Mixed medieval conversions.

The Bod drawing his sword was the top half of a rider from the Strelets English Cavalry of Edward I (Top row, second from the right) and the bottom half from the Strelets The Scottish army of Wallace set  (Third row from top, second from right)

The Bod with the Axe and dagger was a rider from the Strelets Army of Henry V set (eight row from top, far right) 

The saxon is from the Strelets Anglo-Saxon Fyrd set and has his sword swopped for a spear

The saxon is from the Strelets Anglo-Saxon Fyrd set and has his sword swopped for an axe.

Female, who is supposed to be Empress Matilda, is made up from the top half of the Airfix  Maid Marion and the Bottom half from one of the females in the Italeri Medieval "Battle sets"

The Viking with the spear is from the Zvezda Vikings set with an added head swop.

I´m still not as productive as I used to be..Life and things are still getting in the way of the hobby. 

Elves - Light Alliance - Conversions

 There is always, however complicated, some conversion possibilities in every set of plastic 1/72nd Bods.

I´ve managed to get 5 from set 3. All archers but that´s what elves do best.

Body swops. Top halves swopped onto bottom halves. The two male elves were a straight exchange. the Top half of the Archer female from the kneeling pose onto the bottom half of the sword wielding standing pose.

Easy. Head swops. 

Imperial elven firing line

Archers from the three elven tribes together. 

Woodland elves

Mountain elves

High elves

John Bourchier and retinue

He´s been put in charge of the archers and crossbowmen

John Bourchier - 2nd Lord Berners. I´ve painted up the TD Archers and Crossbowmen in his colours so they needed someone to lead them.

Nags from the Zvezda French Knights set as is the standard bearer and the  bottom half of John. His top half is from the Zvezda French Infantry of the Hundred years war set.

Spot the slight mistake with John. 

Standard printed and edges touched up. 

Riders of Rohan

All poses from Both sets and 5 conversions, a standard bearer, hornist and 3 archers doing a parthian shot. Well not quite a full Parthian shot but they are new at the job.....and not  Parthians,  so we´ll let them off. 

The Converted bods

Standard bearer and Hornist. The Standard bearer was easy, hot water bath and arm bent into position. Flag printed. 

The Hornist also went for a bath and had his arm bent into position but also had his head removed  and repositioned. Horn from the  Livonian Knights set from Zvezda

The Parthian shot bods. 

It´s not too clear from the above pic that they are actually facing towards the rear so,

Medieval slingers

I´ve already  made a couple of medieval slingers  using the  fustibalus,  Staff sling HERE.
They were unarmoured and due to using staff slings they carry no shields whilst using the slings.
Anyway, for a while I´ve  wanted some more medieval slingers using shepards Slings and with headswops,  the Norman Light slingers from Tumbling Dice fill my wish.
Swords and shields added from the bits box

Did medieval shepard slingers use shields?
A couple of pics from  the twelth century  Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis ("Book in honour of the Emperor, or on Sicilian affairs"; also called Carmen de motibus Siculis, "Poem on the Sicilian revolt") showing slingers with shields.

Also..a bit later, a soldier using sling with a shield on a 15th century painting of the  Battle of Nájera

Loads more contemporary pics of slingers, with and without shields HERE
HERE it´s shown that a shield and sling can be used in combination
ee

Bod Painting (My Way)

As with all things there´s more than one way to peel an orange and that´s goes for adding colours to Bods.

Over the years I´ve been asked "what paints, what brushes?" do I use,  or seeing Questions like "how does one stop the paint flaking?" so an attempt at answers below.

The painting method Shown below is a fast (ish) one to create numbers of finished bods to fill up a wargames base and stand the "it looks ok from three feet away" test.

Make of Colours used.
I don´t go for having loads of different shades in expensive Little 12ml pots that are specifically marketed at the Hobby.
First time I Held one in my Hand and smelt the Contents ..I said to myself.."aha!, Floor cleaner". I can´t remember the Name but it´s The type that gives the dry Floor a matt Shine.
I Did a test with the paints named below. Added a drop of Floor cleaner into the mix and guess what? The paint seemed to flow a wee bit better but the end result had a matt Shine. Also..the paint could, by Scratching with a finger nail, be peeled off. 

Acrylics naturally but the stuff from Hobby / Craft Shops, in my case Marabu, Kreul or Hobbyline. All give a matt finish unlike some paints I could Name which end up a bit shiny,  which, if a matt finish is wanted,  means paying out for overpriced, in some cases, Health and enviroment damaging, matting agents. IMHO, a waste of time and Money.
Big 50ml pots of the stuff for a couple of euros each. Black, White, Brown, Red, Yellow and Blue. 20ml pots of Gold and  Silver from Plaka or Rico..two more Hobby/Craft shop paint lines. They do have a wide range of Colours so an advantage  for those not familiar with a Colour Wheel or like having the Colour quick to Hand with no mixing. 

Also, ever considered who actually makes the tinsy winsy overpriced pots of paints? Does anyone really imagine they actually have a factory producing paints just for them?  Do some Research, you might be suprised. 

Ah, mixing. I use a pallette..an old CD or the like. Using the tip of the handle of the Paintbrush, I get a bit of paint out of the pot, wipe it on the CD, clean the handle and repeat the process with the next Colour. 

The mixing water..tap water with a drop of washing up liquid added. 

Brushes
Cheap n´cheerfull from Rico. None of this "ooh, I´ve got a Special non slip Turbo brush with LED´s,  some twonk firm Name on the side and instruction manuel in 16 languages" 
None of that helps if you´ve got no idea how to paint. Tinsy winsy brushes that are only visible with a Elektron micropscope   don´t help in getting a fine line. If the tips sharp and loaded with a decent measured amount of paint,  then, as the old saying goes, in this case, slightly turned on it´s head,   "size  doesn´t Count" .

Obviously, the same result won´t be achievable with a 3" wall paint brush but trying to reduce the size of the brush tip to microscopic Levels won´t make the tip any sharper. 

If one thinks it helps to have overpiced Colours and brushes, then fine but I don´t like the idea of feeding an Industry which, IMHO, by adding a brand Name to anything,  rips us off. The bods and vehicles cost enough as it is without chucking away more cash.

Do I wash the bods first? No. The base paint gets added and finish. Never had a Problem with flaking..and I´ve dropped enough to test wether the paint holds. Maybe there´s some sort of plastifier in the Hobby paints or "scrubbing" the paint on has some adhesive effect..TBH, I don´t know. 

OK...Paints and brushes covered. What Comes next is a Basic "how to" on painting. My technique is similar or the same as a lot of painters so basically, if you like the way you paint and the results, stop reading now. 

The Bod used is a Standard pose from the Airfix Waterloo British Infantry set. Cream softish plastic, bought ca. 1975. The head has been Twisted to the left to give a front facing "Ready" pose. 

First base paint. Black, Marabu/Kruel acrylic "scrubbed" on with an brush that was originally for fine painting, then lost it´s fine Point after being abused for dry brushing and ended up Looking a bit like a chimney sweeps brush.

Skin*
First I paint (using marbu acrylic Midbrown) the face and Hands. Arms and legs don´t really Need this stage but Hands and faces do. The midbrwon Acts as a Bridge between the black base and the final Colour.

Now I paint the Areas using a 50/50 mix of the mid Brown and Game colour Pale flesh (yes, I do have one or two "specialist Hobby paints" * :) )

I try to not paint the Areas between the fingers..not always with success.

Now I dry brush the same mix as stage two but with a tiny bit more pale flesh added. The drybrush goes only onto the raised Areas, nose,  ears, chin, cheeks, backs of Hands, etc

How much more pale flesh is added  depends largely on how well the percentages of the  stage two 50/50 mix worked. 

The Bod has now had his sideburns replaced (painted back)and the Wood parts of the musket painted with a midbrown/mid red** and a tiny bit of black mix (all Marabu or hobbyline acrylics)

Next..Clothes etc.

I like to and try to paint from the "inside out", to dress the Bods as it were, so the jacket is next.

A mid red with a touch of mid Brown (a mix of roughly 80-20% )

I try as far as possible to stay inside the lines, ie; paint ony what will eventually stay red but as will be seen, it isn´t necessary and trying (particually at this scale) is a pain.

Next, just the mid red as a drybrush. This may look a bit dark in the pics as there´s no contrast of the White belts yet, but when they are added it can be better judged as to wether the red is "scarlet" enough or another lighter drybrush Highlight is needed

Adding the "White bits"

Bit more difficult, especially the very thin lines like the ones around the cuffs, collar,  waistband and the hat.

TBH, you don´t Need a tiny brush to paint things like straps etc..a smallish one will do as it´s the tip of the brush that adds the paint, a sharp Point Counts, not the total size of the brush added to which a trick can be used to thin down the lines.

In the top pic the lines around the cuff, waistband, collar and hat are bigger than wanted so:

..in the bottom pic they have been "backpainted" with black as it´s easier to paint up to a line than paint the line.

Also, the Addition of the White has made the red visually brighter so it was, in this case, worth waiting to see if another Highlight was necessary.

I still might still add a Highlight but I´ll wait until I´ve added more Detail and painted a couple more (I usually paint 4 or 5 at a time) so I can see what a group  looks like. 

Cuffs etc added and Barrel/bayonet painted (silver with a bit of black added)

Now the trousers. (Note, Barrel and bayonet got a metal highlight) 
First a mid Grey  over the black base..then..

...a drybrush Highlight with  light Grey.

More or less finished. Buckle and Badge added

I mix all my own colour shades..basically all I Need is the Primary Colours added to  black and White and silver and Gold..although in reality I have a few more colours than that, one being a "european flesh" colour.

All that´s needed, a pallette ( I use old icecream or margarine tub lids - waste not, want not) and a cup of  mixing water with added flow enhancer (a drop or two of Window or floorcleaner)

The black/White mix is an example of how I mixed for the trousers,  the Brown/"flesh" mix for the faces..1 being (roughly) the shade of the second coat over the black base  and 2 the final (roughly) covering by drybrush.
**At this stage I usually "cheat" and add a bit of black to the Brown and paint Things like rifle stocks, spears, shoes and the like. Then add a bit of White and dry brush. Saves time and paint. 

Yellow..The Hobby shop yellows tend to be a bit..?.Meh! So a trick. I start with a mix of 50% mid Brown to 50% yellow and then highlight with 70% yellow to 30% Mid brown, final drybrush with yellow.....or add a bit of white to the last 70/30% mix.
Cold White, start with light Grey and highlight with White.
Warm White, White with a bit of mid Brown added, then a highlight with a lot less Brown and drybrush with White.
Blue? Depends on end effect wanted. Either start with a bit of black added to the blue or a bit of Brown. Either add White to the first mix to highlight, or more blue to the second mix.

Ok, the above aint going to win any prizes and I don´t always follow the above Methods depending on wether I´m painting an individual or the usual Batch of 4-5 at one sitting but it´s quick and for me, with practice, easy and, En masse, they look. IMHO,  ok

* Since creating this post I´ve started experimenting with using a mix of Brown/Yellow/White to create european Skin. Works fine and once you´ve got the hang of it, as quick as using and save having to buy an extra, a pot of "skin colour".

Shield Maidens

Lagertha, Webiorg,  Rusla and Hervor.

No Bodettes with "big fronts"  here. They are wearing protective clothing,  mainly chainmail,  so the female form would be "suppressed" to a greater degree than protrayed in most "historical" portrayals such as the Vikings series.
Ok, they may well have worn helmets* but to show they are females and not just any Viking bod re-classified as a Shield maiden,  I´ve left  them helmetless.
Heads from the Alliance  Amazons set and bodies from the Zvezda Vikings set.

The Shield pattern is shown on the shields carried by Lagertha and her  Shield maidens in the Vikings series, which I´ve used here.   It looks like it´s loosely based on the  Algiz (Elhaz) rune.
Lagertha´s Shield has the design shown later in the series, two areas coloured in red.

*Ok,  Birka, wasn´t buried with a helmet, probably why she ended up with a big cut on her forehead, but it doesn´t mean other Shield maidens didn´t wear them.
Were there Shield maidens?   IMHO, yes.

Airfix Medieval Seige - Bod Conversions

Bod conversions for a Castle seige dio.
Pictured are 29 conversions, which mainly use the bods from the Airfix Robin Hood set as the base to which Scratchmade shields, weapons or Body parts from other bods in the Airfix range have been added.
Another 12, the Crews from the Catapult and Battering Ram are not included

The Bod Source material
The mixed pile of Airfix Robin Hood and Sherrif of Nottingham bods and Nags with a couple of other Airfix bods mixed in.

The  5 archer poses from both sets. My usual method of holding bods while adding paint, bottle tops with a lump of wax covering from the Babybell cheeses. Black acrylic basing brushed on.

Basing. 
After adding paint (they have been put in the Colours of Stephen´s younger brother, Henry of Blois) they get stuck onto 2cm diameter plastic Discs. Nags or small groups of bods generally get put onto 3.5cm Diameter ones.
From left ot Right
1. A mix of sharp sand and PVA gets added. Any blank spaces on the bods actual base gets  thinned out PVA dabbed on and then a sprinkle of sand gets added. This is then left to  dry.
2. Base painted with dark brown, left to dry.
3. Highlights with mid brown and static grass applied...again using PVA.
4. After a drying period of about 24 Hours, the new base is prised off the plastic disc. A thin blade such as a stanley knife is good for this. The new base gets stuck onto some thin card using..again, PVA.
5. Excess card trimmed off and the visible edge of the card gets painted .

Why not just leave them on the plastic Discs? I did start to do this but producing Discs for the ever expanding armies proved more time consuming than the above method.
Bowstrings are from  3" Paintbrush bristles. The "How to" is HERE.
Interesting (maybe) is that I didn´t use (european) flesh colour to paint thier skin but experimented with  a mix of Brown/Yellow/White.

Conversions
Tools, Pins, sharp blade and some second glue or PVA. I´ve done a post on conversion Methods..HERE.
Using bits and pieces from other Airfix Bod sets and swopping body parts among both sets I managed to create 31 new poses. Some are simple, others required Major surgeory.
An ongoing seige needs more Missile troop poses than Hand to Hand Combat poses. As there´s only 5 Archer poses in both sets   some  conversions were needed to avoid having too many repeats. The first ten conversions. Head swops, top half/bottom half swops, arms swopped etc. The one with the red top/yellow Bottom is a conversion I made some 40 years ago.
The bottom row will end up as defenders.

The defenders are in the Colours of Geoffrey de Mandeville II, 1st Earl of Essex. I´ve already painted this particular Coat of Arms with his succesor, Geoffrey FitzGeoffrey de Mandeville, 2nd Earl of Essex.  

The arrows are made using thin steel wire and for the flights I added blobs of PVA. When dry it gets painted to represent flights

 All together, conversions and OOB, they create a decent force of Bowmen.

More ranged weapons bod conversions.
Archers, slingers and crossbowmen.
The archer drawing his bow has had an arm added from the archer bod in the  Airfix Romans set and two others have been converted to Staff slingers and armed with Fistabuli. I´ve made them before using Zvezda´s Medieval Peasant Army bods and can be seen HERE.

Crossbows
At the time, a common a weapon as bows but seeing as they are very fiddly and time consuming to create I´ve only made a representative 2. I could have used some from my spares box but that would be cheating.
Bits of shaved down toothpick for the tiller, Tiny Strip of Card for the staves, thin pieces of copperwire for the stirrups, thread/copperwire for the string.
The bags for the crossbowbolts (which are not visible in the pic) were made from bits of coffee stirrer, trimmed/filed to size and shape and glued on.

Shields
Bit of thin Card, make a stencil in the shape and size. This saves recreating each Shield individually.
Shield Patterns get drawn onto another bit of thin Card, ceral packet is fine for this.
Paint on the pattern and add blobs of PVA to create the bosses. Paint the back  brown. When all dry, cut out, shape by bending the Shield over a pen/pencil and attach to bod with some second glue. Paint the rim - finished.  Easy eh?

The commander (far left) and the spearman (second from Right) have had head swops using heads from the Airfix Romans set..neckand cheek guards removedThe one on the far Right has had the polearm cut down and it´s had a spear head added. Unfortunately not visible in the pic

Even More Bod Conversions
One more for the catapult.  Pole with a bit of sprue added to create a hammer to aid with releasing the trigger on the catapult.
The one running is attempting to put out a fire.  Bucket added from the Airfix Waterloo British Artillery set, bow stave removed. Hood cut down.
Bod from the Ancient britons set with a head swop
Two assault troops who are in support of the Battering ram.
The one with Sword has had it donated from the bald headed bod in the Robin Hood set arm Holding bowstave bent up
The other had his left arm repositioned, arm carrying the axe from the Bod in the Sherrif of Nottingham set who was Swinging it above his head.

Gate defenders
From left to right
Spearman created by twisting his head to the left, shortening the staff, adding a point
Swordsman. Bow removed, Right Hand removed and another Hand with Sword added from the pose 2nd from Right.
Spearman and swordman - poses unchanged.
The bod lobbing the rock was an easy conversion. Staff removed, Hands pressed between the jaws of a pair of fine toothed pliers which slightly flattened them and gave finger like indentations, then "hot water Treatment" and the arms bent upwards. I freed his left foot so as to give the Impression he´s puttting some swing into chucking the rock.

More Blois Boys and Mandevillians.
Friar tuck OOB.
Archer conversion (Top row, far left in the unpainted conversions above) Torso and leg swop, Head Twisted to the Right, Hood cut down.
Captain created by swopping Bottom half with that of one of the archers, headswop from running pose, Hood cut down
Another spearman. Head swop and staff given a point

Total number of Bods
35 Blois Boys and 17 Mandevillians, 52 in total  of which only 11 are unconverted in any shape or form.