Conquest Miniatures Norman Cavalry Project

When I attended the Historic Convention I noticed a new miniature manufacturer on the block, Conquest Miniatures. I loved the idea of new Norman models on the market,  so I looked at the display, the first thing I noticed was the dynamic horse sculpts. I love a good Horse model,and this new line looked like it would be a blast to paint. I clipped the model from the sprue and primed it ASAP, it looked great!

I really liked their horse sculpt, its very dynamic and displays nice muscle lines I wish they had made the horse's mane a little more dynamic. A a galloping horse with it's tail raised and flowing but it's mane lying flat in a static position.

This horse model has distinct but simple detail (barding and saddle straps), all of the detail is easily seen and accessed by paint brushes.

I give my horses a good strong base coat, normally not too dark or light, this way I can go any direction in the shading or highlights.

I went with simple Grey highlights for the mane and tale to keep this paint test simple.

I used the GW Badab black wash for this project, normally I use a thin paint wash, but for this test I used the more simple and consistent product.

I gave the model a real liberal coat of the Badab black wash and tried to keep it from pooling excessively or dry up too fast while I applied the wash.

Once the Badab wash was dried the model was already looking good, many gamers would use models at this level of painting for table top quality and it looks pretty good. For me I like my horses to "pop!" so I am going to add some paint layering to bring out the great muscle detail.

I hit the muscles of the model with a thin coat of the original base coat of brown, and as you can see the model is already starting to "Pop".

With a second layer of the base coat of brown inside of the of the previous thin coat, the model shows more depth and the brown looks like I did more work than I actually did. The model displays a more muscular look and it will make the rider look great once its mounted on the horse, strong colors and contrast.

Next stop is the reigns, saddle blanket and straps, and then the rider!