The Landsknecht experience

As I only recently finally finished the Panzer IV I owed my good friend Chris, it was about high time to finish the figures I had agreed to paint for Curt as well.
We do have a small trans-atlantic miniatures exchange program running where he paints one or two miniatures per year for me and in exchange he get's roughly the same number from me.
We don't have a set topic for the miniatures we paint for each other. It's more a combination of what we do want to paint and what the recipient would like to get painted.

During last years Challenge Curt started work on a wonderful "Italian Wars" project and also painted up a spiffing and quite extraordinary piece of equipment called "The Death Bell of Breugel Bosch". If you haven't seen it already I strongly urge you to have a look at this rather inspired and twisted take on renaissance artillery. Well, be it as it may, when I first saw it I knew what I wanted to paint up for Curt. If only had I known what I was in for...

I've fancied trying my hand on Landsknechte for some time already and here it was, the perfect excuse... errr.... chance to get my feet wet without delving in head first. So I ordered these two fellas from the Bruegelburg range of pseudo-Landsknecht / renaissancish figures by Lead Adventure Miniatures. I really like the distinct style all the Lead Adventure miniatures have to them, but honestly these two were not that easy to paint...

... and this had nothing to do with the quality of the sculpts or the casting. It was simply me seriously underestimating the amount of work you need to put into the paint job to make it look suitably "Landsknecht". All the little detail, the puffy Landsknecht clothing, the feathers and what not...
I really tip my hat to all of you out there actually painting a 28mm (or bigger for that matter) Landsknecht army. After this experience I'm cured and definitely won't paint a Landsknecht force any time soon... in 28mm at least.

So these two together with "Han Solo" whom I painted up as entry fee for the challenge will be on their way to Regina CA asap. With this my debts are settled and I can lean back and look forward to the looming 7th incarnation of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.
I hope Curt likes what he'll get and my apologies for being late with my entry fee, but I'm a little cheap with posting you know ;-)