Saturday, May 16, 2009

the XVI (16th) century German Cavaliers




Back in the saddle again...
I researched and painted these images for a book on the battle of Lubieszow AD 1577 (Radoslaw Sikora, Lubieszow 1577, Infort Editions 2005), between Polish Royal army and the army of the rebelious city of Gdansk (Danzig). In Polish historiography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography the name of this engagement is 'bitwa (battle) pod (of )Lubieszow'
you can check it on Wikipedia , although some idiot changed the name of the battle to the modern spelling Lubiszewo(albeit the full name of this town is Lubiszewo Tczewskie and not just Lubiszewo) of this Polish town's name
German account of this tragic battle, on google books :) http://books.google.com/books?id=a5cCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA54&dq=winkelbruch+1577&lr=
this one is the best in German - http://books.google.com/books?id=kZYOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA240&dq=winkelbruch+1577&lr=&as_brr=1
They represent the new type of cavalry in the Western European armies, the cavalry armed with swords, daggers, pistols and arquebus, protected by a 3/4 armor or half-armor, and ridding much, much cheaper horses then lancers.
next time I will publish some images of the Royal army cavalry units of that battle.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Cheyenne Update



I did some work on this image, especially moving his shield under his arm, note there was no handgrip or strap for the arm to slid through, and I changed the angle of the shield etc.
to be continued

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Red Shield


Upon re-reading, somewhat closer than before, of works by Dorsey,'Cheyenne', Grinnell 'The Cheyenne Indians', Cowdrey, 'Arrow's Elk Society Ledger' etc., I decided to repaint my Red Shield warrior already shown here a few weeks ago.
I started with the buffalo (bison) horse mask, and this particular item completely changed the way this image feels, I think. I recently photographed the whole book on the subject, Cowdrey et al., 'Indian Horse Masks', at the American Indian Museum library downtown Manhattan. The mask is identified as of Blackfeet origin, and since both tribes, Cheyennes and Blackfeet were so closely related, I decided to give his horse such a mask.
In the near future I will repaint his shield, the medicine (war) paint on his horse, lengthen the lance etc. I already started repainting his headdress, eg the red horns that were, according to Grinnell (and Bent :) ), painted separately one by one on the event of the wearer counting coup on his enemies.
To be continued