Airfix Indians

One more set down and only one set left in the Airfix western range...the US cavalry...eeeek! All those horses to paint!!

The mounted Bods. I went for the classic 60´s/70´s hollywood look

The Big boss and his wife with papoose on her back

Bases for Bods

When I first started back into the hobby, I was mainly concerned with painting up and basing Ancient armies...BIG ancient armies...blocks of Romans and the like. For this I used squares of wood cut out of old drawer bottoms etc..a lot of time and effort involved, measuring , sawing etc.
Recently I have become more interested in the medieval period, and although they organised themselves in large groups they were less likely to be in rank and file or so uniformed as say a Roman legion.
This meant more individual basing and after using loads of old coins or washers it was getting more and more expensive the bigger my armies got. The one day on a Flea market I came across these;

They are, I am told, Plumbers tools used for cutting washers. They come in a range of sizes, from 8 mm to 50 mm. For basing bods I use the 20mm one and for nags the 35mm one. They cut all sorts of materials, either using a twisting action to cut soft stuff like insulating foam (the light green stuff in the next pic) or cork or a hammer for harder materials like my favourite source of bases, old Ikea place mats, not shown in the next pic.  (and you don´t need an Allen key either :-) )

The Smaller "disc cutters" are also pretty usefull for quickly making a mass batch of shields from thin card or old margarine tubs.

Skellie Ellie

Made from copper wire and greenstuff...took bloody ages...:-) The rider is from Ceasers Undead.

 One advantage for her...she will never get killed for her Ivory !! 

disadvantage is...she can never go on holiday....how can she pack her trunk !! ?

Airfix ACW Infantry

In the long and seemingly never ending quest to paint every set of Airfix bods...these were bound to crop up at some point.  Not the prettiest of sets ever made, more functional than anything...and the struggle to get some sort of face on either set of them!!!

Confederates. Both sets share the same poses..just different headgear.

 Union set. Could be painted as Confederates

Robinhood conversions...2

Snip snip...cut, snip....glue...and two more of Robins bods have changed sides....:-)

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

So, this looks very odd (no picture of my work today but to be honest, I´m a bit annoyed) but it´s important to all us german Bloggers or better said, all of us that run a Blog in germany or are a german citizen running a Blog abroad. From the 1st of january 2011 ALL of us who run a Blog, Forum, Online shop etc will have to comply with new Youth protection laws.....See links blow

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Blog-macht-wegen-neuem-Jugendschutzgesetz-dicht-Updates-1144566.html

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,732238,00.html

Wether or not the content of my Blog is fitting or not...I don´t know, you never know with laws and the interpretation of them, we´ll see. It would be annoying...seeing as I have just got myself together to start this little old blog and it may (or may not) be prevented from running or as of the 1st it will have to have a stupid. "warning...may contain adult content...go further at your own risk" thing before you get to look at this.
Still..I suppose it is in the interests of protecting children so....????


On a Happier Note :-D. I would like to thank all that look in here, if the name of your blog isn´t up on my blog  list, I apologise..but it doesn´t mean I am not looking at and appreciating  all your work ;.)
Cheers - Greetings
Paul

WWI Gun Crew (Emhar)

So here they are...the most unconcerned looking gun crew I can think of. :-/
The officer? What is he looking at and what is he pointing at?? You can´t place him anywhere with the gun and it looks ok. Not to the left, right, front or behind or even underneath it!!
The one with the shell. He looks like he is taking it for a walk in the park!!!
The only one who even looks involved is the one with his hands over his ears...but why? Who has fired the gun, or is it that he is ignoring the commands of his dippy officer ??

THE THREE "WISE" MONKEYS...See nothing,  hear nothing, doing nothing

ONE WITH SHELL:::"What shall I do with the shell sir?".   OFFICER:::  "Look you orrible little man, put it over there, I´m birdwatching at the moment!!"    ONE KNEELING:::"Stop!! I cant bear the silence!!!"

 

Waiting for X-Mas

A little dio for a duel over at Bennos.
What they are looking up and who the Bod at the back is phoning up ?...your guess is as good as mine :-)

ROBIN HOOD (Barzo)

Bought this set of 1/32nd scale bods called "Robin Hoods Men "  (Outlaws of Sherwood forest) last sunday for my daughter...she´s mad about this story and as she is showing an interest in painting so maybe the bigger bods will encourage her more :-D
Of course, I had to see wether it would  actually be possible to paint one of them first  ;-)

"av at ye, blaggard!!!!"

Gabions and Wattle fences

To make wattle fences and gabions (for gun emplacements) I´ve come up with this little method. I stick normal pins in a piece of cork.Note for the Gabion that I have used a round piece of wood to get the spacing right. For the Gabion I use an uneven number of pins, an even number will mean that when threaded, the threading will always come out behind/infront of the same pin, and that looks daft.

The material I use to do the threading is normal copper wire. I use two different thicknesses and weave them in alternate layers. Using just One thickness ends up looking a bit too neat.




The pinheads I leave on as I am doing the weaving...this saves scratches to my tender paws :-) All I do for the fence is start at one side and weave the wire behind and front, behind and front of the pins...easy eh?
Same with the Gabion but a continious wire can be used. Once in a while the layers need pressing down on top of each other to close gaps up.




Once the gabion is half full I press a bit of modelling clay into it to help hold the form.





When the desired  height is reached, cut of the head of the pins at different heights (looks more natural) and then I smear woodglue over the whole thing.
When the glue is dry I cover the lot in dark brown paint liberally splatted on with a brush. Shade and whatever to taste. The Fence or gabion can be pulled out of the cork and placed in a dio etc. 

A Winter Knight

A little dio with  a Zvezda knight and a "Wingless Woodworm" (I´ve forgotten which make it is)

 

Colonial Artillery (Hat)

After seeing some of the colonial stuff on other peoples Blogs, Dunc´s 20mm Model Site for example, my fingers started to itch and I wanted to have a bash at this period. On sunday I didn´t resist the temptation and bought the British colonial Artillery set from hat as a tester. It was fun to paint them up and as I did so I could picture more...a line of red coated bods being attacked by Zulus, a camel corps on it´s way to defend Khartoum...:-)

 

 

I´m not too sure about the colour of the gun...or come to that what it is for a gun...but as I say it was a "tester" set and it was fun to paint...I even overcame my reluctance of the new Hat plastic. :-)