Uniforms for Spanish and French Guards

[eboracomb]

Here are the first run casts for our guards for the WSS we hope you like them and would greatly appreciate any help in getting the right uniform and equipment for the different nations and different times,I am going to release early Spanish Guards with Dragoneras (shoulder cords) and large cartridge pouch then later units without the cords and only grenadiers with the large pouch,also I have some references to the Walloon Guards wearing bearskin mitres with brass plates is this correct and if so when did they adopt the bearskins,also I've got some references for the French guards with shoulder cords and large pouches when did they adopt the more common image of them with small waist pouch and no cords any advice would be greatly appreciated

cheers Nick

[Arthur]

Hi Nick

Would your Gardes Françaises plates look something like this ?



Or this, which is a variant of the above ?



The former is taken from Giffart's (also spelled Giffard) Art Militaire Français published in 1696 and depicting the Gardes Françaises circa 1690-1695. The guards seem to have adopted the belly cartridge box at the same time as the rest of the army, i.e between 1697 and 1703.

It's not clear when the shoulder ribbons went out of fashion for the infantry, but the change seems to have taken place at the turn of the 18th century : most post 1701 images of French foot soldiers show them without the ribbons, though cavalrymen retained their aiguillettes for several more decades.

[eboracomb]

Hi Arthur thanks for the images these are the images that I found I also came across a film on youtube of a reenactment group for the garde Francaises who had large pouchs no shoulder ribbons and tricorn's refighting a WSS battle you would assume that people who are so taken with the age and the unit who spend a lot of time and money would do a lot of research so do you think this is a combination of uniform and equipment that was used at some point.

cheers Nick

[Rob Herrick]

Drool. Those are some very pretty figures!

[BobR]

These Guards are super looking figures. When will they be available for purchase and will you have officers, musicians and standard bearers?.

[eboracomb]

Hi BobR glad you like the figures,Paul is just putting the finishing touchs to two standard bearers and an officer and has promised delivery of all the finished masters this week so I hope to have the production moulds made and the figures for sale in a couple of weeks.
cheers Nick

[dashing blade]

Look very nice! do you think they would fit in with the Front rank figs?
i already have a collection but would like to add a few of these in to the mix as it were.

[simon boulton]

Look very nice! do you think they would fit in with the Front rank figs?
i already have a collection but would like to add a few of these in to the mix as it were.

Well it's a matter of opinion but I think they are fine alongside Front Rank but in their own units. I've got quite a few of the Ebor figures and they are lovely figures.