Painting 2mm: The King's Life Guard Part 2

Irregular Miniatures make a number of different blocks of combined Pike and Shot suitable for the Renaissance period, however I find that they are comparatively small in size, and depending on the kind of figure ratio you are hoping to achieve, not ideal for large formations.

Thankfully, they do some separate blocks which can easily be combined to form a representative whole. As you will have seen in my previous post, I favour a Pike block from RBG9, and Musket 'sleeves' formed from 4xBG16, which gives an appropriate depth against the Pike. I suppose strictly, the officers of a regiment of foot would have been on foot during a battle, but I like to top off the base with the mounted trio from RBG24. As you can see in the photo above, once I have the blocks painted up to my stasfaction, I like to base these large formations on an artist's card base (1.6mm deep backed with magnetic sheet), which is 60mm wide by 30mm deep.

Once glued down, the troops just need a final look over, and any areas that look a bit sloppy, or have been obscured, tidied up. If you're feeling ambitious, this is where you add in the feather in the Colonel's hat, and a few coloured sashes to distinguish the officers!

I pre-paint the bases before mounting the blocks, again making sure to use quite a light colour tone in order to make the figures 'pop' with a suitable contrast. The base could probably be left like this, but I think some attention with your smallest grade flock, or even some larger pieces as bushes or trees gives it a nice diorama-like feel:

So there you have it, a straightforward way of painting the King's Life Guard, ready to defend His Sovereigne Majestie against his rebellious foes!

Finally a shot of part of the Royalist army en masse - I think this gives a good idea of the visual effect that can be achieved by these tiny troops when deployed in number, all for a comparatively minimal effort in both time and expense. Give some a try; you won't be disappointed!