Modelling Tips & Ideas – Page 3 – Steve’s Hobby Blog

Daimyos Retinue is on the Work Bench!

After more or less completing my Napoleonic Nassau Infantry, I thought that I would have a change of period and complete a Test of Honour Boxed set, Daimyos retinue. I had decided to build the retinue as a continuation of the other Samurai cavalry boxed set and would be using a similar colour scheme for the armour. At some point in the future I’m sure that I will start to play games with larger formations rather than just individual figures and having a degree of coherency in the colour scheme will help.

Daimyo’s retinue ready for priming.

There are actually six plastic Samurai in the set and a metal figure of Daimyo, so with only six horses, I was left with a spare Samurai. It was a straight forward option to find a spare horse in my ‘bits box’, so as you can see, there are now seven riders to paint! The spare horse is actually an old GW ‘Elf horse’ but I will add some green stuff decoration to make it a bit more Samurai. You can see that I have done this before with the other cavalry set by checking a previous blog here, so I will have 14 Mounted Samurai rather than 12, when everything is finished.

Assembly is the usual fiddly process with these plastic models but it is worth using a good plastic glue and of course with patience, the models do look nice once put together. I usually paint the riders separately from the horses but I managed to glue two of the riders onto the horses whilst test fitting everything…What was I saying about patience… To be fair, I had decided to use the arrow catcher on one of the models and it was quite tricky figuring out how it actually fitted to the model. I’m confident that I now have it right but as you can see from the picture below, once primed, it was clear that I had some filling to do before painting! I used the Vallejo putty. It’s fairly quick drying and sands well.

Rider with arrow catcher fitted .

I will have to paint these as one piece models but I don’t think this will be a problem. The other models were primed in black as separate horses and riders

Horses primed

Riders ready for painting

I used my airbrush and Vallejo primer for these models. I am still very much a novice when it comes to using an airbrush but it means that I can prime my models indoors, unlike using spray cans. To be fair, it’s just as easy, and I’m finding that I get better coverage without ‘soaking’ the model.

So I’m ready to start painting. I thought that I would show a step by step guide to how I paint horses. It’s not a strong point for me and there are plenty of great guides out there to help you but here goes with my method that I have put together from watching and listening to other far more talented painters than I!

German Cam. Black Brown – first coat.

I use three colours layered on top of each other and as I want a brown/chestnut horse I’m starting with a dark brown, German Camouflage black brown 70822. Paint as much of the horse as you can see, leaving the saddle cloth etc. and the mane and tail.

Flat brown 70984

The next step is to dry brush the horse flesh with Flat brown 70984. It’s inevitable that the dry brush will stray onto the saddle etc -I don’t worry at this stage as it will be cleaned up later.

Orange Brown 70981

The next stage is a dry brush of Orange Brown 70981 – again you can see that I haven’t been too careful and over painted painted the reins. The idea is really to ensure that what texture there is modeled into the horse itself, is picked up by the dry brushing.

Mane & tail Black 70950

The next stage is to paint the mane and tail black. I also painted the forelegs on the left horse black as he is going to have socks! You can see that I have made a mistake with the right hand horse and been too heavy with the orange brown on his rump and by his front. The front can be tidied and I might tone down the rear with some ink but for now I’ve stuck with it!

Saddle cloth and furniture Dark Prussian Blue 70899

I’ve now painted the saddle cloth and horse furniture with Dark Prussian Blue – things are looking a bit neater now! I’ve also given the mane and tale a very light dry brush using a light grey to bring out the texture.

Lining on the horse furniture!

The next stage was to paint the white socks on the left horse and I added a white patch to both horses heads. I’ve also painted the eyes black. The Horse furniture is lined with a sky blue 70961. I found it a bit stark so I’ve toned it down with some of the dark Prussian blue. The effect is not subtle, particularly close up but it works for me and the lighting is exaggerating the contrast.

Both horses complete!

That’s just about finished for now. I’ve painted the ‘bits’ in steel and done a bit of tidying. After this picture was taken, I painted the hooves black for a bit more contrast. Once the riders are in place and the bases finished they will look fine for the table.

So that is it. I hope that you will find the article useful and it will help you with developing your own technique.

The Commercial bit

Nearly all of the items that I use in my hobby are from my shop. At the time of writing we send post free to most Worldwide locations!

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If you are looking for glues or Fillers:

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Vallejo Paints are here:

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Napoleonic Zombies!

OK, I know that the purists might find this a bit difficult but I was intrigued by these models that I found in the War Banner office. I just happened to be passing by and caught sight of these conversions and I was immediately curious as to what they were.

Watch out! Zombies!

The models are made and painted by Darren Evans, co-designer of the very popular ‘Gangs of Rome’ game and so I immediately wondered if another game was in the pipeline! The short answer is no. The models were just an experiment but having a chat with Darren it was clear that there was a clever idea here for a fun game for the future. It was a great example of how perhaps people could be persuaded to have ago at Napoleonic’s without the need to invest in all the research required to turn out a Battalion of troops!

The simple back story to the idea is that during the hellish retreat from Moscow, following Napoleons disastrous attempt at invading Russia, it wasn’t just the freezing temperatures, marauding wolves and Cossack’s that threatened the French Army. Soldiers that had been driven to desperation by the cold and hunger had turned to cannibalism. Some of these poor souls, suffering a complete descent into madness, beyond all human decency had mutated into the living dead, Zombies. Refusing to leave this mortal earth they now turned on the living, caring neither whether their prey was French or Russian, just so long as it was warm…

And so the stage was set for a very different type of Napoleonic skirmish game. As you can see Daz hasn’t worried too much about the detail on the uniforms. I doubt very much that those involved in the retreat from Moscow were too concerned about Parade ground dress. Which also begs the question as to why some gamers get so hung up on the ‘right shade’ for a uniform but that’s a question for another blog. As for the Zombies, they really don’t care!

Extra cold steel!

Regarding the conversions, the figures are a mixture of mainly Warlord Games Napoleonic plastics mixed up with some plastic Zombie parts or visa versa, depending on how far the contagion had taken! Daz simply took a scalpel to the figures and hacked away, adding a skeleton arm or leg as appropriate, or a uniformed arm, leg or head to a Zombie torso. There is no need to be too careful, the rough finish just adds to the overall look. When a figure is added to a snowy base, the effect is excellent and immediately evocative of the Russian retreat. It’s only when you look closely at some of the figures that you realise there is a zombie problem!

I wish we had a horse each….

The ‘normal’ French that Darren made to fight the Zombie menace were in the main armed only with hand to hand weapons. Muskets were not reliable in the freezing conditions and the idea was to make the conflict all the more desperate. The French were just fighting their way home and trying to escape the latest sinister menace that had appeared.

The muskets aren’t as effective as a shovel!

As I have said, there are no rules as such for a game. The models were more an exercise in imagination. That said, I suspect it would be straight forward to incorporate a batch of Zombies into one of the many great Napoleonic skirmish games out there. Sharpe Practice and Over the Hills are two that spring to mind. I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to be playing Napoleonic Zombies every week but now and then, I think that this sort of stretch of the imagination brings the fun into gaming.

Fire!

So there you are, Napoleonic Zombies – who would have thought of that? Sometimes it’s great to follow your imagination and who knows what ideas you can come up with. I think that Darren has done a great job with these figures and to see an idea through is impressive to me. Having an idea is one thing, actually making it is quite another! It’s that side of the hobby that I really enjoy and making and converting something a bit different is certainly a break from building my never ending Napoleonic army.

Zombie horde!

But in the meantime, back to Waterloo next week and my latest batch of Nassau….

The Commercial bit

If you would like to have a go at converting, we have a vast range of tools, adhesives, paints, Basing Materials and of course figures in our shop. Just follow the link:

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There’s always time….

With my attendance at Partizan and all the preparation that goes with it (and of course, the tidying up afterwards) my hobby time has been at a premium – but when have I said that before! To be fair, I have made some progress since my last blog. Due to the way that I work on my hobby there is always something on the work bench and I will use any spare time that I have, even 10 minutes to keep things moving along. I am lucky in that I have a permanent place to paint and model, so it is easy to pick up where I last left off and do a bit more to a model.

I was chatting to someone about this at work. Paul, was saying how he was so busy that he didn’t have time to do any painting. The problem was that he was looking for a spare morning or afternoon or even a day when he could really get stuck into his project. I find that such blocks of time are difficult to come by these days and I tend to work in short bursts – sometimes just 2 minutes! Yes, seriously. If the next stage of a model is to slap some texture paste on to the base, then it only takes a couple of minutes to do this. It will take 2 hours for the paste to dry but if I can get this job done just before I leave for work, then I know that it will be dry when I get home and it will take another two minutes to paint the base and so on.

The same goes for the evenings. I may be too weary to spend the evening modelling but just half an hour or an hour gets a lot done, so I just focus on the next step in the modelling process rather than what needs to be done to finish the model, if you see what I mean. So since the last blog, some 14 days ago I have only finished one model/project. As you can see, Kojiro is now completed

Wargames Illustrated Special Edition Models now completed

However, I have made progress on a whole lot of other projects. I mentioned that I would be working on another unit of Nassau infantry. Well over the 14 days they have gone from bare castings, primed and the start of the batch paint.

Nassau Volunteer Jaeger on the work bench.

The (poor) photo above shows the figures 7 days ago. The back rank is primed green and the flesh and hats painted. The front rank (out of focus) shows that I have yet to add any black.

Volunteer Nassau – next step

This photo shows as they are now. ( I promise all 12 are at this stage!). Yes, they are a long way off being finished but I’m happy that progress has been made. I know the next step to be painted – I’ll be painting the gaiters dark grey and then I’ll start the straps with yellow ochre. It wont matter to me whether I do both colours on all figures or just paint the gaiters on just two of them. So long as I am moving forwards, I’m happy. Now I know that 14 days to get to this stage seems like very slow progress but it is progress and I will soon have another unit for my Napoleonic Army.

But that’s not all I’ve done. Taking a break from painting, I’ve assembled the next set that I would like to complete in the Test of Honour Range – Daimyos Retinue.

Daimyos retinue, under construction

The majority of these were assembled over at Jaz’s house one evening. We took a break from gaming and just had a hobby night. I had never thought of modelling as being a social hobby but I was once again surprised as to how much I managed to get done whilst chatting away with my war gaming pals. So Seven mounted Samurai are nearly ready for priming.

Musket men and Sergeant of archers

Building the Samurai cavalry gave me the urge to go back to some spare plastic ashigaru and assemble them as Musket men and I also needed a Sergeant of Archery to complete all the figures that appear on the cards. The musket men will be to go with Nobunaga – as this figure allows you take musket men for just 2 points each, I decided that I wanted at least two bases of them. I also decided to add some extra pouches using green stuff. I’ll never make a sculptor but they look passable enough. Interestingly, I ran out of time and rather than waste the green stuff, I used the excess to make some rocks on the Sergeants base. These models were actually assembled while I was sitting out in the garden with a glass of something cold and chatting to Julie.

British Artillery

Finally, on the work bench are a couple of cannon that I am planning to add to my army. They were kicking around in my lead pile and it wasn’t a long job to get these assembled and ready for priming. I’ll probally prime these at the same time that I prime the Samurai horses, so they will be ready for painting.

So as you can see, I haven’t done much in the last 14 days…

The Commercial bit

You can get most of the modelling supplies that I use from the Arcane Scenery shop. Even better, it’s still post free for most world wide locations!

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More for Test of Honour – Scenery & Musashi!

Having just finished my latest Napoleonic Battalion, I fancied a change. A recent post on the superb Test of Honour Facebook group had inspired me to send for some plastic Bonsai trees from China. The Bonzai trees make excellent full sized trees for a Test of Honour game. As a bit of a digression, I am usually not too fussed about the scale of my trees in war games, particularly when playing the larger battles. The trees on a wargames table are there to represent an area of wood, not to be a scale model.

However, Test of Honour is a skirmish game and a tree that is more in keeping with the scale of the figures and buildings seemed attractive. Even if the leaves are a bit on the large size, the overall impression would be of a specimum tree, as seen in Japanese gardens.

Plastic Bonsai tree

As you can see, the tree comes in a nice plastic pot so it was a simple task to cut it out and using a glue gun, stick it to an old DVD. I used ‘Seven Steps to a Better Life’ a free DVD from a newspaper and clearly nonsense, as none of the steps included ‘spend more time wargaming’. You can, of course, use any suitable DVD or CD…In fact, I think that would be an interesting survey…’Which DVD/CD is more suitable for scenery bases than watching/listening to! I digress once again, but at least I am recycling my rubbish!

Tree attached to DVD

The next job was to slap some filler (Polyfilla or other decorators filler is ideal) over the base and when dry, I covered this with Vallejo Dark Earth Textured paste. Incidentally, the temple dog in the picture is from the Ainsty Castings range. They do a set of two of these and also make a very nice Sampan – if you haven’t discovered Ainstey Castings the link is below and they have some very useful stuff! Once the paste was dry, I gave the whole thing a good coat of paint – I use emulsion for scenery, it’s cheaper. The base is now ready for detailing.

Bonsai tree based and ready for detailing

The next stage is to dry brush a highlight onto the textured earth and to add some scatter and of course, some grass tufts and flowers. While I was highlighting the base, I also used the same mix to dry brush the tree trunk to bring out the detail. You could really spend a bit of time improving the tree with a quick spray or dry brush but time was at a premium and I’m happy with the overall look for a piece of wargames scenery that I hope will see plenty of use.

The completed bonzai tree based and ready for the table.

Each of the stages above only take a few minutes but the drying time is the issue. So I tend to have another project on the go when I am making a piece like this. As you can see from the picture above, I am working on a set of ‘Giants in Miniature’ figures from Wargames Illustrated. The figures represent the famous duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro and are a limited edition of 500 sets. If you would like one the link to Wargames Illustrated site is below.

Miyamoto Musashi on the work bench

The figure is straight forward to paint as he is all in black, so while waiting for my scenery piece to dry, I got on with him. Sasaki is in the background. ready for his coat of paint! You can see the finished Musashi in the picture above based and ready to fight his rival Sasaki. The final picture is a very poor shot of the two of them fighting in front of the Sarissa shrine, with the Geisha spy looking on. Sasaki is yet to be finished, requiring a coat of matt varnish, some extra highlighting and of course, basing.

Musashi and Kojiro clash!

As I have said, modelling time has been at a premium these last couple of weeks but I should have Sasaki Kojiro finished for the weekend and he will complete my triology of limited edition figures from Wargames illustrated. I’ve also got a couple more of the Bonzai trees to base, but now that I know what I’m doing , these will be a quick little project. It’s back to Nassau Infantry after that!

The Commercial bit

You can find Ainstey Castings site here:

Ainstey Castings

You can get the Musashi and Kojiro ( there are 45 sets left at the time of writing) here:

GIANTS IN MINIATURE

You can visit the Arcane Scenery shop for all Vallejo paints, textures and basing products – we send post free! We have a great Samurai section and carry all of the Sarissa Japanese range.

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As regards the Bonzai tree, you will have to search ebay! However, we are looking to import a batch from China – they will be a little more expensive but we are looking to see if we can bundle them with some buildings. If you follow us on Facebook, you will be the first to know!

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Happy Modelling!

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks!

My Christmas present from my wife this year was a two day course at Barwells in Leicester. The topic, ‘How to use an Airbrush’. After over 50 years of modelling and painting, you would have thought that I was familiar with the technique but apart from one failed attempt with a cheap humbrol airbrush and canned air back in the ’80s, I have never been able to get my head around the idea. I have watched others and picked up a bit of knowledge from reading, you tube, and talking to customers and suppliers but the truth is I never use one. It seemed like I didn’t have time to stop using a paint brush and learn a new technique from scratch. I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be of use, now that I have moved from 40K to historical subjects.

To put things into context, I even had bought a complete set up from Expo but it has sat in my garage under the work bench for over two years and the model air colours that I had bought have been used with a standard brush. As an aside – Vallejo model air are very good for brushing!

The opportunity to go on a course and have someone to show me how to use an airbrush seemed to be a good solution. I had seen the Barwells stand at a couple of war games shows and loitered around watching Steve from Barwells demo-ing the products and I mentioned to My wife that perhaps a course would help. As buying Christmas presents for me is difficult, Julie was more than happy with the idea and I was booked in to the ‘Airbrushing for Beginners’ course on the weekend of 24th/25th February.

The course is run by the appropriately named Steve Puffer of Barwells and it is made clear that on day one you don’t need to bring anything but yourself. Everything is supplied, including unlimited coffee and chocolate biscuits, a buffet lunch and of course the Airbrushes and paint!

The set up at Barwells

After a friendly welcome from Steve, the day began with a short informal talk on how an airbush works and it’s component parts. As there are only 6 people on the course, there’s plenty of time for questions and Steve is well able to get around and check how you are doing when it comes to the practical exercises. Steve has spent his career using an airbrush in the car and bike customisation industry, so his knowledge is not only extremely comprehensive but also very practical and down to earth. He quickly dispels the ‘myths and magic’ that sometimes go with this aspect of the hobby and emphasises that the airbrush is just a tool to do a job, not very different to a paint brush and with the same degree of care will give superb results.

With the basic instructions and techniques demonstrated, ( I wont repeat them all here – you will have to go to the course!), we were unleashed with our airbrushes and the practical work started. For me, this was the great benefit of the course. We started by practicing the various ‘airbrush strokes’ on paper. The beauty being that as well as a great set up, we had plenty of time, materials and Steve’s enthusiastic coaching to keep us focused. If I had been at home, I would have lost patience and picked up my paint brush to do some modelling!

Once we were reasonably competent, the next challenge was to paint a Demo piece shown below. We had a picture to follow as a guide, but we were encouraged to use whatever colours we fancied!

Test in progress!

Throughout the day, Steve was on hand to give encouragement as well as share ideas. At the end of the session, we had all produced something that looked a bit like the original but more importantly, we had gained confidence when it came to using the airbrush.

First days work completed – not bad for the first time with an airbrush!

Onto day two, and we had the choice of either bringing our own models to paint or we could use some of the many sample models in the studio to work on. I elected to bring my own as I wanted to see just what I could achieve with an air brush. The day started with a bit more tuition and a fun exercise where we had to see how many colours we could get onto a model in 15 minutes.

Chaos Biker with chaotic colour scheme!

The exercise was of course another clever way of getting us familiar with our new tool and demonstrated just how quickly we could change colours.

It was now down to the serious business of working on the models that we had brought. My main subject was a 1/48th scale Panther made by Blitzkrieg models. I was using the studio colour range but I had help from one of the other course members, Rodger, who knew his German camouflage colours!

I started out with a bit of pre shading, a technique previously covered in one of the ‘coaching sessions’ with Steve.

Pre shading the Panther

The next task was to build the base colour – I perhaps not only underestimated how little I needed to recoat the model but also misjudged how the colour would dry – more patience and experience will sort this!

Base coat on!

The next step was to airbrush on the brown and green camouflage. As you can see, I was perhaps too heavy handed and I should have taken some reference material rather than work from memory!

Camouflage on!

At this point, I would have been reaching for a paint brush to add some detail but Steve wouldn’t allow anyone near a brush! So I went on to paint the rubber road wheels with an airbrush and using another technique that we had learnt, added mud splashes and then ‘dirtied down’ the top areas to represent wear and tear. As usual, I was a bit heavy handed and over enthusiastic but I got the idea. In future less will be more!

Completed Panther

As you can see from the picture above, I also added some basic markings using a mask Supplied by Barwells. As well as painting the Panther, I also had a go at painting a couple of miniatures to see just what could be achieved with an airbrush. The 28mm Prussian Landwehr model was a limited success, the close ups below showing the over spray. That said, for a first attempt, the results show some promise and whilst it would be beyond my skill to complete a figure, it looks as though most of the block painting of the major colours could be achieved.

Close up of Prussian Landwehr

Rear view of airbrushed figure.

The limber horse was also an experiment and I think that there is definitely potential to paint horses using the airbrush as the shading is quite subtle. Once the straps and harness are tidied up, I think the horse will look acceptable.

Airbrushed Horse

Air brushed horse – it looks better on this side!

Finally, the other piece that I took was a Tamiya V-1 rocket that I had quickly put together on the Friday night before I went to Barwells. In this case, I just managed to prime the model but I must comment that using an Airbrush to prime your models is much superior to blasting them with a spray can! The finish was excellent – the only problem was that some of my heavy handed use of the glue showed up!

V-1 primed and ready to paint!

So a busy weekend came to an end and what a productive one it was too! My next challenge is now to re -jig my painting station in the garage to accommodate my new airbrush and to keep using it. There’s no question that it is an ideal way of priming even the smallest of models and of course, spray varnishing them once they are done. Incidentally, using water based paints through an airbrush is quite suitable for indoors work – there were six of us working in the same room without any ill effects and none of the smell that you would get with using a spray can. No more going outside into the garden to prime or varnish my models!

If you are thinking of trying airbrushing for your self, I can heartily recommend that a course at Barwells is well worth the investment. You wont become an expert in two days but you will gain a tremendous amount of experience, and thanks to Steve Puffers enthusiasm and practical knowledge of the subject, I have no doubt that you will become competent enough to start to get the best out of this method of finishing your models.

If you would like to attend a course, you can find all of the details at Barwells Web page here:

BARWELLS BODYWORKS

As well as courses, Barwells have an amazing range of Airbrushes, accessories and spares, as well as the Badger recommended range of paints.

We stock a limited range of Airbrush equipment and accessories as well as a good range of primers, cleaners thinners etc here

AIRBRUSH ACCESSORIES

You can see the range of airbrush ready Vallejo paints and primers here:

Vallejo Airbrush Paints

As always, I hope that you enjoy your modelling as much as I do!

Pauper Soldiers

I am gradually working my way through the Test of Honour boxed sets. Having completed all the figures in the Starter Box, Bandits and Brigands and most recently, the Samurai Cavalry, my next project was the Pauper Soldiers set. I very much like the main metal figure, Lord Senzo ‘The Thorn’ although I have to mention that the couple of occasions that I used him in a game, his accuracy with the bow led me to christen him something else – nothing to do with my dice rolling of course… I digress, back to the modelling!

As well as Lord Senzo, the box contains two sprues of ‘Missile ashigaru’, enough to build ten bowmen and musket men. The cards supplied also enable you to field groups or single models of Bowmen or Musket men. I decided that I wanted to build 9 bowmen to go with Senzo. It seemed logical that as he was armed with a bow, his retainers would follow suit. A sort of Japanese version of Robin Hood and his merry men! The tenth model would be used as a musket man but I have plans for fielding a force of Musket men and if they come to fruition, I will post these in a separate blog article.

Lord Senzo ready for priming.

Lord Senzo himself was pretty straight forward to put together as he is essentially a one piece metal moulding. I made a couple of changes though. By carefully cutting an arrow away from one of the plastic arms on the sprue, I was able to add an arrow to his bow. I also wanted to alter the angle at which he was firing, so by adding a small piece of slate to the base, I super glued Senzo to this. as with the other archers that I have made, I will add a bowstring once painting is complete.

Kneeling Archers

The Pauper Soldiers come with a selection of metal heads – some with hats and some with separate hats. I decided that I would leave the ones without hats bareheaded and hang the hats from the belt. I’m not sure whether this was the idea, but I quite like the effect. Two of the kneeling archers are aiming high. It was a case of finding the bow arms that looked about right for this pose and slightly modifying the arrow arm by adding a sliver of sprue to the shoulder to adjust the angle. Any gaps were filled with Vallejo plastic putty, which is easier and faster to use than green stuff for this small job.

Adjusting the angle of the draw!

You can just about make out the inserts in the picture above – it looks messy but cleans up OK! Incidentally, I’ve cheated as you only get two kneeling figures in the set – I had a spare donated by a friend who didn’t build everything in the starter set.

Standing archers

The standing archers are fairly straight forward to put together but I have made some slight modifications. I’ve used the legs that are have feet at right angle to each other and made sure that they are spread as wide as possible. There is no need to fill the slight gap but I did need to flatten the waist area slightly. The middle figure is holding a second arrow, ready to reload quickly! It’s a pose that I have seen in many pictures of Japanese archers. The spare arrow came by carefully cutting it away from the arm on the sprue. I’ve used that arm, now without an arrow, with the man on the far right. The idea is that the arrow has just been fired and when I fit the bow string this should look more obvious. I’ve also tried to tilt the bow down as though the tension has now gone.

Bowmen Reloading

The two bowmen reloading have been made using the left arm that is designed to be used to hold the musket. By simply glueing it so that it is positioned reaching over the shoulder, it looks convincing enough. Of course the other trick is to glue the quiver in place right under the hand! The bowman on the left has had a bit of surgery on his leg to make it look as though he is supporting his body as he leans back to get an arrow. It’s a small modification to cut off the legs and re-join it at an angle. As before, I have used Vallejo plastic putty to fill the gap. If you are not familiar with this product, it is idea for filling gaps in plastic models, dries quickly and is easily sanded and primed. You use it straight for the bottle or tube with no mixing and the drying time is very fast. The final note is that I have again used a piece of slate on the base of the right hand figure to change the angle of his pose.

Running bowman.

The final figure of the ninth bowman is pretty much a straight build except that I have altered the angle of the bow arm to one side and as a result, the arrow is resting on the ‘wrong’ side of the bow. As I’m not an archer, I’m not sure how realistic this is but it makes the pose more dynamic. The other point to note is that I have given him just one sword. This is true for all of the plastic pauper archers that I have made. I had originally thought to leave the swords off but decided that even paupers would have some sort of sword, so I have either given them one of the ‘extra’ short swords from the samurai sprue or simply cut the small sword away from the double Katana that is supplied.

Pauper soldiers, primed and ready for painting.

Here is the finished group, primed and ready for painting. I’m sorry that the picture doesn’t show the detail but it gives you the idea as to how they will look. I have a colour scheme in mind that will hopefully make them look a bit like pauper soldiers – more of a drab scheme than I have used for my other archers. I’ll update you with my progress in a future blog.

The Commercial bit.

If you would like to have a go at building your own Pauper soldier warband, all of the products that I use are available from the Arcane Scenery shop and with the exception of aerosols are supplied post free to most worldwide locations at the time of writing. Here are some links:

SAMURAI AND TEST OF HONOUR CATEGORY

GLUES AND ADHESIVES

FILLERS, INCLUDING VALLEJO PLASTIC PUTTY

BASING MATERIALS INCLUDING SLATE

Samurai Cavalry

If you have been following the Arcane Scenery Facebook page, you will be aware that I have been working on the Test of Honour Mounted Samurai set. In this picture heavy blog post, I’ve pulled most of the pictures together to give a running commentary on how I finished the band. I haven’t detailed all the paint colours but I use Vallejo model colour throughout combined with the Army painter ink wash range.

Mounted Samurai set assembled

You can see that I have assembled the full set before I started to paint them. I already had an idea as to how they would look. It might sound a bit daft, but when working on a project like this I have a sort of story or narrative in my head as to how the warband should look. You will get the idea as the finished warband appears. Just as an aside, I have made a mistake when assembling the horses tails – I’ll leave the reader to figure out what it is but I decided to leave things as they were…

I modified an GW Elven horse with green stuuf

I modified an GW Elven horse with green stuff

The mounted Samurai set comes with six plastic samurai and their horses plus an extra metal character model, the widow Takeda Naoko, which means that you have a ‘spare’ samurai. I decided to use a spare GW horse and using green stuff, it was a simple job to add some samurai trimming! There were now seven Samurai in the warband.

Onna Bugeisha Takeda Naocko

I started the painting with the Widow Takeda Naoko. It’s worth pointing out now, that my research regarding colours is limited to the warlord web site, my pinterest board ( link below) and googling ‘mounted samurai’, so don’t take any of my colours as ‘accurate’. I save all that malarkey for my Napoleonics and just want to have fun painting these models as the mood takes me. In my mind, I decided that a widow should have black armour and I put her on one of the more sedate horses. Her pose is not as dynamic as some that Warlord produce and it looked to me as she was watching over proceedings as her retinue wreaked vengeance!

Onna Bugeisha Takeda Naoko complete

The next two models that I painted were the widows immediate bodyguard. In my imagination, she would have two faithful retainers who would put an arrow through anyone that came too close! I also wanted a bit of Hollywood, so one of the archers is firing from a rearing horse.

Samurai mounted archers

To contrast against the Widows horse, I decided to paint these two on matching white horses. I am also using my new favourite red, Vallejo burnt red 70814. The archer on the rearing horse just needed a bit of filling at waist level to get him to sit upright in the saddle.

Samurai Archer on rearing horse

The next picture shows the three models together as I had imagined them. The bowstrings on the archers are made using stretched sprue – its an old modelling technique that I have covered in a previous blog – again, the link is below.

Takeda Naoko and bodyguard.

The next model was the ‘lead’ Samurai in another group of three that would make up the retinue. I planned to have these all in Black Armour with gold trim. The lead model is on a rearing horse and I thought that a light brown horse would look good.

The next samurai in the group

This picture also shows my preferred basing method. I use Vallejo dark earth textured paste and add some small rocks as detail. I then paint the whole thing with Vallejo chocolate brown and dry brush with chocolate brown and Iraqi sand mix. For the rocks, I also added some white to get a brighter finish.

Five mounted samurai in the band.

The basing is finished with some woodland scenic scatter, some Noch flowering tufts and my new favourite thing, Gamers grass long tufts. You can see the fifth Samurai on a brown horse, and in the next picture, the sixth on a similar horse.

Now six Samurai in the warband

It’s not clear but I have added the flags on the back of these three Samurai and using decals, added the Takeda mon to show their allegiance. I also used different colours on the horse decoration as what I hoped would be a subtle way of differentiating the different allegiances in the warband.

The final horse in progress.

I wanted the final or ‘bonus Samurai’ to be different again. With a bit of a nod towards the movies, this one would be all red on a dappled grey horse carrying the Takeda Colours into battle. Perhaps he is the Brother or son of the Widow Takeda Naoko charging to avenge the death of his Father/Brother in law?

Takeda Charge!

I was worried that perhaps I had used too much red so decided that the banner would have to be a different colour – a picture on google helped here.

Takeda banner added

The last couple of pictures show the warband complete.

Takeda Naoko’s warband complete

Takeda Naoko’s warband ride out to seek vengegance!

I started the project on 23 December 2017 and finished just this weekend. Painting these models have given me a great deal of pleasure as I have lost myself in the stories that I have imagined as I painted the models. I’m now looking forward to the battles that they will fight!

Below are some useful links, including links to products in the Arcane Scenery Shop. Remember we post free to most countries in the world.

SAMURAI RANGE

VALLEJO RANGE

ARMY PAINTER INKS

GAMERS GRASS

The joys of Sprue Stretching

MY PINTEREST SAMURAI BOARD

Fit to Paint.

I have noticed the number of times that I have moaned about not having enough time to do all the painting and modelling that I have lined up. It’s somewhat of a thread that runs through my blog. I guess that most in the hobby that have full time jobs and a family are under similar time pressures. Now that I have clocked up my ‘three score years’ and have started to move into the ‘ten’, time seems to be just a bit more precious than the carefree days of youth. The other factor, of course, is health. I am fortunate enough to enjoy generally good health and apart from the usual colds and coughs that go around and self induced indigestion, I fair pretty well. However, over the last couple over years I noticed that my BMI has moved from being healthily overweight into obese territory. Even with all of my scepticism for the ‘nanny’s of this world who insist that they know what’s best for us, I had to admit that something must be done.

Having given up on trying to grow taller, it seems that my only option to bring my BMI down is to lose some weight. Matters were brought into focus by the approach of the festive season and I noticed that I was already over my last Christmas peak weight. My excuse is that I missed out on a holiday this year, so didn’t bother with my usual attempt to get beach fit. In my case, this means losing just enough weight to avoid attracting the attention of Japanese whaling ships whilst out swimming or being dragged off the beach back into the water by green activists! It’s fair to say that I model myself on the guy in the Southern Comfort Ad, except, of course, for the moustache…

The up shot is that I have been spending some of my hobby time out walking in the evening. Just a couple of miles at a steady pace – my jogging days are long gone- and very gradually, the weight is coming off. At this rate, I will be back down to just being over weight and ready to take on the Turkey, Christmas pud and all that Christmas brings. I guess that if helps avoid Type 2 Diabetes and some of the other issues that come with carrying a bit extra, then I’m hopeful that the time spent exercising will buy a few more years in which I can finish my Napoloeonic Army…

Perry’s British Ammunition Wagon

Talking of which, as you can see from the above picture, I have now finished the Perry’s British Ammunition wagon. Once I had cleaned up the casting, painting it was relatively quick to do. The next job is of course to paint the horses and crew and of course base it, which I suspect will be a bit of a longer task. It doesn’t help that I am also distracted by the new releases from the Test of Honour range. The new Bandits and Brigands set is also on the work bench and I have just about finished the first model.

First Bandit on the work bench

I decided to copy the painted example on the Warlord web site, using predominantly Vallejo Buff to paint his clothes ( Kimono? Pyjamas?). Here he is all based up.

First Bandit based

As you can see from the work bench, the rest of his gang are now primed and ready to paint. And yes, that’s a DeeZee giraffe in the background also underway.

You’re having a giraffe!

What with DeeZee models, Test of Honour, Napoleonics, my Caribbean project and my Dark ages warbands, I guess that I need all the time that I can get. I’ll keep walking, I need to be fit to paint!

Remember, If you are looking for anything to help with your hobby, visit my shop:

ARCANE SCENERY AND MODELS

Most of the items that we sell are available post free to most worldwide locations at the time of writing.

Shine a light!

I continue to bit and bob between one project and another. The problem is there are just too many great games and figures out there! Test of Honour, being a case in point. It’s got an addictive quality to it that keeps pulling me back into it’s world. Before it’s release I had no intention of ever building a Samurai or Japanese army. I now find that I have an increasing collection of both figures and scenery. If I’m not expanding my scenery collection, I’m looking at the next set of miniatures to paint. All of this when I am supposed to be finishing my Napoleonic project…

The latest set from Warlord – just too tempting…

The latest release to catch my attention was the Bandits and Brigands set, the first set that is all new metal models from Warlord. I had intended to get some Samurai Cavalry but the figures in the Bandits set are just superb – possibly the best release of the year! No doubt once I get into painting these, I’ll complete a proper review of the box set but for the time being, lets just say that that I am smitten!

The scenario book that comes with the set includes some night fighting scenarios and the possibility of adding Lanterns to my playing board. Of course, Sarissa make a really nice set of lanterns so I decided to start here. It seemed a shame not to install lights in the lanterns but I was looking for a simple solution. That solution was found at my Granddaughters Halloween party – flickering battery operated tea lanterns! So here’s my progress so far.

Sarissa Lantern Set

The Sarrisa Lantern set includes four lantern that are very straight forward to put together – regardless, I still suggest that you follow the instruction sheet as it will ensure you don’t make any mistakes!

Hole cut into MDF base

The only modification that I needed to make was to cut a hole throught the MDF lantern base as shown. MDF is a fairly soft material, so once I had drilled a pilot hole using a simple hand drill, I used a sharp knife to carve the hole to the size required.

LED Tealights – batteries included

I grabbed a couple of packs of tea lights from the local BM bargain store. The plain ones were just 99p – the posh Halloween ones, twice the price at £1.99 – still a bargain! As it turned out, the cheap ones were the best. My first attempt involved removing the outside of the tea light to see if I could incorprate it into the lantern base.

First attempt – base of tea light removed.

It worked OK but I would have needed to built a new cover around the base and the on/off switch wasn’t quite as easy to use. Whilst fiddling around with the cheaper lights, I found that they actually looked good without the modification. They were a perfect fit. I didn’t even have to glue the Lantern to the tea lights – they simply just sat on the top. I guess you could glue them but I now have the option of using them with or without the lights.

Tea lights added intact!

Although they are standing a bit taller than I first wanted, I thought that the effect was OK and certainly saved time. To cover the tea lights and blend them in, I simply sprayed the whole assembly using a textured spray from B&Q. The MDF takes the spray well as do the tea lights and the result is a stone effect. Just remember to use a piece of masking tape to cover the light bulb when spraying!

Lanterns sprayed with texture spray.

Just to finish things off, I decided lightly dry brush the lanterns with Vallejo Iraqi Sand 70819 and then to add some ‘moss’. This was simply woodlands scenic green scatter stuck on using a watered down PVA glue mix.

Lanterns with moss added!

As you can see from the final pictures I added a bit more moss for effect. I think that these make a nice addition to my scenery box and I will get on and finish the other two lanterns although I might just be tempted to see if I can make the lower profile versions without too much extra effort!

Lanterns on the gaming table

Close up of Lanterns

As usual the links to most of the products used are below – you will have to search out your own tealights & textured spray but a trip to B&M bargains will help! At the time of writing, all products are POST FREE to most worldwide locations.

You can see our range of Test of Honour products and Samurai scenery and accessories here:

SAMURAI

Happy modelling!

Desert Island Discs

The Caribbean project is still progressing but for a change, I decided to make some scenery. It should make the games more interesting – it’s always nice to add a bit of local flavour. It also makes sense as I am now well into writing my rules set for the Caribbean and a bit of scenery will make play testing more fun.

The obvious choice was to make some scenery with palms trees. It’s a nice straight forward project and requires the minimum of material. For the bases, I used an idea stolen from one of my gaming colleagues and recycled a couple of old DVD’s that I had kicking around. I simply covered them in a layer of Milliput and pressed in the palm trees – Arcane Scenery, of course! To add a bit of extra interest, I placed a few rocks and some smaller jungle plants into the milliput and then let it dry.

Jungle scenery on the work bench

Close up of Scenery in progress

There’s no need to cover all of the disc with milliput, just enough to give some height and to secure the trees. I let the milliput dry over night.

The next stage was simply to cover the base in Vallejo dark earth texture paste. I really like this stuff and use it on most of my basing. It’s quite robust when dry and because it seems to retain some flexilibity, it doesn’t crack or flake in the same way that say, Plaster of Paris or Polyfiller does. I just used a light skim and it doesn’t matter too much if you get it on the trees or rocks. It wipes off easily whilst still wet.

Vallejo texture paste added

Once again, this was left to dry overnight. The next stage was to paint the bases. I have been using Vallejo paint for this job but remembered that in the past I had been using a Matt emulsion to paint my scenery. Sure enough, I still had the tin on the shelf, so the bases were painted in ‘Delhi Bazaar’! Using matt emulsion is a much cheaper way of painting war games scenery than using your best Vallejo paint. Keep an eye out for match pots at your local DIY shop. The irony is that they are more likely to be selling off the darker brown colours cheaply, as whilst these are ideal for wargames scenery, they don’t look so good on your living room wall…

There’s no problem in mixing emulsion with Vallejo though. I used a mix of emulsion and Iraqi Sand to dry brush the bases and bring out the detail – you do not need very much paint for the dry brushing stage.

Bases dry brushed.

I also repainted the rocks. I often leave them in their natural state but decided to give them a coat of paint to bring out the detail. It is a simple matter to paint them dark grey and then dry brush them in lighter shades. You can also see my latest batch of Rebels that are nearly ready for the table. The nice thing about these scenery projects is that you can get on with other stuff whilst each stage is drying.

Woodland Scenics Scatter added to the bases.

Once the paint was dry, I brushed on some PVA glue and added some Woodland scenic green scatter and a few tufts of grass. I kept the grass tufts to a minimum. Although a bit more vegetation would be more realistic, I wanted space on the bases for my figures when playing!

Jungle scenery ready for the table.

So that’s the first of my scenery done. I will add a few more of these to my scenery collection, using some of the different type of palms and trees that we have. I think that using CD’s/DVD’s is quite a good way of basing your scatter scenery, so long as you are not ruining your favourite film or TV boxed set! The effect can be perhaps a bit uniform but placing two or three together makes this less obvious. I also intend to make a few textured bases in MDF so that I can create ‘area scenery’ for the table – more on this in a later blog, perhaps.

If you would like to make some similar scenery, you will have to supply your own DVD’s but we do have most of the other items used and at the time of writing, send out post free to most worldwide locations.

Here are the links:

PALM TREES

MILLIPUT

VALLEJO TEXTURES

WOODLAND SCENICS SCATTER

PVA GLUE

TRENT MINIATURES CARIBBEAN RANGE

All Square – part two

Earlier this year, fellow gamer and modeller Chris Kirk showed how he intended to build an infantry square to use as a marker when playing Black Powder. You can see the first blog article here where Chris explained how he would convert the models:

ALL SQUARE – PART ONE

The model is now finished and as you can see, it looks very nice indeed!

British Infantry Square

Chris decided to paint the figures as 27th Regiment, the Inniskillings. The 27th is famous for the stand that they made at Waterloo. Towards the end of the battle, they had moved up to take position just to the left of the crossroads, some 200 hundred yards behind La Haye Sainte which had by now fallen to the attacking French. They were ordered by Sir James Kempt not to abandon their position and to hold at all costs as their presence would stop the French infantry from further penetration of the British centre.

The 27th stand

This left them terribly exposed to both the French tirailleurs who had taken position on the small knoll to the side of La Haye Sainte and from the French artillery that had moved up in support. The casualty rate for the 27th was horrendous. Without moving a step the regiment lost over two thirds of it’s men, the highest casualty rate for any British Battalion that fought at Waterloo. The Battalion was commanded at the Battle by a Captain, John Hare. There were 19 officers in total, of which sixteen were killed or wounded. Of the total of 747 men in the battalion, 493 were killed or wounded in a matter of hours and yet still they stood in position, holding the line.

The Square – close up!

The lady in the model represent one of the remarkable stories of Waterloo. In the midst of the carnage unfolding in the square was a soldiers wife, who though pregnant, had refused to go to the rear and stayed with her husband. She busied herself attending to the wounded until she herself was struck in the leg by a shell splinter. Her poor husband faired even worse, losing both of his arms.

The Square holds firm

The model, as well as being a practical gaming piece will serve as a small reminder of the bravery of the 27th. The idea of such a model is that it will be used on the table and not just appear in a glass cabinet. Chris and I had quite a discussion about such ‘practical dioramas’ that allow the gamer to stray beyond just churning out regiments to fill the battlefield. The square marker is just one of these ideas – others will follow!

Safely in the Cabinet

Jonas Jones Part 3 – Napoleons Foot Guides

Napoleons Guides, converted Trent Miniatures

Once again, I’m happy to bring a guest post from a regular contributor ‘Jonas Jones’. Jonas likes to look for interesting and obscure subjects to model using the Trent Miniatures range as the start point. Now that should give you an idea of who Jonas is! Converting metal miniatures can be quite a challenge, unless you are talented with the ‘green stuff’. However, sometimes a simple head swap can lead to some interesting options. It is in this field that Jonas excels. In the first of his articles, ‘Off with his head #1’, a complete decapitation was required. OWHH#2 was more of a trepanning than a complete decapitation, but with the same end in view. In this short piece Jonas just replaces the headgear rather than the full head!

The Trent Miniatures Legere in Mirletons (FLe01) are very nice figures in their own right, but cut (saw) off the Mirleton and replace it with a plumed Bicorn and you will have a passable likeness for Napoleons Foot Guides as they appeared in Northern Italy and the early days of Egypt. The appearance of the Foot Guides in Italy would be a bit of a ‘what if?’ as Napoleon left them behind to guard his base HQ. They were only a couple of companies strong at this point. However, at the time of the invasion of Egypt, they would have been built up into a small battalion, more than 400 strong.

Later in Egypt, they were issued with a new uniform, like the rest of the army. For the early months they would look quite resplendent in green coats, red breeches and tall red plumes. Jonas has chosen to vary the breeches on some of the figures – a reflection of the rigors of campaigning! The plumed bicorne that Jonas has used has come from one of Toussaint Louvertures officers in pack CAR08 but a spare plastic one from a Victrix or similar set would do – you may just have to build the plume up. All of the figures shown have been painted according to information from Knotel Prints.

So just enough of an excuse to build a small unit of guides to field with your army and confound your opponent when he questions the colour scheme of your new unit! Regardless as to whether Napoleons Guides is to your taste, perhaps there are other units that you can make with a simple head swap. Sometimes, a simple conversion is faster than waiting for you favourite figure manufacturer to produce the unit that you need to finish your army!

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