A Gallic army for DBA

Back to 1/72 and back to Ancients! The title of this blog declares that most minis should be in the One True Scale, here we are.

At the beginning of this year, I've been able to finish my (second) Gallic army for DBA, but found no time and no mood to take pictures. They're here at last, so let's have a look:

 

The figures are still to be based. There are enough figures for 2 elements of Slingers (Ps), 1 element of Gaesatae (Wb), 8 elements of warriors (Wb), and a General on chariot (LCh). Some of the figures have aleady been displayed on this blog (see here), but some others are new, let's focus on the latter.

Manufacturers, left to right: Caesar, Hät, Caesar, Newline Design

Hät, Revell, Hät, Italeri

Caesar, Caesar, Hät, Italeri

Linear, Linear, Linear, Hät, Hät

Linear chieftain on the left, others figs by Hät and already displayed

This time, I've painted the warriors as if they were related in clans wearing the same sort of tartan to identify. I'm not sure that this was common practice in that time, but I this likely, and it helps to give some sort of visual homogeneity without painting uniforms, which would be inappropriate.

Hope you like them, and appreciate the break from big 28mm monsters (I do)  :)

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 ?

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) !

Technical adjustments on this blog

Hi everyone!

Since I've started this blog, I've found it a bit boring that less than half of my laptop's screen (definition is 1920x1080) was used to display pictures and text.
After a few tests, I modified the width of the blog to 1000px so that it fits on the devices I could test with.

But this modification might not work properly on your device, so I would like to ask you if these new parameters have an undesired effect or not. If your display is 1000px or higher, you should not experience any trouble.

The main difference is the size of the boxes to show the pictures. Let's have a look:

Size before change

Size after change

Is it worth modifying ? Have you got any trouble ?
Please let me know.

Oh, and a few words about the minis involved. You will have recognized a druid from Hät set 8138 Gallic command, together with the carnyx player already shown here, and a slinger from Hät set 8089 Gallic warband. On the background is my DBA Gallic army.

Regarding his clothes, I searched for info on the web, but we must admit that very little is known on that subject. It is possible that the druid wore white dresses as sacerdotal clothes, but it might only be a tradition coming from the 19th century. All I could read on the subject (Dumézil, Le Roux/Guyonvarc'h, Persigout) is rather old and not very scientific, in my opinion.

So I chose white, off white, as usual :)

A few more pictures.

PS: I also resized the pictures of the previous post but not the others, I'm waiting for your feedback before doing it.

EDIT: Thank you all for your answers ! I understand I can keep this format for the blog, so I can now change the other posts. All right, there's some job to do :)

Musician of the month: Gallic Carnyx player

I'm back in Ancients these days. After the Germanic warband, I found inspiration to paint a Gallic warrior that was on my desk for... years.
It's the problem with Celts: you cannot just paint them, you have to cover their clothes with tartan patterns, and since they were sort of individualist, you cannot paint the same pattern twice !!

So, what does our mini look like ?

Nothing extremely original here, but the combination of green and red (complementary colours) is always nice to see. And NO, I didn't even try to add another tartan pattern on the trousers :)

Maybe you ask yourself: what sort of thing the carnyx might be ?

The carnyx is a celtic wind instrument from the iron age. It was a sort of trumpet made of bronze, and was used on the battlefield to frighten the enemies before the clash (according to Polybius).
According to the Gundestrup cauldron (a richly decorated silver vessel dating from the Celtic era, and found at Gundestrup in Denmark), it looked like that:

And according to modern reenactors (from the french blog Les Lemovices en fête):

I never heard someone playing the carnyx, did you ? Must be a little monotonous, don't you think ?

Hope you like this little musician :)

DBA Gallic Army, the cavalry elements

Well, very little time to paint in this year's end, a lot of work before the holidays. But at least I could finish the heavy cavalry element, except for the base, sorry.

The HCv element: Hät figures that I was so happy to discover when the reach the market. I previously had to use Essex 15mm figures as proxy.

Close-up on the left rider: I had to repaint the flesh (not easy to see on this picture), the horse (better result than the grey one, IMO), the shield and add some light on the trousers.

You can see them next to the other cavalry unit.

Next step on this project: paint the bases of the whole army.

And probably something else on the blog before :)

DBA Gallic army: first step of restoration

I explained in the previous post that I wanted to restore and add some improvements to my old DBA Gallic army, here you are the first step.

The test figure is a heavy rider. There was no light nor shadow in the original paint, so I began to darken the mini with washes (red for the flesh, brown everywhere else), then lighten with several layers. I also painted some details that I had forgotten, such as the umbo on the shield. Same process for the horse.

The two pictures below allow us to compare before and after.

This is another view of the same rider, which makes me realize that I have some mistakes to correct. Anyway, there is more contrast now, so I think it is an improvement.

I also modified a Light Infantry (Psiloi) element: the flesh has been redone on both minis, I've added some light on the trousers, and the base has been repaired.

the guy on the right had the flesh of a zombie !!

I could have given them another javelin in the left hand

Even better than the rider in my eye. What do you think ?

To be continued :)

DBA Gallic army

I've already written a couple of posts about Celtic warriors by Hät. The minis can be seen here (part I) and there (part II). But long before that, my brother and I painted a complete DBA Gallic army with Airfix, Revell and a few ESCI minis - and we used 15mm essex minis to represent cavalry, later replaced by Hät and Italeri minis. Years later, I also added a few Newline Design 20mm minis to fill the ranks.

I don't have the 15mm riders any longer, but I still have the 1/72 minis. I never finished to base them, but they have already seen action in several battles. And last week-end, I decided to complete the work in order to have a nice army to display.

Before adding some paint on them, I wanted to take pictures of the army in its actual state.
Here it is. The whole army:

On the front rank, the based elements, Psiloi on the left (Italeri minis), and command element on the right (from left to right: 3 Italeri men and one Newline Design). The skin color of some of them has to be redone.

 The warband elements: mostly Revell with a few Airfix and ESCI, all painted before I learned to paint shadows and highlights.

And at last, the cavalry elements. Hät figures on the left, Italeri and Newline Design on the right - my first highlight technique, before the washes.

As an army, they already look good. I won't repaint them all, but repair the broken bases, finish the to-do bases and add some contrast at least on the cavalry element.

More pictures to come to show you the result. Hope you like my old minis :)

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.