knights, is to paint their tabards in order colors (which, as far as i have found on google, they are almost all white, black, red, or blue with black or white crosses on them), and then paint their shields in their own individual heraldry...

Also, rather than doing a knightly order type army, if you felt like going all out, you could paint in an individual country's colors (ie, French, with a middling to pale blue, with golden Fleur-de-lis; German, yellow with an embossed shield, having a black "german" style eagle; English, yellow with a black lion rampant, and red "head dressing" on the horses)

As far as I'm aware, during the Crusades knights were fighting 'for the cross' so were more likely to abandon their own personal heraldry for the classic white with a red cross.

Also, national identities weren't quite so prevalent in the 11th and 12th centuries.

I think I'd paint them all like this:



-edit-

Sorry didn't read the part where you said you wanted lots of colour!

Well not lots of color just yet, thanks for all the suggestions. I'm leaning towards doing a variety of things so that eventually I have an army that fits all kinds of periods, from Spain to France to the Holy Land.

These are my Hospitallers. I’ve never been crazy about painting black and white, but I knew I wanted to do a Holy Order and this one of my favorite choices. Some of them are my converted Perry Miniatures knights mixed with the Perry’s Holy Order/Hospitaller Knights.

The ones without hoods and sleeve-less surcoats are my conversions, like the knight with the couched lance and standard bearer. The two horses with the caparisons are my conversions with GS and BS.


With the conversions, I was attempting to get Norman early Perry Crusader models out of the First Crusade in the 1090s, into more of the late Second and Third Crusades.

Note some of the kite shields are actually GW High Elves shields from their foot infantry, that made conversion of the shields much easier. And some of the shields were actually converted with green stuff putty. The movement tray I think turned out well. The basing is HO scale railroad ballast, with some gravel, Joefix grass tufts, and GW Staw. I'm happy with the basing, its a bit different from what I normally do.


The banner did not turn out great, but I will fix that at a later date. Its a painted paper banner with some foil in between the layers to keep the bend.

The horses, scared me at first to do them. I'm not someone that has a lot of knowledge about horses, and this is not fantasy, so I used a number of reference photos and attempted to get 3-4 different paint schemes that would work well. Out of everything I think the horses turned out the best, with the exception of the white one in the back.

Fantastic work, both on sculpting and painting. The little touches really do it for me - the lacing holes on the barding, the cut and lay of the surcoats, the shape of the faceplate on the pot helms (you can imagine the subsequent addition of a wrapper plate at the back and the evolution to the "saltshaker" style, which means you've really nailed the form).

As for the heraldic questions, members of the Holy Orders would (more or less) have abandoned personal heraldry in favor of the order's "uniform," but that is not the case, for most. The crusader's badge was usually a relatively small cloth affair, to be sown over the breast upon undertaking the oath and moved to the back after the completion thereof (always facing the Holy Land, even on the return trip... if there was one). Colored surcoats and shield devices, then, are not out of the question.

Since you're gearing towards later crusades, have you considered adding ailettes? If memory serves, they're primarily a 13th c. piece of kit, so they may be a tad late, judging by the armor of these models. Any later models, though, would look quite spiffy with them, I think, not to mention the fact that you'd have small canvases for simple heraldic devices, even on models without shields.

Sadly, all of my reference material is still boxed up from the recent move, but you seem to be doing quite well, on your own. These guys look like they walked off the pages of an Osprey book. Really, stunning work.

I totally agree with what oadie had to say. These models walked off of an Osprey page. Amazing.
The conversion work is seamless. Detailed, yet restrained. Totally in keeping with both the non-"heroic" scale and the historical nature of the regiment. It is clear that you used source material to great effect.
I think that you painted the horses well. They look realistic-even the white one-and the caparisons are beautifully modeled.
I like your choice to paint them as an order. It combines with the base style to give a very pleasing unified look to the lot.
If you make another regiment, they can be painted in colorful personal heraldry. In the Holy Land, armies were often composed of secular and religious forces; so it should be no problem to have a unit colorful secular knights in the future.
I also laud your effort to give your force multiple duties. To my knowledge knights in your army's period looked very similar while fighting in Spain, France, Sicily, and Outremer. Some times wearing or shedding cloaks/surcoats as the sun/heat dictated. You may want to consider using different types of supporting troops to suggest different places of origin. A few examples: if you were to use a unit of christian syrian archers the army would be form the Holy Land, painting crossbow-men in darkish colors lends an army northern european look, use lighter colors or white and they look more southern, and in spain there were almughavars....
Anyway,
Awesome work. I look forward to seeing what you come up with next. Please keep sharing.