Dixon's Grand Alliance Figures

These have to be the most popular of all the figures for this period - you probably don't need me to tell you that. Designed by Mark Copplestone when he was starting out they have been around since the late 80s - which was a fairly fertile time for this period with various books like Charles Grant's From Pike to Shot and the Louis XIV's Army Osprey and these figures reflect that influence. 28mm.

Website here

SK's First Foot Guards

Back in 2004-5 the Sealed Knot - the UK's largest and oldest Civil War Society - took on the Monmouth Rebellion as a period. It was done by certain groups and they did - in my opinion - a good job of recreating the the redcoats of 1685- in particular the First Foot Guards who were done by Ruperts Bluecoats. Article here

Ebob armatures

Website here. Not only am I a frustrated illustrator I am also a bit of a sculptor - nothing brilliant but OK - so when I heard about these armatures - dollys for building up detail on - in 28mm I thought maybe I should start sculpting again. Looking around the web Ebob have started a bit of a d-i-y revolution with their royalty free horses and so forth. If you want to see what a casting looks like after someone has worked on it then check out this Making Miniatures Blog where this photo is from.

Now the question is... what should I try? To my mind the area of history not that well covered by figure makers is the 1670s... the Dutch Wars or Franco-Dutch wars. Most ranges are for the 1690s - sort of Boyne/Grand Alliance; less well covered is the era after the ECW and before Sedgemoor. The Restoration in the UK I suppose it is known as. It means sculpting bandoliers, but in other aspects its not that difficult. Of course I may not get round to it...

King William's War in Britain

Did I mention that we did a North American 1690s (King William's War) event in the UK at the American Museum Bath to celebrate the museum's 40th birthday? It was pretty good - this was one of the photos I took in the woods near my house to publicise it - pictured are Colonial Militia on patrol. There was a fair bit of cross-over of kit for Monmouth Rebellion and 1690s colonial as you can imagine.

Further down the line we did a Salem Witch trial event which was very popular though we didn't pursue it.

Illustrations

I used to fancy myself as a bit of a historical illustrator and did this pic of a 1690s Canadian Militiaman for a book 'Leading by Example' about the partisans of New France. It's now wound up in a local history book about Wilton NY which is nice.

Game of the Siege of 11 September 1714

The War of Spanish Succession has great significance in the Iberian peninsula - this Catalan wargames site has many links to themes of this time period including this game of the siege of Barcelona.

Captain Blood

The film that made Errol Flynn a star this sequence - 1 of 12 - deals with the back story of how Blood came to be arrested - he was acting as a surgeon during the Monmouth Rebellion. Many swashbuckling adventures are to follow but these scenes are pretty enjoyable on their own

Jean-Antoine Watteau

Wiki on the artist here. A bit of a crime of omission not having any Watteau up til now on this blog. This famous French artist did many studies of French military subjects usually in natural poses, like this one.