El Cid Spanish Infantry (HaT) Crusaders

A good set this one..you get 4 sprues of 24 giving a total of   96 bods !
I´ve already painted the heavy infantry up as Normans but I lost interest in the light infantry until now and the start of an early crusades Army.

One complete sprue without repeats.

With this lot I´m going for a lot more colour

The one pose that is a bit..er?..rubbish..the one on the far right..he just doesn´t look properly balanced.

My favourite pose from the light inf..the crossbow man.

Part 2 of the Medieval Cog..I didn´t get much further than the planking but I did have a coulpe of bods to paint...

Napoleonic Austrian Pioneers (1)

These are destined to become part of the Croeburn 1813 dio. Not my usual period of interest and it´s been a right pain trying to find any reference pics for them  so any tips would be extremely helpfull.

Is the Ochre colour correct? The covers..are they the right colour? Are the reins the right colour?

Many Many  thanks for all the nice comments about the Pirate cutter..you´ve all given me inspiration to have a bash at a couple more.

A bit of a simple build..a colonial gunboat.

Another one with sails and rigging....a medieval Cog. 

Pirate Cutter Scratch build...FINISHED!!!!!

The rigging took a whole day and I know it´s not what  rigging would really be like..there are mistakes and compromises all over the place..but finally it´s done and dusted!  I´ll add a couple of little bits and pieces, rolls of rope, another gun or two, one of those swivel guns but basically all that remains is a name.

The sails are made from paper..cut to size and shape. Along each edge I made a 5mm fold, added a length of thread and glued the fold over it. Then a layer of micromesh net curtain on each side, glued on with wood glue and finally a covering of white Acrylic paint with a bit of sand brown mixed in.

Because the sails are covered with nylon net curtain it was easy to make holes for the rings etc. I heated up a darning needle over a tealight and burnt them in.

Total cost. In real terms..20 cents for the mast and 50 cents for a roll of thread.Paint and glue..about 30 cents worth (industrial batches bought a while ago)
And now all the stages ..(that I took pictures of)  in one go...

I only used three of the blocks..the rest I made using beads

The Yard. The jaws made from a clothes peg.

Wheel made from..a wagon wheeel and some pins

Hold cover made from foamcore with cardboard covering and Anti-Fly mesh for the grate.

It used to look like this!!!!?

Hello to Brovatar from Brovatar´s painting Blog....I love the Isabella Von Carstein!!

Arabic citizens, executioners, Napoleonic french artillery and Female Hoplites.

Loads of new goodies planned and released.
Before you scroll down, warning...mild nudity. 
Arab citizens from Erik Trauner. There´s 4 sets of 5 - 6 bods in each set, Clerics,  musicians,  market  traders and  citizens. They fit well to my plans, firstly they are citizens..and I can never have enough of them, but they are also usefull for medieval of khandibars setting. They will be available from may HERE with more pics of the other sets.

Also availabe are set piece scenery and accesories like these;

This lot are a set of excecutioners and victim being broken with a wheel. They were hard times!!!
The last recorded use of this type of excecution was in 1841!
Available now  from HERE  Apart form the excecution scene, I can see a lot of uses for these bods.

 

Something completely new, .in 1/72nd anyway and a great addition to an Imagination army...Napoleonic french artillery......as you´ve not seen them before.

Also coming from the same source and also available from HERE (around about  may) are some lightly clad female hoplites;

Finally, part 10 (?) of my Pirate cutter scratchbuild..the rigging has started!!!!

The climbing ropes.

Sewing thread stretched over a home made rigging frame

Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

Two members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. (Ordo Equestris Sancti Sepulcri Hierosolymitani, Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem .. try saying that when your drunk)
One of the 5 oldest  of the Military orders, along with the Templers, ( Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonicthe - Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon  ) Knights of Lazarus    ( Ordo Militaris et Hospitalis Sancti Lazari Hierosolymitani  -Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem )  the Knights Hospitaler  and the Teutonic Knights  ( Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum - Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem )

Enough of the history....
These were painted for a comp at Valdemar forum, Rules,  to have at least one horse, one knight or sergeant from one of the military orders, water and sand. After a lot of research I couldn´t find what symbol a sergeant of the Order would carry so I´ve gone for the basic red cross.
During my searches I found a really good site about the military orders..the Catholic Encyclopedia, tons of info and links.

Not really apparent from the photo, I´ve tried to get two different shades of white..a brown based one and one black based...

Richard´s Plans

Richard, after coming home finds that some Lords, including Sir Hugh Jarse, have been causing a lot of trouble. raising taxes and generally abusing the population. Richard sets up camp near the coast, calls his war council together and makes his plans!

The bods, table and chair  were a suprise pressie from Valdemar :-)

Like in any film, lots of tapping of fingers on the map...winds me up something rotten seeing that in films!!!!!

Hello to Ania´s minis..no blogger link?

Waiting for Godot (medieval setting)

Ok..the play Waiting for Godot was written in 1948 and features two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon. The pair are wearing bowler hats, there´s a tree in the background, Estragon sits on a mound or rock and they wait.
But the names, Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo,  and the name of the writer Samuel Becket, all have (IMHO) a Medieval ring to them and make me imagine a medieval setting..so.................

The Vladimir character is supposed to be used to protray a pilgrim drinking using his cupped hand, but it could also seem as if he is looking at his fingers in an absentminded way as he talks.

 In my Version, Estragon is sitting on a Basket, not a rock.

Whatever Vladimir is saying, it´s either very stupid and it´s annoying Estragon or it´s very interesting and Estragon is concentrating. 

Great news..My Medieval Egg house won  Dalauppror´s  Paint your egg challenge.  Next year..be there or be...er??.....not egg shaped

Medieval Egg House

Rarely written about, these egg houses, built using eggs from the giant Gon-Gon-awey bird of the Blackforest, were a cheap and practical way of getting a roof over your head without having to shell out a large amount of money, in fact..they were very cheep.  Apparently the fashion went as they weren´t all they were cracked up to be.
Here, a lokal Yolkel can be seen re-positioning his Egg house after moving a heavy cupboard away from the center of gravity. 

After seeing Dalauppror´s Paint your egg challenge..I just had to have a go. Still one day to go Y(F)olks and if you miss the deadline, there´s always next year :-D

HAPPY EASTER !! :-D

Zulus (HaT)

"The sentries report Zulus to the south west. ...eight of them".
Well, There´s only the 8 poses in the set as seen here 
Not historically accurate..but then again they are meant to come from a Jungle type area in Khandibar and aren´t really Zulu´s at all  and I liked the idea of a B/W colour scheme on the shields. Zebra skins...with wide stripes..that´s it!!..widestriped Jungle Zebras. Common in Khandibar.

Part of a swop with Peter from Peter´s cave Blog..............he´s been lazy and not yet painted his part of the swop :-D