Musician of the month: Germanic Horn Blower

Just a few hours before the end of February, I had to hurry to publish pictures of the monthly musician!
This time, I painted a Germanic warrior from a tribe of the Marcomanni confederation, blowing a war horn.

The Marcomanni gave their name to the Marcomannic wars, a series of wars between Rome (under Marcus Aurelius) and several Germanic confederations that lasted from 166 to 180 AD.

At the end of the year, I intend to take pictures of the whole music band :)

1/72 figure by Caesar.

Defenders of the Empire

Hi! After a few posts related to historical figures, I am back to Fantasy. Today, I want to show you pictures of my Empire longswords - for those who know the world of Warhammer, you may recognize the colors of the Talabecland, one of the provinces of the Empire.

These troops are veterans who saw a lot of action in many conflicts, and they are required whenever the situation is particularly perilous. In the pictures below, you can see them defending a village against frightening invaders.

The Longswords take position in the village

Everything's quiet, too quiet

Suddenly, a horde of Undead surrounds them

How could they come so fast ? There is some dark magic here

The courageous men attack their enemies

A vampire Lord appears - dark magic, indeed

The vampire engages one of the swordsmen

They are too many !

The zombie dogs are ready for the the final fight

The poor Longswords are submerged - may their sacrifice not be vain

The Longswords are landsknechts by Redbox and Dark Dream Studio.
Skeletons, zombies and vampire Lord by Caesar.
Zombie dogs by Zombies!!!

Carabiniers à cheval

Yes... sometimes, I paint Napoleonics minis, I can't help myself ! But (un)fortunately, it doesn't last long.
This time, I painted some french Carabiniers à cheval, in their 1810 uniform.I like their brass cuirass and their black horses :)

Riders by Italeri and Accurate on horses by Italeri (the Accurate ones are too small).

Well, it doesn't help to paint the musician of the month...only 5 days left :(

Roman woman

Hi! This time, I wanted to paint something different, a non military subject. After seeing MABO's impressive 1/32 Atlantic figures (as discussed at Benno's in this topic) I wanted to paint a Roman woman, but in 1/72. The result is not as good as I wanted, but it is a welcome addition to my ancient minis collection.

For those who follow this blog, you will recognize the goat that can travel through time :)

Theban hoplites

Hello. No time to paint these days, but I would like to display pictures of old: Theban hoplites painted for the Hät Web site some years ago. They can be used as opponents of the Macedonian army - Alexander was famous for the destruction of Thebes in 335 BC.

Only a few figures, hope you like them :)

Macedonian heavy infantry

I will conclude this series of posts related to the Macedonian army with a few lines concerning the heavy infantry.

First of them, the pezhetairoi (foot companions in ancient greek) who are the famous Macedonian pikemen,  armed with sarissa  (pikes).

I know I should paint 24 figures for a DBA army, here you are the first four :)

The picture below shows an hypaspist - the fourth needed to have an element of Sp for DBA (the first three are displayed here):

The Macedonian army also employed Greek mercenaries ,  as did their Persians enemies.

And last photo so far, a musician to give signals for the whole army.

Now back to the brushes ! I need:
- many more pikemen (20)
- more hoplites (4)
- light cavalry, Prodromoi (2)
- a foot general  (1) and an escort
- Alexander himself

Hope you like them.

Peltasts in Macedonian service

After the heavy cavalry (see yesterday's post), let me show you a few pictures of the light infantry.

First, the Thracian peltasts in macedonian service. These fierce warriors were hired as mercenaries in several armies of the ancient mediterranean world. Their typical crescent shaped shields were called "pelta", which gave their name to peltasts as skirmishing troops.

They were also famous for the sophisticated geometric patterns of their clothes.

All peltasts in macedonian armies were not Thracian (and did not wear pelta). Here you are two javelinmen,  the one on the right is an Agrianian.

I hope you like them (to be followed).

Macedonian heavy cavalry

Yesterday's post described elite infantry and elephant, let's keep on describing the Macedonian army with the heavy cavalry. In the DBA list, you have to represent Hetairoi and Thessalian cavalry.

Here are the Hetairoi, a word meaning Companions in ancient greek. They were the unit that Alexander lead himself on the battlefield - I promised myself to paint Alexander only when all other minis are painted.They used very long kontos (cavalry lances) in battle.

They were followed by the Thessalian cavalry, who used shorter lances. The man in the middle is meant to represent an officer. He has a rich saddle made of panther skin.

To be continued.

Macedonian army of Alexander

The first troops for my macedonian army - the historical opponents to the Achaemenid persian displayed here : DBA Achaemenid Persian army

The Hypaspists, foot elite of the army:

 An elephant, probably introduced in the Macedonian army after Alexander met Porus on Hydaspes river.

 More to come !

Uruk Haï

Hi! A few pictures of some of my Uruk-Haï soldiers.
Figures by Dark Alliance: pikemen, warriors and berseker.

Playmobil color, Enamel... Does it remind you something ?

Hi everyone!

Today's post is meant to be a sort of time travel, and a naive exhibition too. If I am always happy to repaint my old minis in today's standard, I also appreciate to bring memories back from the past, and to see these minis as they were. Before I finished to repaint all of them (I don't really worry, I am so slow, and I have so many of them), I took time today to take pictures of these old dear toys.

When I was a child, I first played with the minis out of the box, without any paint at all. But one Christmas, my brother received a fabulous gift that would change everything: a box of Playmobil Colors. Do you remember them ? The men, the horses, their equipment, everything was white, and you were meant to add the color with a set of dedicated pencils. An example below:

I don't remember how long it took before I realized that these pencils could be used on other plastic minis... but as soon as it came to my mind, I started to color every mini I had. In those days, my 1/72 soldiers were Airfix and Atlantic.

Let me show you my gallery:

Atlantic Greek civilians

Atlantic court of Pharaoh

Airfix Tarzan figures

Airfix Sheriff of Nottingham's men

But it was impossible to represent armors without metallic colors, so I was encouraged to use model paints, and I discovered the Humbrol Enamel paints. I am sure you remember :) How I hated the smell of the White Spirit...

And other minis got painted too:

Atlantic gladiators

Atlantic Romans - the less accurate set ever... The blue one was my first zombie experiment :)

Years later, I began to use acrylic paints, but without shades and lights.

Airfix Robin Hood's men

Many years passed before I tried other techniques, and you can see the actual style on this blog.
A few pictures to compare the different steps:

Atlantic Egyptians: Playmobil color / Humbrol / acrylic

Airfix: Acrylic without shades / with shades

Airfix archers in today's standard.

I hope you like them all, even the old ones. Do you have a similar experience ?

Thank you for reading this far.