The Grimm Brothers

From a rare Medieval Journal called  Daemonum et dæmonia 1132

"In the days when only few men could read..and fewer could read there is recorded a mysterious event in the Dark forest far to the north of Styrow-On-The-Foam.
On a stormy night, triplets, of whom all were male,  were born to a lowborn couple living in the forest.
At first the woodsman and his wife were overjoyed  but within days of their birth, the 3 sons took on a strange appearance.  Thier eyes yellowed, thier ears appeared longer than those of normal man born children.  
When on the mothers breast they bit visciously, often drawing blood which seemed to throw them into a frenzy of excitement.
Within the first two weeks they took to eating meat with a relish but shunning vegetables.
The Woodsman, worried, decided to seek advice. His wife begged him not to leave her alone but to take her with him.  He assured her he would return soon and that the long journey was not possible for her and their young sons. He left his home to journey to the town to find a wiseman, his feet spurred on by a cold fear gripping his heart.
Upon hearing the tale, the wiseman hurried back with him..but, on the evening of the third day,  as they  neared the woodmans hut, a thick mist rolled in as if spilled from a giant cauldron, turning the early evening air almost as black as night.
The pair slowed thier pace, advancing   towards the hut cautiously, the woodsman gripping his axe, the wiseman muttering protective charms.  As they moved forward,  rustlings could be heard from the bushes, dark shapes seemed to  rush from tree to tree.
Finally they reached the hut, the door of which stood wide open. Upon entering they found........."  


At this point the pages from the journal are missing..but myth and story tell of three brothers of execrable appearance who live in the woods..three brothers whose mother was human and father was of demon form.

Happy Halloween :-D

Pirates (Orion)

A mean bunch of Pirates led by "capn" Jack Dore.
I´ve slightly converted a couple from the original poses, the bod digging now is part of the gun crew, and I shortened the hair on the female being taken prisoner.
This lot will take up life in the world of Bodstonia...well,  maybe the skeleton won´t take up life there... :-D

The females in the crew.

The cannon is a two piece thing and the barrel looks a bit long but it´s still a nice piece.

They seem pretty successful..loads of treasure and grog.

"Capn" Jack Dore

"ARRRH me hearties!"

Confusedly looking for buried treasure

What is he doing!? Blowpipe? A straw for sneaking ale from the barrel?

The winner of the "shove the barrel along the ground whilst laying on your back" comp and the looser.

 fffff

Medieval Builders (Set II)

 

The second set of builders from Valdemar, created by Alex. At the moment they are based using woodglue to attach them to the bases but they will, when I´ve finally got set 1 finished be part of a buildingsite dio...making a house or putting a siege machine together.

The set has 13 bods, 3 work benches and a set of tools

The carriers and fetchers. The wooden beams are made from balsawood cut to size. The two with the beams on thier shoulders can be paired together to carry one long beam, but...if you look, they are out of step with each other, and if anyone has tried carrying something with someone else and you both go out of step you´ll know how difficult this makes the task.

Using woodplanes. The woodspane is made from finely copped up guineapig bedding

Masons. Unfortunately I broke the chisel meant for the kneeling bod and I replaced the hammer for the standing mason with a rounded wooden masons mallet made from a bit of sprue

A couple of woodworkers

 

Man with a saw and the boss. The bod with the saw is, I think, supposed to be twined with the bod (far right9 in the pic above, but seeing as both of them have thier right arms drawn back ????

 As always with Alex´s bods..it´s the faces!!!

Medieval Haymaker

A mini-dio for the 10th painting comp at the Valdemar Forum.
I don´t have much chance ..not against one of Mich´s Dios...he does some incredible stuff..well worth looking at on his site, Michdioramas
Still..it isn´t the winning..it´s the taking part.. trying to  create something original that fits within the guidelines.

The guidelines for the comp are;
Make a battle diorama (2 figures or more) , the bloodier the better
At least one ValdemarMiniatures figure
Deadline 1st of december

My idea is to have a peasant getting his own back against one of the kingsmen....:-D
The Haymaker  delivers a Haymaker   ;-D

The blood I recreated by hanging the bod upside down and  adding a small piece of silicon, gently pulling it into thin threads with a pin as it dried and then painted it red.

The Knighthood

As these are dressed in early medieval armour (Lamellar armour) and not high medieval knights, I thought it best if they were to be part of the teutonic orders. I was going to use a classic templar flag but I like the look of this one which represents  the (Vogt) Bailiff  of Roggenhausen. They were levy to the teutonic crusades but the armour would fit to the period, and with no other markings, heraldry etc, they can be mixed with other medieval bods.

The soldier recieving the knighthood has had his surcoat torn at the left shoulder and is holding it up with his right hand. Wether a Bailiff (Vogt) could give someone the titel of  knight I´m not sure..

The set Comes with a set of gloves and a helmet

A servant (of the "king") and a knight reading out the deeds for which the soldier is being knighted. Judging by the fact that the Vogt has one arm in a sling, maybe the kneeling knight saved him during  battle. 

2nd Light battalion K.G.L 1815

Colour scheme taken from "La Haie - Sainte Waterloo 1815, les Carnets de la Campagne - N° 3"
B. coppens - P. Courchelle.
The bods are from Art Miniaturen,

30 bods...doesn´t look a lot eh?

Loading. They even usee little hammers used to drive the ball into the chamber nearly all the bods carry a hammer in thier belts.

Firing poses. The one on the right is either firing down from a wall or a roof, or onto a fallen opponent lying on the ground.

Hand to hand fighting poses.

 

Medieval artillery (New)

The master of artillery is looking pleased..and so he should be, he´s just recieved a delivery of 4 new weapons! Not yet based, I´ve still to find a create the  crews.

All these are made from Resin and lasercut parts and are from Fredericus-rex.

Pot-de-Fer, (Iron Pot)  First described in 1326. This was more a shock and awe weapon than anything really effective. A large iron or sometimes bronze pot used for firing large arrows (Garrets) to a range of 180 meters..

Veuglaire (Fowler) A generic name, these came in loads of different designs and were usually breech loaders. Unlike the Zvezda one, this is a stationary one, weighed down with stones to counteract the recoil. This version has a removable bar (at the back) which can be moved up or down the holes in he post to alter the angle of fire.

Bombards. Again these came in a wide range of designs and sizes. Mainly muzzle loaded, some of the larger ones had a removable rear chamber which in some cases was attached with a screw thread, like the Great Turkish or Dardanelles Bombard.

Here, the biggest bombard alongside a Perry 28mm..doesn´t look to out of place as a piece of field artillery.

Hello to Comrade commissar fromthe  Fear Bunker Blog.  Another new blogger and a great painter of 20 and 28mm bods. His WWI german inf are very good.

I´ve had to put the moderation function  on the Bodstonia Blog in order to filter out some vary odd spam comments. The blog seems to attract some very strange traffic...might have something to do with people googling for 18th century womens undergarments.

18th Century Female Infantry

The "Sister" set to the 18th Century female Gun Crew, in the Bodstonian world they are part of the "Purple Roses". More about thier role in Bodstonia here

6 in total, IMHO, it would be good to have a set of just marching bods so that a larger unit could be created.

Commander of the Purple Roses, Rose Tremain

Just a quick explanation.
The Federation of Bodstonia. Whilst it´s based in the 1700´s, this doesn´t actually mean it´s the 1700´s as we all know it. It´s an Imagi-Nation, a parallel universe whose time scale, it´s 1700´s, is  removed from our time scale.
Historical accuracy ? They won´t employ any technology that wasn´t around in the mid 1700´s, but as far as the clothing, housing, transport and customs, these will cover a larger range, drawing on influences from other closely related historical periods.
As far as it goes..it is, for me, an excercise in writing a story, putting ideas down in one place and  creating a world, which..if I get the time and inspiration, I will use to create a real book ;-D

18th Century Female gun crew

This lot are made by 3D Models and are available from CW Toys. They are labelled as Female napoleonics 1789, but I´m using them as Female Bodstonians..the "Purple Roses",which means they have the best deal..they get to go 50 years back in time :-D

The 4 lasses with thier 2pdr "Long Tom"

Mistress Gunner, Juliet pride

A bit of history about the unit over in Bodstonia.

Hello to Ni.Tchirititch from Nowhere to Lead Soldiers blog. Great Saga minis and warganing

Hello to  Adam from One Man´s Armies blog. He´s just started out in model blogging

Hello to Sean Stone , Thanks for following :-D

Zvezda Medieval Peasant Army (conversions)

A busy weekend over and done with..nearly. There´s loads of pics of the meeting in Heiden over at the Bennos Forum HERE. I´ll add mine to the thread later. It was great fun, loads of old friends and new..loads of brilliant work to look at and I´ve brought a lot home with me :-D


Anyway..back to the bods...
Some sets just lend themselves to conversions and this, along with the Airfix Robinhood set are one of them. So far, unless I´ve missed a few, I´ve managed to get 30 conversions from a set of 12 poses.
The Airfix Robinhood set, (Not all the conversions but a lot are HERE)  with 14 poses is a similar type of set, loads of scope for conversions..from that one I´ve created about 25 new bods.
There never seems to be an end to the new poses you can create from this set..and I only realised how many while recently looking at my collection, so I thought I would bring them all together in one post.

All the poses in the set, unconverted

Arm swops, and a body / leg swop.

All the same pose.

Pose on the right original. The one on the left has had his right arm replaced with one from the Zvezda English infantry of the 100yrs war set.

Body,  arm and weapon swops.

Also very usefull for non-combat roles, such as guides for carts...............

.....................and working.............

............. Or just at play.....

....and in death like the "hanged man" HERE. Again..I´m linking from here rather than put up the pics without giving anyone  a choice not to look.