French Crossbowmen - Aventuriers (3) first group finished

I have finally finished the first batch of crossbowmen.

I think replacing the crossbows and so having the weapons all more or less the same size allows these originally very different figures to work together well, apart from the very chunky Black Hat figures which are marginal - two of Sebastien Chabal's ancestors playing their part in the Italian Wars.

I am pleased with the detail of the replacement crossbows, all the fiddly work making the bows, strings and bolts seems worth it now. I was in Venice ago few weeks ago, looking round the Doge's palace armoury and the modified crossbows with a relatively slender, metal bow with a simple curve seem a better match for the 16th Century crossbows I saw there than were the disparate cast metal crossbows the figures originally came with.

I have another 12 of these to finish now, two more guns, another general and some mounted arquebusiers (which will also need a lot of Milliput modification to make them look like they are from the 1520s). After that, Gendarmes and Archers (the mounted lancers)...