Musician of the month: Skeleton Horn Blower

What is fun with fantasy ? There is no limit, and you can create impossible things. This month's musician is not that original, since skeletons (including horn blowers) are classical figures today, thanks to the major manufacturers of Fantasy figures. Hard to believe that dead things can walk,  even slowly, or fight, or do anything but lie... but in Fantasy, everything's explained thanks to Magic, and especially dark Magic.

... So, a dark sorcerer came with forbidden spells, a gifted necromancer, and he began to raise the dead, lots of them... So many of them that they began difficult to control. He was compelled to use a general to rule them all, and he called a mighty vampire, but the skeletons were indisciplined, they didn't follow the orders, as if they were deaf to any signal... wait, of course they're deaf! The necromancer's spells couldn't make skeletons hear the orders, but there was one spell, a very ancient one, that allowed him to create Black music, the dreadful sound of an ancient horn blown by invisible lungs, yes! So he gave that horn to one of his most disciplined skeletons, and ordered him to blow again and again, and, because of this horrible dead sound, every skeleton began to walk West against the human kingdoms...

"Why West ? What if the humans settled in the South ?"
"Then, my apprentice, you will have to learn another spell, because this is the way of Black Magic. Go back to your books and don't ask foolish questions again!"

This month's musician is our skeleton hornblower. His horn is a very old instrument that remained in an ancient tomb for hundreds of years, so it is made of oxidized metal - green oxidation for brass, or verdigris. That's what I tried to represent on this mini, together with rust on the iron parts.

A few pictures:

The fierce skeleton proved good enough to be enrolled by the Vampire general, to summon the skeleton army to go West! Er... to go to the right, as we can see in the following pictures:

 

"Eh, come back, all of you! West is on the other side !!! Who gave me an army of unlateralized skeletons !!!"

Mousquetaire du Roy

Just a test shot today, my first attempt at painting a French King's musketeer in Louis XIII's service.
You can see him standing in front of an inn, with a bottle of wine in his hand, ready to fight nevertheless.

Some closer pictures:

This guy comes from Ultima Ratio set UR011 Musketeers of the King of France. He proved very interesting to paint, and I tried to represent the different materials as well as possible: leather, metal,  feather, glass bottle...
I will try to paint his friends and opponents in the next days.

Hope you like him :)

Musician of the month: Fife player

At last! We're on the last day of March, it's still time to publish a post about the musician of the month :)

I am in my Napoleonic period (I can hear the Ancients calling), so I painted a musician that belongs to the Napoleonic Chasseurs à pied de la garde: a fife player.

Let's begin with the pictures of the figure:

You may know that there were two sorts of musicians in the Napoleonic regiments. The first belonged to the military bands, who walked in front of the troops during the parades, and the second were the fifes and drums, who were used in battle to communicate the orders. The fifes were used during the Napoleonic era, but were replaced by the trumpets in the middle of the 19th century.

The fife is a small wooden flute, such as these:

I chose to paint a dark brown fife, which means that it is rosewood, a tropical hardwood that makes very good music instruments.



This mini was given to me by Borodino - lucky me, these minis are out of production! Thank you, mate.

And one question for my scholar readers: my first idea was to paint a fife wearing the colors of the Bataillon of Neuchâtel, a famous Swiss troop in french service, but I couldn't find any evidence of such musician, even though fife playing is a Swiss tradition nowadays. What do you think of it ? Do you think I might paint a fife player of that sort ? Any help welcome :)

Napoleonic French line infantry

Hi! I'm still in the mood to paint some Napoleonics, and I'm trying to be a bit more productive. So less time on the details, and three or more foot soldiers at a time.

I wanted to test that method on french infantry, and I've painted troopers with two different uniforms, first for the 1808-1812 period, then the Bardin uniform.

For the 1808-1812 period, I've painted a grenadier and two fusiliers, here they are:

I wish to represent soldiers in campaign. Not sure that it is a good idea to give them trousers of the same color, it is too uniformed, I will add some variety for the next figures. They are Hät minis, from set 8095 1808-1812 French Line Infantry.


For the 1812-1815 period, I've painted one grenadier, three fusiliers and one voltigeur, as you can see below:

There are different colors for the trousers this time, does it look ok ? They are also Hät minis from sets 8041 French Line Fusiliers, and 8042 French Light Infantry (used to represent grenadiers and voltigeurs).


What do you think of them ?

Metal giant: an Orc by Rackham

Today, I wish to start a series of posts related to the Confrontation miniatures range by Rackham.
I wrote last month (see here) how I got inspired by one of the factions to convert a 1/72 mini into a Wolfen.

What I didn't explain was that I painted dozens of these minis some years ago, and I think it's time to display some of them on this blog, even if they are not 1/72.

The first mini to show is an orc warrior. In the universe of the Confrontation game, they are called the Orcs of Bran-o-kor, and they live in the borders of the Syharhalna desert where they were former slaves to the Scorpions of Dirz.

Let's have a look at him:

 I used a classical green color for this orc (that's why my 1/72 orcs are painted in another color, I wanted to change :)). His tunic is red simply because red and green are complementary colors. The base is very simple, it is meant to recall that this guy is living in a desert.

In my eyes, the Rackham minis remain the best fantasy figures ever created. They are famous for the incredible level of detail which make them more difficult to paint than others.
A closer view to the back of this warrior to illustrate this opinion:

You can see several flasks and bottles, a book, a scroll and a scary shield (there are often humoristic details in this range :)).

What do you think ? Would you be interested in seeing more of this range, or will you ask to remain in the one true scale :) ?

Hope you like this giant anyway. See you soon.

Back from the past: Ancient Iberian Warriors

The figures displayed today are not newly painted, but since I am off for the week-end without my brushes, I have my photograph archives with me, and last I wish to gather all my pictures on this blog, here they are :)

These minis represent Ancient Spanish, also known as Iberians. They were involved in the Punic Wars, and depending on the circumstances, they could fight for Carthage or for Rome. Of course, they are well known for their fight on the Punic side with Hannibal.

I painted them a long time ago and they still can be seen on the Hät website - fortunately I could download the pictures back, I lost my own copy in a hard drive crash!

Here they are:

Heavy infantry from set #8056 Carthaginian command and cavalry:

Lusitanian warrior from set #8058 Carthaginian Allies:

Caetratus from set #8019 Punic War Spanish Infantry:

And last, the famous balearic slingers, that can be employed as mercenaries in most armies of this time - from set #8019 Punic War Spanish Infantry:

In a technical point of view, they have all been painted before I begin to use washes to speed up the paint time, hence the dark underlining.

I think they are still good for service. Hope you like them :)

Grenadier à cheval de la garde

Hi everyone! Don't know what's happening to me, I'm more in Napoleonics than in Ancients these days :D

I've started to paint several minis for the French Imperial Guard, and this time I can show you my first Grenadier à cheval. It's a Hät mini, one of their first references, and still very good in my opinion.
His uniform is the model worn in the early years of the empire.

It is a test shot - I wish I have patience to paint a dozen more after this one - and I would like you to tell me what you think of it, and if you find any mistake I should correct. I chose to paint his horse black, which is correct according to the regulation, but a dark brown horse would be correct too.
Any comment welcome :)