Tent Making (triangular form)

I´ve done making  Tents before, The medieval ones, but this is  a little how to on making triangular tents, and Trappers and Adventurers need tents.

So, stuff needed. Pair of scissors, some thin card, sheet of A.4 paper, sheet of polystyrene, sewing thread, sheet or two of toiletpaper, some glue, a sharp blade,  a couple of toothpicks, pen, ruler, a couple of thin twigs.(best are dried out hawthorn twigs) some sand and paints.

Decide how big, long wide and tall the tent will be. Cover the area with glue and sprinkel sand over it. Stick two cocktail sticks into the foam and cut them down to just about head height of a bod. Using the blade, cut a slot into the top of each stick, so that the slot is parrallel with the length of the tent.(ie from front to back)

Cut a strip of card to the height of the tent.  For the tent being made I needed a strip 17cms long as each side is 5cm´s long and each side is 3.5cm´s wide.Along the length of the strip I made a line. I chose the height by eye. Divide the ends of the tent  in half to give the points of the top. Basically, everything outlined in orange will form the sides of the tent (and dont´foget to leave a tab to glue the open side together)



Cover both sides of the card with toilet paper. This is easiest if you just lay the card flat, smear a thin film of glue over it and lay the toilet paper over it. Press down then remove (toilet paper is always in at least two layers) the top layers. When it´s dry, glue together to form the inside of the tent. Cut a slit (not all the way to the top) at one end the make the tentflaps.When all´s dry, paint.

Next the topsheet. Fold  a piece of A4 in half and cut a piece roughly the right size..better to big as too small though. By a bit of trial and error, laying the folded paper over the tent *, you need to end up with a piece with  about  1 cm overhang on the sides,  the front and back. Now the fun bit. Make a small fold at what will become the front and back of the topsheet. Put a thin smear of glue along each fold, lay a length of thread into the crease and fold flat. The folds will end up as the underneath of the topsheet and won´t be visible. For the middle guyropes, smear a line of  glue from one side to the other, lay the thread along it and then press a strip of paper over the top.

When all is dry, add a layer of toiletpaper as with the sides of the tent. When dry, scrumple the whole thing up into a ball. This makes creases and roughs the paper up. Unroll, Press flat and paint.  

Paint and decorate the ground, adding whatever inside and out.  Glue sides of the tent in place. Take 8 pieces of twig, 3 for the guyropes on the sides,  and two for the front and back guyropes. I used pieces about 1.5cm´s long. Using a toothpick make holes where the tentpegs will go, drop a bit of glue into the hole and then stick the peg in. You can make the pegs look like they´ve been hammered into place by dipping one end of the twig into water and then squashing it onto a hard surface to create a "mashed up woodgrain" effect. 

When the pegs are firmly glued, attach a length of thread to the front or back peg. This is then put into the slots on top of the toothpick tentpoles, pulled tight and then attached to the other tentpeg.

Add a bit of glue along the top edges of the tentwall and add the topsheet. Tie the guyropes to the side tentpegs and finished. I added a small dab of glue at the top corners of the topsheet at the front and back and then pinched it togther..looks better than it sticking out like it´s made of ?...well...stiff paper :-D

The end effect is that of rough canvas. To make it as animal skins I would have done it more or less the same way until the painting part. Here I would have drawn a pattern of skins (or squares like a quilt) onto the topsheet, then painted each "skin" in different brown tones, using a slightly stiff brush and thicker paint, making sure to paint in different directions for each skin.

* There is a way of calculating the size of paper needed for the top sheet. Measure the length of the slope of one end, times it by 2 and add a cm or two. Measure the length of the tent, times that by 2 and add a cm or two....but I´m a lazy bugger and couldn´t be bothered to pick up the ruler. :-D

Trappers and adventurers

James Forrester and his two companions Pierre and Pascal Albon.

Pierre and Pascal Albon. More about Pierre and Pascal HERE

The history of James Forrester HERE

The history of James Forrester HERE

Medieval Pike block (Pt 1)

The start of a pikeblock,  which is planned to end up with at least 50 bods in it. The colour scheme is  based on the swiss canton of Uri.
The first 12. Bods from, Redbox, Revell, Miniart, Italeri and Strelets, Pikes selfmade from floristswire

I´m assuming they would have held pikes above thier heads...they are pretty heavy things but back then they were pretty stocky strong people.

For a brilliant diorama of 13th century Birmingham click Here. It really is very inspirational...makes me want to get down to making  a few more buildings for Styrow on the Foam

Colemans "Mustards" - Company A

Company A of the 1st Regiment of Foot, the Bodstonian Fusiliers. A bit of thier History HERE.

Hello to Graham Hill..thanks for following :-D

18th Century Gentlemen (Bodstonia)

The Dr, The squire, the adventurer and the teacher.
You can find out about each Character and his place in Bodstonia HERE

For those of you who haven´t seen it yet..there a painting comp over at Anne´s Attic....between Anne and Ray (Don´t throw a one)
To be honest I am taking my time before I make my decision..they are both pretty close.

Children Of Bodstonia

Not all of the Bodstonian children  but a selection...they are hard to photograph..they are always running about and playing hide and seek  :-D
Another selection from the wonderfull napoleonic civilian sets by Andreas Hoffman.

Wether shod in Shoes, clogs or barefoot, rich or poor...they all have fun together.

Two little poppets with their Puppets

A wee bit blurry but the puppy is visible..

And a Wizard!!!. He travelled here  from far away after winning his new home in a giveaway at Marzios Blog Fog´s Soldiers...and was painted (and a  much better paintjob than I would have given him) by Luisa.

Hello to Thoran from. NSWC Campaigns Blog´s. Mainly Napoleonics and he says he wants to get into ECW and 16th century Italian Wars.

18th Century Maids (Bodstonia)

The Maids from one of the big houses in .Bodstonia 

The Bods come from different Sets, all Sculpted by Andreas Hoffman and available HERE

They must be the Maids from Melanies house...she has a liking of the colour blue.

The housekeeper, cook and a Kitchen Maid

Laundry and House Maids. More about the dress and work of Maids in Bodstonia HERE

Military Order Warriors (Strelets)

Twelve poses, all of them static but they are intended for and make a pretty decent shieldwall as suggested HERE on PSR.
I haven´t painted them up as members of a Military order, I´ve got enough of those for now but there can never be enough arrow fodder. I went for made up stripes designs, cheverons and pales etc on thier shields.

Several of them, after a shield swop  could be recruited into a Norman army

The bod on the right looks like he´s armed with a Falchion. without a crossguard. Although this looks wrong, I´m pretty sure I´ve seen Falchions without crossguards.

he bod second from the right. He hasn´t got baggy 16th century trousers ala Black Adder, it´s the padded Gambeson split

Additional Standard bearer converted from the Strelets Medieval crossbowmen set.

18th Century Women (Bodstonia)

Both rich and poor, what would be a new world without female company!?

The lower order female at the back isn´t a giant., it´s just that she´s still attached to a base and the angle of the photo makes her look very tall.

Aristocratic women. Full dress and style narrative HERE

A Woman (bod on the right :-D ) of the Business class (with a visiting foreign officer)

The working class

Hello to Ecclesiastes, thanks for following :-D
Hello to Brian Poutine from His Blog, Brian Poutine. Why Poutine? ..have a look ;-D
Hello to Walter..thanks for following:-D

Artillery of Peter the Great

Well..it was the Artillery of Peter the great but now it´s part of the Bodstonian artillery.

Hello to  Blaster from Blaster for Hire blog. 15mm sci-fi and well painted 15mm sci-fi at that.

Coleman´s Mustards

As a (another) small side line to  Medievals I´m going to make a small Imagi-nation army for the Federation of Bodstonia.
General idea is that it will be based in the 18th centuary and to use any sets that have Tricorns to form the regiments. That Native american indians get to play a role won´t actually mean that it´s in America..we´re talking parallel universe here :-D
Flags will be the big headache but there´s time.
These bods were kindly sent to me by  Dalauppror from Dalauppror Blog. They came at exactly the right moment as I was slowly running my ideas for medievals into a corner and the break was just the thing. Mind you..looking on his blog today gave me another idea (he always has great ideas) for dark age bods.
Many thanks mate :-D

These Italeri Amercan infantry (AWI)  Along with them was also sent the  italeri American Indians and the Nexus Davy Crocket set which will be perfect for Trappers, scouts etc. 

The bods arrived still attached to the sprue but already black primed and there were some clever little conversions already carried out :-D For instance, the one far right was a drummer. 

Why this colour uniform? Because the guy who raised and funds this regiment is called Colonel Coleman and he like´s his Mustard.

Barrel (Scratchbuild How to)

I haven´t built a complete barrel for years but Anne from Annes Attic asked recently " Do you have any creative ideas for how to make one using something I'd find around the house?"
Firstly I thought to use the method for the Tonnelon but this would mean restricting the size of the barrel to any available perfume bottle tops or similar..so I went back to a method I´ve used in the past. A bit time consuming but it means that it´s made from something that anyone can find around the house..cardboard.
The following "how to" looks long and involved but it really isn´t. You can produce a "one off" barrel to the size of your choice in less than an hour.
The measurements I give are not fixed but only for reference.

The end result.

What´s needed? A pen, a ruler, scissors, a compass,  some thin card (like the stuff from a cereal box) and some PVA glue

Mark out a circle on a sheet of card. I´ve chosen 6cm´s  and 8cms. These are basically the top and bottom of the barrel. The other two lines (about 3mm´s) above and below these lines are explained later. Obviously the distance, between the two liness and from the centre point will determine the end height and width of the barrel. A exact formula as to how to measure this out to make a certain sized barrel I cannot give..it´s a bit trial and error on the first one, then you can adjust the sizes to suit.

Cut out a section .(about 1/4 of the circle) between the 8 and 6cm lines, leaving off the extra 3mm´s and fold as in the pic. Here you can alter the slope of the barrel. The tighter you overlap the section, the less the angle,  the fatter or tinner the barrel. Apparently roughly 5 degrees from vertical is a usual angle for a barrel. Use this section to mark off and cut out another section for the other half of the barrel. . Mark a line where the overlap comes and use this as a stencil to mark the second section so the overlaps are as near the same. These two "cones" will form the top and bottom halves of the barrel.

Place the two "cones" smallest side down onto some card and smear some PVA along the insides. Let this dry and then cut the outer excess card away. 

Before glueing the tow "cones" use one of them again as a template to mark off twice the length onto the remaining circle on the card. Measure the outside (the line 3mm above the 8cm line) I did this using a piece of spare card. measure and divide the length. I used 1cm divisions as the barrel here  was 11 cm´s long.

I´ve now marked 22 sections @ 1cm along the outside line and joined these lines up to the center point. Each section, when cut out will form the barrel staves. These could be divided into 1/2 cm sections which would give thinner staves.

Glue thin strips of card to the small ends of the "cones" to make the barrel lids. When dry trim of the excess.

Cut out the Staves. The top 3mm you don´t need but retain the bottom 3 mm at the smallest end. Curve them slightly to fit by pressing them over a round surface such as  a pen.

Glue the staves onto the cones. Basically glue the first stave along the edge of the joint fomed when glueing the cones together, then the next one with a tiny gap and so on. The bottom of the stave should be flush with the bottom of the cone and 3mm above the top. Make sure the staves of each half line up.(see top picture) The last stave will inevitably have to be cut  smaller than the rest as each time a stave is added you leave a small gap to give a 3D impression on seperate pieces. This is the same with real barrels where sometimes you will see a bigger or alternated small and big staves used. Another thing..you rarely use all the staves intended..I marked out for ten but have only used nine. When dry, glue the two halves together.

Cut some strips using the left over outer rings (the 3mm above and below the 8 and 6cm lines) These will form the 4 top and bottom barrel hoops.  Also cut one strip about 4mm wide for the middle hoop.  Work them a bit so they start to form hoops naturally when left lying. I do this in the same way you´d make curled ribbons for a present decoration..

Measure these against the barrel and glue together, making sure to observe which way up they are finally to go as they are now slightly conical. The two rings on the left of the picture are slightly smaller than the two on the left. As a rule of thumb; if the two smaller rings fit inside the bigger ones then they are the right size.

Simply glue the hoops onto the barrel and paint.

If I was going to make a lot of barrels I would use plastic card or greenstuff and them make a mold of the thing and cast as many as I wanted..but for a one off (for a dio or whatever) I wouldn´t bother.