Airfix WWII British infantry

After a long pause I´ve finally got back to my quest of painting every set of bods that Airfix has ever produced using only original figures.
63 sets, of which 3 feature mainly  animals so don´t count (ok, the Zoo animals set 1 has a bod in it) and the SAS set which is listed but was only ever made in 1/32nd. 5 sets are repeated..they have an earlier version and if I ever get through the PSR list I´ll paint them as well. 59 sets of which I´ve got 31 finished !!!! :-)

I won´t make any comment, the review at PSR says it all.

Narnia - The Invasion Begins!!!!!

Medieval Ale wagon (2)

The first recorded incidence of Drunk driving..luckily he´s got no number plate!
Same procedure as last time..except with this one I´ve used one of the horses from the Russian artillery of Peter the great (Reins removed and replaced) and a bod form Valdemar.

It´s the second FIGZ event soon!!!! :-D
When: June 3rd 2012 from 10:00 to 17:00h
Where: Dennenweg 106 Arnhem (Click here for a map)
Free entrance, Bring and show, workshops
Look it up on FB; http://www.facebook.com/events/381701698538295/

Medieval Crossbowmen (Strelets)

Possibly not the best set in terms of detail, the crossbows for example are pretty crude but for the range of poses, a good set. 14 poses which gives a lot of variety for the battlefield.
As noted on PSR "It would have been both appropriate and appreciated if the set had include some pavise shields which were commonly used by those armed with the crossbow". 
Well, I´ve sorted that out :-D

All the bods together in a firing line...one fires while the other loads. I haven´t based them yet....I´m still deciding wether to keep them in one block or base individually or pairs.

Some of my favourite poses. The wide range of clothing styles means that at least one or two can be used for certain periods...for example, the one kneeling..a Norman or a crusader

One big mistake...medievals with trousers!!!! They will get re-done, I´ll add a bit of green stuff to create boots.

A slight upgrade to the scratch made Pavisen  With a pin I made a hole up behind the paper and inserted a straightened out Staple, bending it slightly to give the stand the correct angle.

Hello to Martin. Sorry mate.either my bloggers friend link aint on or your´s isn´t..same with Anne´s avatar..click on it..doesn´t show a link. May be something to do with the new PC.
Hello to Anne from Anne´s Attic Blog. I really like the Rabbit Ranger :-D

Medieval Ale Wagon

Every army needs a drink at the end of the days work.

Driver a converted archer from Miniart`s Fench Knights with assault ladders, Horse from Zvezda, the wagon, a 3pdr gun carriage from Zvezda´s Russian artillery of Peter the great, barrel from Renedra

Tap made from a bit of the wagon sprue from the side of the 3pdr gun carriage. 

Scratch built Serpentine

Made with a bit of balsa wood, some card, bit of an old paintbrush and copperwire

Hello to Millsy, Mad wargamer and Liverpool FC Fan...
Hello to Nathan from Napoleonic Military Modelling blog.
Sorry, no  back links to your blogs. Due to technical difficulties...my PC blew up, it actually went bang!!!
I´m posting this on a Laptop that has the memory capacity of a goose, which means..I open another tab and have two blogs up at the same time...everything stops!!!!!!

HaT El Cid Cavalry and Pieter De Coninck

I´ve already painted the HaT El Cid Heavy cavalry as Normans but now they are painted for their intended role.

Recently, Peter from Peter´s Cave Blog painted up a set of the Strelets Medieval levy II  as Guildsmen  at the battle of the Golden Spurs (this site, De Liebaart,  is an excellent resource for the period., weapons, clothing, cooking and life in general )
Well, he can´t be allowed to get away with it, So this is my "answer" , Pieter De Coninck. He had a lively life, a weaver who,  along with his mate, the butcher,  Jan Breydel, became a revolutionary leader and was eventually Knighted. (The Baker and the candlestick maker aren´t mentioned  :-D )

Wether the light blue of the caparison is correct I don´t know..but it looks good in combination with the heraldry

Horse from Accurate´s Hundred Years war Kights of france, Pieter from Valdemar

HaT El Cid Spanish Infantry ( Conversions )

A couple of head and arm swops to get some variation amongst the troops.

Head swops

The two on the left have had head swops, the two on the right thier arms.

 A bit of decoration added to the Gunboat´s cabin

Speed regulator, map table and a nice picture of Queen Vic.

Hello to Scott from Scotty´s Workshop blog. Some great looking minis and He says ; I am a 28 year old Miniature-aholic from northern Utah. If I'm not painting miniatures I'm probably thinking about painting them. Sounds great to me :-D
Hello to Sean from Sean´s 10mm World Blog.  He´s just started blogging and his first post..10mm WotR´s is great... When I think they are half the size of my bods!!!
Hello to Alessio Palmesano...sorry..I can´t find any link. If you have a blog please tell :-D

Roofing how to

A question was asked recently over at the Steve Dean forum...how to work out the size of a roof. Normally I would just go for try and error to get the sections the right size, leading to a lot of wasted roofing material  but after ´thinking about it I came up with this;

Make the tower (house or whatever..I´ve tested it and it works for all rectangular buildings) measure from each opposing corner and make a cross shaped insert.

Mark a point at the wished height in the middle of the cross piece. Make a mark at the height of the wall and join the two up. Repeat for all 4 sides.

Lay on a piece of card (or whatever) and mark from the top of the roof to each outside corner. Extend these lines to give a bit of roff overhang. If your building is exactly square, the first piece can be used as a template to make the other 3 sections..if not just repeat for the remaining sections.

Add tabs, either to the inside on the cross piece or on the roof sections and glue on. If the wall sections/cross piece are thick enough to lay the roof sections on and just glue, then the tabs can be ignored. The whole thing only took ten minutes with taking pics but would obviously take longer for a better looking finish.

Welcome to Tyla from Obscure creations Blog. She´s building a dolls house and, I don´t know about you but I find the things fascinating. Not only that but some of the techniques used are very usefull in all forms of modelling.
Welcome to Andy from Cold War Gamer blog . Everything cold war period but in 20mm and a huge amount of resource links.

PS; Due to the screw up with the Bloggroll list thingy, I couldn´t go through the horror of deleting ang re-doing the thing so I´ve just added a second one..much easier :-D

Medieval Town House II

The second medieval house from Fredericus-rex,  town house with shops number 1.
I won´t repeat my  ideas and details as The Town House number 2  only that I´ll add that I´ve come up with a couple of tricks to speed up the building of the house.
1. Pinning the sides together with pins as I glued the wall sections together. This prevents them from falling apart as the next section is attached. The pins I removed after the joins were dry.
2. Using bits of the lasercut sprues to reinforce the internal (unseen) corners. This lends the unfinished construction stages a huge amount of extra stability and helps keep the walls square when duriing later construction.
3. Prepainting the etched wall sheets before adding them to the building. This is not only quicker to do as they are all on a flat surface but the overall colour is then consistant.

The happy family (and dog) with their new house

It´s even got a garage! :-D

The posh end of Styrow on the Foam is growing.

Hello to Michel from Michels Miniaturen Blog. Everything 1/72nd and mostly in my favourite period, the Middle ages. IMHO, Michel is one of the master dio creators...his blog´s well worth a visit

The Gunboat "Diplomacy"

Built in 1880 and named after  General Sir Arthur Diplo-Macy of the Kensington Diplo-Macy´s.

Due to Navy regulation 2189.section A sub section 12, the names of Boats and ships in her majesty´s Service are not to include any Hyphens, so it had to be dropped.
Sporting an 18pdr gun, top deck gatlings and chugging along at the stately speed of 6 mph, this is the absolute power on the rivers of Khandibar. 

The roof is removable and I might add some more deko..levers, some maps,  a picture of Queen Victoria etc.

The main gun. It comes from the Emhar´s  British WWI artillery set. A bit of snipping, the shield bent forward a bit and glued to the top of an old syringe for the mounting with a lenth of plastic rod that fits into the deck allowing it to swivel.

Gatling gun from the HaT gatling gun set. It´s mounted on a pin and can be positioned in each corner of the top deck. Mounts made from thin plastic tubes taken from cotton buds.

Hello to Ender from Ender´s Games Blog. He´s just kicked off with blogging and his first post, Zvezda Vikings is a real good one!

And for all you Fans of 1/72nd Bods, plastic, metal, resin or whatever and all associated  with them, planes, trains and automobiles, ...look HERE  ;-D

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!!