Musician of the month: Orc Drummer

Ok, let's face it, I didn't say everything.

Painting and playing with 1/72 figures is one of my hobbies, and I briefly explained why in a topic published at Benno's Figures Forum (link: here - See Kekso, in case you check, I put a link :D).

But I must admit that it is not the most time consuming hobby I have. Another hobby is playing music, alone, or with my family or friends, or even in bands - I have been a member of a Salsa band for several years, and at that time, I played on stage almost every week... I didn't paint a lot in this period, even worse than today :)

That's why I particularly appreciate the figures that represent musicians - military, fantasy or civilians (there's a lack of civilians in my pictures, by the way, but I like wargaming :)).

So I decided this year to paint a musician per month, and at the end of the year... I have a complete band !

What do we have for now ?
December 2016 - a Napoleonic Bassoon Player - he will play in the 2017 band as a soloist :)
January 2017 - a Late Empire Roman Cornicen
February 2017 - a Germanic Horn Blower

They are all wind instrumentists. I need various instruments, it's time to get some percussion. Ok, the easy way would be to paint a drummer in any napoleonic army... hmm, too obvious. I wanted a bit of fantasy... Fantasy! Yes, even Orcs are able to play drums :)

So this is my fourth musician in the 2017 band: an Orc Drummer, found in a Dark Alliance Orc set (set nr 1).

He doesn't look very happy, that's because he 's focusing on the tempo :)

I hope you like it. I would very glad to read your suggestions for the next member of the band!

Picts

I am still working on my Late Imperial Roman Army, it is long because of the shields, and will be delayed because I am off for the week-end (the only moment when I can paint), and even if I have taken my paint set and a few minis, I forgot the white pot :-( which is necessary for the off white tunics in the highlights step.

So no new Romans today, but I will show you pictures of one of their numerous opponents - some Pict warriors.

These minis were sold by Hät in a miniset with only four poses - difficult to create a full army with so few, I will need some imagination to complete the job :)

The challenge here was to paint plaids on surfaces with already sculpted squares - I'd rather paint on smooth surfaces. Same problem with the tattoos patterns sculpted in the flesh !

Here you are the result, and I am nevertheless happy with it.

And now, back to the Romans !

English archers in the Hundred Years War

Hi everyone. Today's pictures are about the Hundred Years War - too bad we remember this period in history because of a war between English and French...
Everyone knows about it: during the 14th and 15th century, a long war destroyed some part of western Europe because of a deep antagonism between the house of Plantagenet (the rulers of England) and the house of the Valois for the throne of France - a real war of succession.
In a military point of view, the initial english successes on the battlefield are partly due to the use of the longbow against undisciplined knights.

I began to paint archers for a DBA english HYW army some times ago. Today, the weather is good enough to take pictures with natural light, and for the first time, I didn't take the photographs myself. The photographer is now Hatshepju, my daughter, and here you are the result - I must say that I am very proud of her work :)

The English and Welsh archers

The various references are easily mixed

Even the old Airfix one fill the ranks

The Genoese crossbowmen try to respond

The english and french foot knights are fighting each other

The poor peasant levy are the first victims of the fight

Something like a (medieval) western duel

Several manufacturers were involved in this battle, no one was hurt :)
- English archers by Miniart, Revell, Italeri, Airfix and Zvezda
- Genoese crossbowmen by Italeri and Miniart
- English and French knights by Revell and Italeri
- French handgunners by Revell and Miniart
- English hobilars by Revell
- French peasant levy by Airfix (direct from the 70s, in yellow plastic :)), Zvezda, Strelets and Valdemar

Hope you like them :)

Gaul (or Celt) Warriors - part II

After the first post related to Gaul Warriors, I wanted to add pictures that I took this morning - but the minis were painted a few years ago.

These men are also foot warriors, but they are better equipped than the previous ones - helmet, end even chainmail for the second one, who probably is an ambact - a professional warrior in a nobleman's retinue.

Ambact: professional warrior

And two more pictures of the Ambact with a neutral background to enhance the colors.

Gaul (or Celt) Warriors - part I

Hi! In today's post, I wanted to display a few Gauls (the Celts living in ancient Gaul), that I painted years ago for the Hät website.

The Celts were famous for the stripes and tartan patterns of their clothes, and this is what I wanted to represent on these minis. I tried to use unusual but accurate colors, so I spent some time to find documentation, particularly some photographs of reconstitution groups who try to use the materials and the pigments available at that time (as far as we know today).

The main source for my minis is this book: Le guerrier gaulois du Halstatt à la conquête romaine, Franck Mathieu - éditions Errance.

And here you are the result:

These men are ordinary warriors, not the retinue of a chieftain (the Ambacts) who would be more heavily armored - an example in the next post !

1/72 minis by Hät.

Republican Romans - Italian Allies

There's a lot of roman soldiers on this blog these days, and today you will have some more :)

After the Empire, I go back through time until the days of the Republic, in a time where Rome's opponents were Carthaginians, Celts, Macedonians... There were also many wars between the different peoples of the Italian peninsula, but all of them eventually became Italian allies to roman power - and in the end, became roman citizens, and soldiers.

This is an attempt to represent the Italian Allies during the III and II century BC - I suppose that they closely looked like roman Hastati, with maybe less uniformity in their tunics and equipment. And since I like to paint shields, there will be no transfers on them :)

I am certainly not a specialist of this period, so any comment concerning accuracy is highly welcome (and other comments too :)).

Figures by Hät and Zvezda (the officer).

The four hastati together

The officer - I tried to paint wolves on his shield

Ordinary hastatus - Hät figure

Skirmish during the Marcomannic Wars

Hi! The previous post was related to the Marcomannic Wars, and I remembered that I took pictures of a clash between Roman legionaries and Germanic warriors some times ago, a small skirmish that might have taken place during the Marcomannic Wars.

This is a good excuse to remember that these plastic toy soldiers are toys before anything else. The figures shown below are 1/72 ESCI figures, manufactured in the early eighties. Together with my brother, we used to play games with such minis, until one day we began to paint them (with Humbrol enamel colors). We followed the illustrations of the box to be as accurate as possible.

This was the box cover for the legionaries:

And the box cover for the Barbarians... No historical, but Hollywoodian accuracy :) You may notice that the shield is painted after an illustration in Osprey's MAA 121Armies of Carthaginian wars - it is a celtic shield -, and that the first character on the left is painted after Osprey's MAA 129 Germanic and Dacians... a figure that doesn't exist in the box !

Now that my painting skills have improved (yes, a little), I like to paint them again, using the most up-to-date documentation. Here you are the result :) The legionaries are dressed for the Mediterranean climate, not the cold of the forests in the Danube region ! Let's admit the barbarians came to Rome...

From left to right: Goth warrior by Hät, ESCI barbarian, Hät Germanic warrior, ESCI barbarian

Roman legionaries by ESCI.
Germanic warriors by Hät and ESCI.