One year later, with a new project

 

 Hi everyone! 

It's been a year since my last post on this blog, and many things have changed. As announced, we have moved from a house to an apartment, so we had to reorganize a little. My painting table was installed in the dark basement of the house, it's been exchanged for a real, well lightened desk in a comfortable room, with enough space to store thousands of minis. In a word, that's great!

As already answered to some previous comments, there has been only minor damage among the tiny troops, nothing impossible to repair. The figures were mostly well packed, which had been long to achieve (more than 2 months), and the unpacking had been even longer (and not finished yet). But at the end of december, I took a few days of and started to paint again.

I was in a new place, I wanted a new project, largely inspired by some excellent threads on LAF. Since my family and I love board games and RPGs, I decided to create a small world for a Fantasy RPG campaign using 28mm figures. Easier said than done! I need:

- many trees for a large forest

- some houses for small hamlets and villages

- towers, walls, big houses for a town

- some ships for rivers and seas, and a port of course

- every large or little things needed for human activities (carts, furniture, market stalls, goods, crates...)

- some NPCs, animals and creatures to people all those places

- and of course, some figures to represent the main characters

I would like to represent a world in which combat is not a central activity but a desperate option. I guess it will take years before I am fully ready, so let's proceed one step before another. The beginning of the campaign is written, so I focused on the needed elements for that chapter. Some of the figures are painted, and I have a few prepainted buildings that allow me to represent a small hamlet, near a forest.

Let's have a look. We can even start to imagine a story.

Olga (Reaper mini)

This is Olga. She lives in a house in a small hamlet in a poor region a the foot of a high mountain range, with her husband Enguerrand and their daughters Sonia and Claire. Their house is modest, but she works hard to keep it nice and as cosy as possible, and she can sometimes propose a bed for not too suspicious travellers passing by - there aren't many.

 

Enguerrand on his cart (Crooked Dice)

Here you are Enguerrand, with his cart, transporting goods for the benefit of some shopkeeper in a neighbouring village. His mule is old but can still do the job.

 

Sonia (Archon studio)

 Their daughter Sonia is working in a small field. She is sowing seeds for a future harvest. The plot of land will give them enough for subsistance, but not to sell at the market. Her sister Claire doesn't work with her, as she headed off towards the woods a few moments ago, looking for bushes to pick berries from.

 

1985 Citadel blacksmith

 Gill is a blacksmith. His workshop is close to Olga's house.  There are not so many craftsmen skilled in working with iron in this area, so he is an important man in this  small community. He has just stopped working as he is looking at some foreigners arriving in the hamlet.

 

Jolie the scribe, and Dioscoride, the herbalist (Reaper minis)

Well known Aragorn and Legolas figures from LOTR range by GW

The newcomers look like adventurers. Some of them have weapons, but also scrolls, and a book. Maybe they're interested in the forest, and the strange creatures that live in ? 

The two rangers look nervous. They seem to be looking for someone, or something. Jolie, the girl with the book, pushed her glasses up and asked Gill: "Hello, Mr blacksmith! Excuse us to disturb you, but we are looking for a marsh demon that was spotted in this are a few days ago. Ti is a very dangerous creature, have you seen it ?".

Gill was about to answer when a scream of terror rang out.

"It was Claire!" said Olga in panic. "I told her not to go into the forest alone!"

"I can see her coming back, she's running and, oh! Guys, I think your demon is right after her, and it is not alone!"

Poor Claire, running with her empty basket (Fireforge miniatures)

Picts and Marsh Demon, Conan range by Monolith

The demon is here, escorted by two horrible savages! Where do they come from ?

The two rangers immediately run towards the creatures, one of them shouting: "Jolie, prepare one of your spells at once, We will need it very soon!"

Will the adventurers be strong enough to defeat the demons ? What will become of Claire ? Well, these events are not meant to be part of the RPG campaign, but who knows ? Maybe we will hear of these characters in the future.

Hope you like them, as usual :)  

 

  

Basing before packing...

 ... Then moving! Within two months, I will be away. Not very far, less than 5 km from here, but we have a lot of stuff to move, including several thousands of figures, among which at least 2000 are painted. I've not decided yet how I am going to take them away, but I'm sure that the painted figures will be safer if they are stuck together on MDF bases.

So I'm in the process of gluing the figures, starting with the Napoleonic French troops.

The Mamluks are going to engage some Mantic zombies

This is the first batch of French troops: guard cavalry, light and heavy cav, Neapolitan line, Bavarian line, and one battalion of French line.

More French and British Napoleonics to base, then Ancient and Medieval figures... Wish me luck :)

Any advice from those who have already moved large collections of figures is more than welcome!

 

Step by step: Basing a giant scorpion

 Hi everyone!

Today, I'd like to share a new step in the building of my 1/72 Mythological Egyptian army - the previous episode is here.

You certainly know that 1/72nd scale is much less used by wargamers and role players than 28mm or even 15mm. Aside from the fact that you can't find a player for miles, one of the consequences is that the number of manufacturers is rather small, particularly regarding Fantasy. And so, it is difficult to find mythological creatures for your 1/72 army.

Is it ? If I have a figure of creature in 28mm, it can be considered as a giant creature in 1/72. And if it is a giant creature in 28mm, it becomes an extra-giant creature in 1/72. Ok, that's easy, and I've soon discovered that many gamers have had this idea already. But what if you want to be able to use your creature in 28mm AND in 1/72 ? You will probably need different bases (unless your system is very open regarding bases, or you don't care). And even more if you have figures on round bases that you want to use with wargame rules that work better with square bases.

So you have to adapt and create a new base in which you can insert the original mini. That's what I've done to get a giant scorpion in my 1/72 Mythological Egyptian army. Let's have  look:

 This scorpion comes from the 28mm Conan range by Monolith. All the figures in this game are sold on round bases (35mm in diameter here), and I since I'm playing that game, I don't want to remove that base. And the other hand, I need to put it on a 60mmx60mm base for a Fantasy variant of l'Art de la Guerre. So I've cut a round 35+mm hole in some balsa wood (very easy, even with an ordinary cutter), and I've stuck the outer part with wood glue on my MDF square base.

No no, Mxxxxrix isn't my sponsor :D

 

The hole in the balsa wood is a bit larger than just needed, inserting the figure will be easier

Then I've stuck a few stones (gravel) with wood glue on the balsa, and now we wait until it's dry.

When dry, I cover the base (except for the hole) with some desert sand by AK. It gives the base a nice sand texture, but I don't like its color. No major problem of course.

 

When the result is dry (yes, you spend more time waiting than anything else, so it's better to do several things in parallel), I cover with a better sand color in my taste, GW's Zandri Dust.

And I add some dry grass - my desert must not be completely sterile!

 

Last step: I need to dry brush the sand with a mix of Zandri Dust and White Scar.

 I'm happy with the result, and I have at last a good method to base my whole Egyptian army. Last picture, some 20mm Romans in front of the scorpion for the scale: it is a giant scorpion, indeed :)

 

 

Here you are. I hope you will find this modest tutorial useful, and that you like this cute scorpion - by the way, he resembles those that live at my mother-in-law's house in South France, same color and size. The real ones are completely harmless :)

See you soon! 

 

New recruits for the Empire

Hi everyone! Back to 1/72, and to one of the most iconic armies of Ancient times, the Early Roman Empire. Nothing original of course, but new figures anyway, painted and based :)

In case you've been here before AND you have a good memory, you might remember that I've already displayed a Roman Imperial army for DBA - 12 elements, and (in theory, but still missing in my case) a camp element. but these days, I don't play DBA any longer and wish to paint larger armies. That's where the rule l'Art de la Guerre (ADLG) is perfect, since the basing is almost the same as for DBA. And moreover, the small format at ADLG is 100 points (normal is 200), which corresponds to 68 figures for the Romans (according to my list), and I already had 42 figures in my DBA army. Not a big gap :)

Here you are a table that gives a correspondence between DBA and ADLG, so that I know what I have to paint.

Note: with DBA, you need 4 figures to represent Heavy infantry, or Auxilia or Archers. With ADLG, you need 8 figures and a base twice deep - a better way to represent the most numerous troops on the battlefield.

 

Let's begin with the Auxilia: 2 more elements for ADLG. All shields are hand painted, and I must say that I am quite happy with the green ones.

Hät figures

Strelets figures

All Auxilia together:

 

Then we have a look at the 4 missing legionaries:

Strelets figures

My 3 ADLG Legionaries elements are now complete:

 

Time to take some family pictures:

 

The 100 points ADLG army is not yet complete: I need to paint the generals (with their officers or guards, 6 figures) and... the camp :(  

After that, the next step is to upgrade to a 200 points army for which I need 116 figures, only 54 to paint!

Hope you like them :)  

 

First try with artificial water

 Hi everyone, let's go for something completely different, something I've never used before: artificial water.

First time here? If you have a look at the rest of the blog, you will soon realize that I don't base my figures very often. The reasons why were already explained in several posts in the past, you can read some here. But I must admit that a well based figure is much more interesting to watch, so I wanted to improve my rustic technique. I've been watching several tutorials on the subject these past days, and my eye was caught by the representation of swamps, particularly putrid swamps... a good place for zombies :)

So I bought a bottle of still water, mixed some with black and green washes, and poured the result on a painted base: grey rocks, dark brown sand, some dark green grass and a light green area for the water itself. The result is this (28mm Mantic figure):

 

Since it is a first try, I'm rather pleased with the result, but it's far from perfect. Several problems:

 - I didn't fill the gap between the figure's round small base and the square base itself, so it is still visible under the layer of artificial water

- I stuck some adhesive paper on the edge of the base to prevent the artificial water from running off, but the surface of the water twisted along the edges - I had to cut the excess when dry to have a flat result

- I didn't think of simulating the mud created by the zombie advancing in the water

I'm not sure to know how to remedy these problems, and even less sure if it is reasonable to base complete regiments this way... but it was real fun to do :D

Hope you like this small experiment, any advice is welcome :) 

Egyptian Mythology: of Gods and Beetles

 Hi everybody!

Sorry for the lack of update on this blog. Not a lack of mojo this time, it's just that sometimes, real life's stronger than hobby. I didn't paint a lot since last winter, though I have a few figures to show. After Nordic then Greek mythology, I wanted to extend my Ancient Egyptian army into a fantastic version. It's far from complete but I have enough figures for a decent post.

First, the family picture:

 If you've read this blog in the past, you might identify some mummies on the left of the picture. Let's have a closer look:

These figures come from a Dark Alliance set, ALL72045. The same manufacturer also produced some Anubites (named after god Anubis, a reference to the Mummy movie series, set ALL72053), and you can see them here:

I also wanted to represent some Egyptian Gods. Fortunately, Reaper Minis produced some in their plastic 28mm range, and I chose to paint Thoth, god of the Moon, wisdom, knowledge, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art and judgment. He is often depicted with an ibis head an a human body.

A could also find a swarm of scarabs in the Reaper range - though big for 1/72, they do the job.

Of course you also need some human troops. Here they are so far, some archers:

Some heavy warriors, including a few Sherden elite.

And the usual light infantry. Nubian archers:

And Libyan warriors:

Still a lot of work to complete this army. I need:

- a second scarab swarm figure

- more heavy warriors

- more Anubites (my favorite figures in this army)

- some giant scorpions (I found some in the Conan range by Monolith)

- a sphinx (Reaper)

- some Chariots (some are on my workbench for aeons...)

- and some generals, foot and chariot

Hope they are worth the wait :) 

EDIT: I also wanted to apologize for the lack of answer to your nice comments lately, but there's a security issue between Firefox and my Google account, so that I am now unable to write a comment on my own blog!!! Very sorry. I'm considering leaving Blogger if I don't find an answer to that problem.

EDIT #2: I've found a way to solve my problem, at last! If I use Firefox private navigation, I can write comments on my own blog, and also on the others. If this info is of help...