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.

Henry VII´s Cavalry -DDS

I´ve pulled my finger out and got the whole set finished ...one, to get them of the worktop and two a busy weekend is coming up. Firstly on Saturday Heiden and then Sunday, another new event,  the biggest indoor toys and games fleamarket in our state.

The bases still need a bit of attention, a couple of bunches of flowers from Noch and some  tufts of grass. 

The heavy cavalry section

The medium cavalry. The crossbows supplied were a wee bit small so I´ve used ones from the Zvezda French knights set.

The Royal Tudor flag .  All I did was to resize it ( 2.1cm tall) copy, hit the space bar twice and insert the image again. Wether the white along the flag pole is correct...but it looks fine to me :-D

Henry VII´s Standard. I´ll be getting the Set again..so I can make up a command group and include Henry and some personalities. Might even get around to painting up some landsknechts from DDS...and then of course they will need to have a Landsknecht pikeblock...and a cannon or two :-D

Order of Alcántara

A break from painting those pesky difficult Tudor cavalry
The Order of Alcántara (Orden de Alcántara) or the  Knights of St. Julian, was formed in 1166 and was formely the order of León . Another attempt at freehand Heraldry...I really must stop trying :-D

The Alcántara bods added to some conversions from the HaT El Cid Spanish Infantry set.


Just basic head swops.....

These two have got new heads from the Caeser  Medieval Knights (Crusaders) set....

..and the one on the left, from the Italeri Templar Knights and the one on the right, from the Zvezda Livonian Knights

16th century Knights (DDS)

I´ve had this lot, Dark Dream Studio´s European Knights,   for a while now...and I´ve never dared to get to grips with it but everytime I look at the pile of "to do" bods,  they look at me sadly and shout "come on..we dare ya!" and after seeing the absolutely stunning paintjobs of Early Tudors from Stuart over at his Army Royal blog, I had to at least try.
The PSR review does them justice, whilst not a lively set, and the nags leave a bit to be desired in the poses department, they are a lovely set and like Stuart I will make them into the  cavalry of Henry VII...........just not as lovely as Stuarts.

All the weapons come with the set, are easy to remove from the sprue, the detail is very well done and best of all, there´s loads of spares when every knight has been kitted out.

Getting the Patina effect was murder. I tried at first to create a consistant pattern but this proved impossible, so the nag had it´s paint removed and the task was re-started, this time I just painted a "sort of" effect.

All the bods and the nags have some lovely little details, the sculptor must have done a bit of study of 16th century armour whilst making this set.

Flagmen, Clubmen, Drummer

Some more recruits for the "revolting" Peasant / Workers army, again with 13th century Gent Guild banners from the Dansk Figursspilsforening site.

Two simple conversions, a body halves swop to the left and an arm swop to the right

The bod from the Strelets Medieval levy (1) set carrying the Barrel makers guild flag, the Plaster´s Guild flag is carried by a Redbox Hussite

.

The drummer. There´s not a lot of drummers for medieval bods, as far as I know there are only 3 that have been commercially made, all by Valdemar. Large bodied Tabors may not have been used until the 13th century, and then not in battle, but it´s not hard to see why not.
The body is from Zvezda´s Medieval peasant army set, the head from Zvezda´s French knights, drum and drum sticks from Revell´s Imperial infantry set. The belt is made from Paper.

Portrait of the Minnesinger (medieval German courtly love poet) with his musicians. Illustration from the Codex Manesse, c.1300.
Showing  Drum, pipe, fiddle with curved bow (psaltery)

I´ve been asked a few times to put up pics of the whole collection...I will but it might be next year,,for the Big Army Day (Gloranthan Army blog) on the 14th of June next year. Until then...my medieval army collection so from nearly 2 years ago can be seen HERE
It´s expanded a bit since then, the baggage train is nearly double the size, the same for the Hussites. There´s the new burgundian army, the Normans and El Cid armies. The infantry and cavalry has nearly doubled, the seige park has been added to quite a lot as well,  the Crusaders weren´t even in the pictures and there´s a lot more civilians/ "revolting" peasants now. 

Medieval Travellers, Wanderers, Pilgrims

As the titel says, these are medieval travellers.

The whole set together,,,except that there´s a dog that comes with them, but he, Beisser, has been used as a companion to Klynt von Osterholz

Vladimir to the left and Estragon to the right (from the "Waiting for Godot" post) and an "overheated" priest.

A member of the Bennos forum, Suso. The dog, beisser, is a copy of his own dog and the pair should really belong together..maybe Klynt will decide he works better alone at some point so master and hound can be re-united.
The child is an addition from the children at play set with his father

Three weighed down travellers. The one in the middle would make a  trader taking his wares to market, the one to the right is definately a mercenary type, he carries a sword, shield, helmet and crossbow.

The mercenary. I`ve experimented a bit by giving him a bit of a long term not shaved look.

As ever with Alex´s sculpts, the detail is exemplary. Suso carries not only a bow and quiver, but some rope, two knives and an axe handel..and  details, like on the rucksack  are recreated in such perfection it makes painting these bods a joy.

Quincy and Bigod

Nope, not a firm of solicitors but another two of the barons that were present at the signing of the Magna carta.

Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester (1155 - 1219)
Interesting thing about this one...the blazon. The one I´ve used is listed on the Magna Carta site, but on the wiki link (HERE) it shows another blazon? The magna Carta site uses a pictorial representation of the Barons blazons designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. I reckon he would have got it right so I won´t worry any further :-D

Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk (1182 - 1225) This guy inherited a very nice  house..Framlingham castle!
He bears the Arms of "Bigod Ancient", dropped post-1269 by Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk following his inheritance of the office of Marshal of England:

Sir Paul de Bodley (b?-d?)   Lord of Styrow on the Foam and one of the ancesters of Jocelyn de Bodley,  who first discovered the land which has become The Federation of Bodstonia
He, along with several other lords, is in constant dispute with his Neighbor Hugh Jarse

 

Brian the Blessed

A couple more Zvezda Medieval Peasant army conversions.

The foot figs, Brian the Blessed and "Happy" Tim

Brian has got a  crossbow from the Italeri French Knights and foot soldiers set, his bolt quiver came from the Zvezda French Knights set (it is meant for the side of one of the horses)
"Happy" Tim has pinched a Voulge-guisarme from the Zvezda English Infantry of the 100yrw set.

Ok...maybe it wasn´t done that often, if at all, firing a bow from the saddle but Rhobyn de Hud is a strong guy..and a very skilled horseman :-D

The face painting technique seems to be working with "run of the mill" bods.

 

SHOUTING!!!!! I´ll have to re-create this face on a knight bod.

Hello to Maxamillian Walker from Scyld and seax blog. Dark age and Medievals are the mainstay, as he says "English lord exiled in France, I'm raising men to return home and take back my stolen lands! And inbetween all this, I like painting little soldiers."
I´ll bring my armies from the North  and we can divide the island between us :-D