Roman Town (how to)

This is how I created the Roman Town,  Nothing fancy or complicated, as you will see :-D
The following building took about 3/4 of an hour (taking out drying times for glue and paint)
Taking a bit more care..it would probably have taken an hour, but this made was for the article and will be re-used for a medieval house later.
How you build them is only limited by your imagination. The bigger and more complicated they are, they will obviously need a bit more planning, but after a couple of buildings,  it becomes second nature.

The tools and materials. Scissors, Biro, sharp blade, setsquare, wood glue and pins (both not in pic) and some polystyrene 4mm floor insulating sheets

Decide how long, wide and tall (single, two storey etc) the building will be. When you´ve cut the walls, use a bod to mark where the top of the doors will come. (obviously the bod can be any scale) I always mark a bit lower than the head due to "cutting creep" ie;, the cut out doors always seem to end up bigger than marked.  Take care to make sure that the pre-scored lines on the insulating sheet run horizontally along any long lenths of wall/roof to help give them strength.

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Cut out the doors. This one will be a shop with a house attached. The doors have already got a bit bigger than intended..

The Gable ends can now be cut using the set square.

Add windows where you want them. These don´t have to be marked as here, you can cut the holes out and add windows, but after doing this a couple of times, I gave up in favour of the easy way.

Add glue along any touching sides and fit the walls together, using pins to hold the pieces in place as you go.     Maximus is measuring up for the wallpare

On all my buildings I add a central wall to support the roof.  This should have the top end cut to the same angle as the gable walls. Here, on the right of the building,  you can see I have added a dividing wall between the shop and house.

Measure up the roof plates. Make sure that they are about 1/2 a cm wider all around the bottom and sides of the building, don´t cut them flush with the walls. Cut top and bottom of the roof tile as shown. This is to make the join along the top of the roof easier, and the bottom to make it seem more like thin tiles.

Using the biro, simply score the tile pattern on the lined side of the insulation tile, making sure that you make cut a bit through on the sides and bottom to create an overhanging  tile effect. Try to pu both roof tiles back to back and make the first markings the same on each side, it looks a bit more like a capping tile when stuck together. After all the vertical markings have been made, run the biro along the horizontal lines to give definition.

Paint. It will probably take two coats to get the walls white. The roof  I painted with red and brown(50/50), then drybrushed with red. I painted the house and roof seperately (it´s easier) Don´t forget to paint the sides and underside of the roof where it overhangs. The windows I do with felt pens...:-D

This house was made at the same time by my 6 yr old daughter (pins are still in to hold the roof on) so if she can make one....;-D

Hello to Staz. Thanks for following. :-D

Medieval Womenfolk

Without them there´s no medieval menfolk..:-D There isn´t many female bods about so it´s a case of having to make do, if you want a large group of them.

From Hat and Atlantic

From Imex...the hats cut back, ruffs and collars  trimmed away.

The baby looked cute before I went and painted it. (sorry, a bit blurred )

All from Valdemar.  Resin and metal

The goose is enyoying the ride but little does it know what lays in wait...."quick G.Gander!! Squeeze out a golden egg"

Medieval mortar in action

The crew look a bit like they are firing the thing "by numbers" but I reckon they would have at last kept thier heads down as it fired.

I wonder if anyone will spot the lack of touchhole????? :-D

Gotcha!!!

The quick white toga wearing Velite has got the slow brown trouser wearing Celt.

Hello to Milos of Dreamspirit Wargaming Blog. He has 4 blogs in total...all of which are worth a look at (as are all blogs) Some very good tutorials..in both Pictures and Film form. And you can also look the videos up on Youtube.

ATTACK OF ARION HORTENSIS !!!!

The silent killer of the garden world!!!!

Don´t be so rediculous Tomkins....there´s no such thing!!!!

Tompkins!!! Stop that mumbling and Speak up man

Hello to djk from DJK´s Fantasy World.. A scratch built terrain builder who produces  buildings from re-cycled materials using standard paints, glues etc, to create  some great looking houses etc.

Hello to scotty from Scotty´s Wargaming. A wargamer who covers mostly these periods, 
WSS, ACW, AVCBW, Dark Ages and colonial, (and some sci fi and fantasy)

Hello to Kem....Kem your bloggers follower function is not on..

Hello to James from Rabbits in My Basement. Loads of BIG wargames to see on his blog...but the last post was about pies....don´t read his list, it will make your mouth water :-D

Bonjour à Maxon from Les figurines de Maxson. He has an amazing collection of 28mm Napoleonics.
His latest post , 1er et 2eme carabinier 1815 will show you what I mean.

Roman town (1/72nd scale)

A bit of stress this morning..I couldn´t log on here...I finally managed to, by using a "back door".
Made these a few years back, lots of sheets of polystyrene green floor insulating tiles, wood glue and Acrylic wall paint :-D

A shopping street with a balcony

The residential palace

View across town from the palace balcony

The Palace might get reconstructed into an Medieval Abbey and some of the houses will end up (after a face lift) in a medieval town.....maybe.

Fairy Horse

Another flying thing...this time a horse. I made an attempt at using a method of painting called Grisaille, it´s more complicated than I thought, and I will definately need a lot more practice :-D
I think the technique would be more usefull on larger scale sculpts.

Hello to Mario GarciaG...from Nucel Art, The end is near blog. very creative and  wonderfull sculpts, which would be way better for the Grisaille technique.

Avia B -21 (KP Model) 1/72nd

I bought this kit at a trade fair...it said there was three kits inside...which there was..but no instructions and no Decals. A bit outside of my usual WWI period but a fun little kit to build. The Czechoslovakian company that made it (KP Model) has ceased to trade but the models seem to be available all over the place.

Hello to Irqan...thanks for following :-D

I´d like to mention a fellow blogger here, Sergeant Lesch from I LIKE the things I LIKE! Blog. An ACW based blog with ...well, he puts it better than I could;
Occasional postings of things I like that folks may like as well. History,Toy Soldiers,some politics, beautiful ladies past and present.

Medieval Peasants (conversions)

From the Zvezda Medieval Peasant Army set. 

The "heavy" and "light" cavalry have already been posted here, but the silly sod whose "caught" an arrow is new.

Arm swops, body half swops and a "marker"

A lucky peasant who has got himself a crossbow!!

Mad axeman Magee, one whose had enough and is leaving and the standard bearer carrying the flag of the Bandshuh movement  (1493-1517)

One bod...6 Jobs

The Airfix Robin Hood set...I love it...there seems to be a mass of things to get out of it. A head swop here, a weapon swop there...and bingo..peasant becomes footsoldier.

The basic pose..

Stick swop, and now he´s the old boy of the villiage

Stick swop, twist of the neck and an arm added, now he´s capn Hornblower

Stick swop, head swop (Redbox Hussite artillery) and now he´s king of the slingers

Head swop (Revel english knights)bit of greenstuff and now he´s a guncrew member

The last reincarnation. Hand swop, head swop, sheath and shield added..

Hello to Matt from In The Grand Manner blog, in the main newline design napoleonics and a few little gems like this one Peter of Dreux.

Burgundian Command

I finally got back to doing a couple more Burgundians.

It looks like the face has silver on it...it hasn´t, it´s my bad photography to blame :-D

I´ve no evidence (pictorial) that they carried drums like this into battle, but drums are mentioned in medieval armies after the crusades.
There´s a story that the skin from  Jan Žižka was used to make  drums, so that he could forever lead his soldiers into battle.

Medieval Seige machines...1

The 1st half of the seige park finished!! :-D

The Ram

Roof added

I´ve made the roof removable so the crew can be seen

Being pushed into position

The Catapult

The seige park workers deployed to operate the catapult

A Testudo

I know this has another name but it escapes me at the moment. This was made from the second Ram in the Miniart Rams set.

Being pushed by the busy bods from the seige park

Mobile wheeled walls ( Mantlets)

From Zvezda.  The shield patterns I´ve added to give a bit of colour.

In Action with two bods from Orions Medieval seige troops set.

The Crew

A line up of the crew. Orion, Miniart and Zvezda.

Hello to Luca from Peana di piombo blog. He says he´s passionate about Ancient wargaming...and after looking at his blog, I´ll agree with him. :-D