BIG BERTHA (600mm) Pt I

Ok...it´s the last day of "gun month" so I thought I´d play my big card :-) This is "Big Bertha" a 600mm medieval siege gun.

 

Airfix Sherrif of Nottingham

There he is!!!, BAD MAN!!! ...everybody, all together now ......BOOOOOOOO! HISSSSS!!!! BOOOOOOOOO!!!

Bavarian Bear Band

Sorry, I couldn´t bear not to do it....:-)

WWI 18 Pdr

Well, it is Gun Month so I thought I´d get in on it before it´s over. This one is from Emhar...not a bad little gun, comes in 7 parts..the plastic is fairly hard. Fitting the thing together was a bit of a pain...I painted the parts first but when it came to fitting, I discoverd that the holes in the wheels are too bloody small and had to be forced on to the axles which bent and nealry snapped one.!!!! Also the barrel has to be pushed  thorugh the shield with some force due to the poxy locating pins. After it was put together it needed a bit of re-aligning and re-painting.
What I shall do with it now, I don´t know...it needs a crew. The crew supplied is in poses so relaxed it looks like they´ve taken handfulls of sleeping tablets.

Etruscan Army...

...well the beginings of one. :-)

Chariot scratchbuilt from thin Card, copperwire, wheels from the Atlantic egyptian chariot and nags from Airfix ancient Britons chariot.

CAVEMEN.....UGH!!

This little lot are made by Leonardo Torricini of Phersu miniatures.He is a very talented converter and re-designer of 1/72nd bods to create original new ideas for our little worlds. How many sets of Cavemen are there out there??? This is the first !!
He also does a large range of other subjects...mainly ancients, particually Etruscan themes and I recommend a visit to his site :-)

Camp folk

Hunting folk

It´s the first time, as far as I know,  that a reindeer or a baby mammoth has been reproduced in 1/72nd   (I know...someone will tell me differently :-D)

DEATH !!!!!

The ultimate piece on any wargaming table. I win!!!

You can´t kill it...cos it´s already dead!!  Muhaha, Muhaha !!!!

Airfix Robinhood Conversions

Converted yesterday..painted today. The first pic shows the archer conversion from the post about swopping heads.(Actually, not only have they swopped heads...but by the looks of things...sides as well!!)

All the same figure..the "assassin" (far right) has had an arm swop from an Italeri archer, bow + hand from the running bod in the same set, hood made from ....toilet  paper :- D

Shields are printed and stuck on thin cardboard and then simply attached to the bods with Loctite 401.

Head swops

This is a quick article on how I swop 1/72nd  scale bod heads.
First I select two likely candidates for the "exchange" One doesn´t know it yet, but he isn´t in on the deal, he´s just a doner bod , so shhhhh

In this case I want to create an Airfix bowman wearing a helmet and the Revell english Knights set is of pretty much the same size.

The heads of both bods are removed, leaving as much neck as possible on the head that will be "re-fitted".

Both doner head and new body are matched with each other, to see if the angle of fit is correct and if there is too much neck left that will nead cutting away. 

The head then has a pin pushed into the top of it. At this stage pliers aren´t necessary to push the pin in, but I do recommend the type of pin in the photo below. It saves on holes in the fingers!!!. The pin has to be looked at from the side and the front as it is pushed 1-2mm into the head, to make sure it is properly aligned so as to come out more or less in the middle of the neck area.

Now using a pair of pliers the pin can be pushed all the way through so that it sticks out of the neck area. If it at this stage is misaligned, then one further attempt can be made but in my experience after that a new head is required as the holes made tend to join up with each other making it near impossible to fit the head at all.

The head and body are held together to check final alignment, then holding the body in one hand , the pin is pushed in using the pliers. 

When the pin is pushed in 4-5mm, the top of the pin is now cut off as close as possible to the head, and using a hard surface (here my cutters) the rest is pushed flush with the top surface.

 A bit of re-positioning of the head is still possible, twisting to the left or right and maybe even forcing side to side, forwards backwards, but it is a minimal amount.

Fill any slight gaps with woodglue.

If I was to go "wild" on this one, I would have cut away the hood at the back, some of the clothing around the neck and recreated  the chain mail around the neck with greenstuff /milliput... :)
The same technique can be used to join body halves, arms legs etc. even two halves of different horses. The whole process, including photos took less than 5 minutes.

Of course, a hole can be drilled through the head and into the body and a piece of pin used to fix the head in place but I find this a slightly quicker method.

ECW Gun

My first adventure into the ECW period..Thanks to Rich for the bods and gun :-)

GO WEST!!!

After painting up the last of the set (the rider) I couldn´t bear just to add the wagon etc to a future of sitting on a shelf waiting for an inevitable layer of dust, so I knocked up this little dio. The rest of the bods have gone into storage.

Pics of the Bods from the set HERE and the wagon HERE

Troubadour and Family

A wonderfull little group from Alex. These sculpts are all made from photographs of real people and the similarity to them is uncanny I can tell you....They look so much like the subjects it´s hard to believe that such a thing is possible in this scale. These will be released as part of a medieval civilian set from Valdemar, a set which, for me  is an absolute must have.  Very very special thanks to Alex from me and my family  ;-) :-)

Sand riders (Pt II)

Here ya go...the crazed,  wine fuelled creations I like to call sand riders. :-)

Airfix wagon train (Pt II)

The bods part of the set.

The "guys". The very tiny one wearing the brown derby is supposed (I assume) to be a boy. One of them, (rear row) looks like he is feeding chickens ?????

The "gals". Again, the one which is supposed to be a girl looks a bit older than her size depicts.
Mrs Grump...oooh! The way she´s been photographed makes her look a bit like a well known 20th cenury dictator....and no, it´s not Charlie Chaplin :-)

The set, although old has few nice little details like Mr Potatoe eating his beans and holding a 3 pronged fork.
Strutting Joe carrying a....well it must be a sheep. What it´s physical condition is I don´t know, though I assume it´s not breathing.

Dio using them HERE  and the wagon HERE

Sand Rider

After a couple of glasses of Red wine I was sitting at my work area thinking "what can I paint next?" when  a nag in front of me transformed in my minds eye into something else not at all nag like. Next thing I looked through all my sets of spare bods and found a fitting rider. Some snipping, glueing, a bit of  greenstuff and the Sand rider and his mount were born :-)

Airfix Romans

Another "historically correct" set from Airfix.
13 poses, 4 nags and 1 chariot
The pegs for the  shields are badly place so the bods end up carrying them on thier elbows. And as for the sporty Chariot!! :-)

The "grunts"

All hold the shield incorrectly, a selection of clobber that probably never existed, all in all not very historically accurate

Command and Archer.
The best from the set although also not too accurate in historical terms.

The chariot. I´ve upgraded it by adding reins and painting designs on the "shield".

They get a poor rating over at PSR, but these guys (along with 100´s of thier comrades) invaded  and took control of large areas of  carpet back in the day. 

Balian V´s templar

A couple of bod conversions to try and protray a bit of the fight at the oasis from Kingdom of heaven. Balian is an ex Zvezda peasant and the knight from the Zvezda´s Livonian knights

Airfix Wagon Train

Firstly the main part of the set...the wagon. Half the horses I have for this set broke like hard cheese whan I tried to pin them in preperation for painting...luckily I have two sets..so it wasn´t completely Hard cheese all round.

Rolling, rolling,  rolling, keep those etc"

"Jonathan! What are you doing with the big brown snake!?"

The other bods from the set HERE and a dio using the set HERE