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.

Gaesatae

 Hi everybody!

A small update today, with a figure representing a Celtic Gaesatae, who were said to be mercenaries fighting naked.

This Celt is a conversion, will you guess which figures I used ? I wanted to represent blue warpaints or tattoos, and a weathered shield, hope you like the result.

And last, I've used my mobile phone for the pictures.

See you soon (I hope) !