1/32 Alla corte del Faraone (At the Pharaoh's court)

 Hi everyone! 

Today's post is an unusual one, because:

- the title is in Italian (but only the title, sorry for my Italian neighbours)

- the figures are 1/32, and not the usual 1/72... except for one

- the figures are displayed UNPAINTED !!!

But keep cool, there's an explanation to each of these statements...

You all know, or can easily imagine that I am a big fan of Atlantic (an Italian manufacturer) Ancient figures - they are regularly mentioned or shown on this blog - for instance here, or there. Well, after checking the links, I can say that they were mentioned at least in 2017... but look at my avatar :)

Believe it or not, as a kid, I only knew of their 1/72 range. It's only been a few years since I discovered that there were also a 1/32 range, thanks to an incredible collection that Mabo displayed at Benno's, and I began to desire those wonderful Atlanticses, my precious, and looked for some for a looong time... until last week, when I eventually found an offer on a website dedicated to second hand items: a complete original Atlantic 1/32 box, At the Pharaoh's court.

And there you are, in my own hand:

The box was complete, including the mummies and their sarcophagus.

And of course my favorite figure, the scribe. On the picture above, you can see the 1/32 version next to the 1/72 one - this latter looks soooo small.

Mini-me, next to Maxi-me :-D

I was so happy to receive them today that I couldn't help taking pictures and show them on this blog, even before they were painted.

Hope you like them :) Do these figures bring some childhood memories back ?

Davy Jones

 My pirate crew has a leader, at last! Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you the fierce captain of the well known ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman: Davy Jones himself!

This figure comes from one of the two 1/72 sets made by Mars to represent the characters of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie series, and it is one of the best sculpted ones, in my opinion.

Regarding the painting, two things are worth mentioning:

- the weathering of the clothes must give the idea that the pirate spends most of his time under water, hence I had to paint some small shells and and some dark green to represent seaweed

- the tentacles covering the face of Davy Jones are pale yellow (almost ivory) with some traces of blue and purple to add some contrast

Among the crew, the figure of Davy Jones catches the eye, as expected of an unchallenged captain.

Hope you're frightened :D

Goblin War Chariot: The Solution

 Dear fellow readers, 

you will all remember that, in the last post, I asked you to find the origin of the pieces I used to convert the Goblin War Chariot. Many of you have recognized the venerable Ancient Britons chariot by Airfix, but what about the other parts ?

Here you are, at last, the answer!

 

A bit of zoom to see better. First, as written above, the Briton chariot.

I wished to replace the wheels with larger ones, but my range of chariot is rather poor, so I chose the wheels from the Atlantic Egyptian cart (a recast by Nexus, my Atlantic originals are still complete :)).

It proved a wrong choice in the end, because these wheels are not that taller, and the original ones are more "Goblinish".

The horses were replaced by Wargs (by Dark Alliance), as everybody found out.

I wanted something like scythes on the sides of the chariot, and a spear on front. I first tried to build some, but the result was absolutely ridiculous... Where to find large blades in 20mm ? Easy, have a look at 25mm (or more) spare bits. Then I chose those spears from the skeleton box by GW (7th edition).

The last part to find was the skeleton used as a banner. You may say that I cheated, because I used a resin 1/72 set by Nikolai.

And here you are! Maybe some of you will find this explanation interesting. Let me know if you have any question.

See you!

My contribution to Orctober 2021: Goblin Chieftain on War Chariot

Hi gents! My project for Orctober 2021 took me much more time than expected, but it is complete at last.

Everything is in the title:

This year, my Orc army received some reinforcements from a Goblin clan whose leader goes to war on a chariot pulled by two Wargs (yes, it seems that they can run side by side without fighting each other), and especially equipped with blades: one at the front, and two on each side of the axle. They're designed for hunting - Troll hunting, I mean.

The driver has to be harsh with his Wargs, hence the whip, while the chieftain looks fierce with his clubs.

The frequent visitors of this humble blog will have notice that this chariot is only the second one that I've assembled so far, after the Celtic one on the previous post. This one is a bit more customized, will you guess where all parts come from ?

 

If I find time before the end of the month, I will try to add a few more Goblins, but not for sure - we'll see.

See you, and happy Orctober :-)

Gallic Warrior Queen on her War Chariot

Good evening everyone!

In the comments related to the previous post, Norman Dean (whose excellent blog is to discover here - look at his incredible DBA armies!) asked: 'How many fellows are living in that hut, anyway?' and I answered with a list of figures waiting to be painted on my desk - a huge Celtic family :D  

Among them was mentioned a war chariot and a warrior queen, and it sounded like a new and difficult challenge. Difficult for me, I mean, because:

- I never finished any war chariot (though several have traces of paint)

- I don't like to paint horses

- I feel compelled to add some reins to the models - every serious modeller at Benno's does it

And it was challenging indeed, I had to stick the reins at least three times !!! I know I'm not good at modelling, but I try :)

No more words, let's have a look at the result:

This small kit comes from Hät set #8140 Gallic Chariot with Warrior Queen.

I chose to paint the horses as dappled grey - not that easy, I would appreciate some advice, horses are definitely not my cup of tea. The warrior woman and her driver wear elaborate tartan patterns on their clothes. So far, so good... the reins (small pieces of kitchen twine) revealed difficult to stick. 

Ok, I complain, but in the end, I am rather happy with the result :)

After the battle, the warrior queen is bringing a new head back to her oppidum...

... the druid of the tribe seems happy with this present !

The Carnyx player blows to show his enthusiasm - music, maestro!

And a back view to have a look at her green tartan.

Hope you like her, as fierce as she is !

PS: the oldest painters among you might recognize some Gallic foot soldiers that were painted as test shot figures for the Hät website ;-)

Another Gaesatae

 Hi! I'm painting slowly, but using a mobile phone as a camera encourages me to take pictures as soon as a new recruit is ready :)

So today, nothing very original compared to the previous posts, just a second Gaesatae:

This figure is also a small conversion: Caesar head and shield on a Italeri body. Once again, a weathered shield ans some tattoos.

And a group picture in order to compare both Gaesatae:

I would say that the tattoos on the left one are more convincing, what do you think ?

Germanic warrior, 1st century AD

 It seems that this website is dedidated to Ancients these days. After the Celtic Gaesatae, I've painted a Germanic warrior from the 1st century AD. And if we accept a slight distortion of space (northern Italy / Germany) and time (3rd BC/ 1st AD), you will discover this warrior face to face with previous post's Gaesatae in a panoramic view :)

Here you are:

Dramatic, isn't it ? The exact opposite of a plate by A. McBride from the Concord books showing a wild German attacking a Gaul chieftain, whose richer clothes showed that he was influenced, and probably softened, by his Mediterranean neighbours.

Let's focus on the Germanic warrior. No conversion this time: the figure comes from Linear-A set 10 Germanic Warriors Set 2 (Command).

I love the Ancients range by Linear, because they make a real effort to make original figures in new periods, or fill the ranks of existing armies with very welcome additions (Tarentine cavalrymen, for instance). This figure is no exception, because of his dynamic pose as a chieftain leading his warriors in the assault. But I must admit that I faced difficulties in removing flash and mold lines, so the result isn't as good as I wanted. 

To paint this figure, I was partly inspired by this picture found on the website of a German reenactment society, the Chasuari Group:

Their purpose is to reconstruct the daily life of the Germanic people in the 1st century AD, exactly what I was looking for.

Hope you find him accurate :)

See you soon.