Rounding it off

Once the temple had been assembled it was undercoated in a light grey and then dry-brushed tp within an inch of it's life.

Various Games-Workshop colours including Deneb Stone, Bleached Bone and Skull White being the main ones. I also used various inks - to emphasise cracks and changes of surface.





Then I started to add greenery.
Normally when we see classical ruins they have been sanitised by the Department of Works (or the local equivalent). Normally vegetation climbs up, through and around the stone work. Grasses and shrubs get seeded in crevices where columns meets floors etc.

So with the assistance of some Woodland scenics poseable trees....

A little more...

With the floor done it was time to start the details to the back of the frieze. Because this was a plain drop casting there was no detail on the back of this piece. I assumed it would have been plastered and painted and there would have been some remains from the roof beams.

So out came the gouges and awls and I started in on the details. Some stone coursesb were added and a roof beam.



The effect was pleasing so I started painting it, a dark brown. Next up was a frieze - copied from a clip art printed out small and appliqued on using white glue.


Curiously the application of white glue caused the paint under to crackle and split. Which I highlighted and left as it looked great.

Overall then quite close to what I looked for. The skeleton is from Caesar Miniatures - it's difficult to look at this and NOT think about Jason and the Argonauts.

A bit of a fixer up-er,

Scotia Ruined Temple

Bought this in 2008 and did it up for my WAB armies.

Started off by making a floor by using 'blown' vynyl that I had scrounged from work. I glued the base pieces to it and scribed the details of the floor. I wanted to get the ruined nature but not sanitised, but it is - in theory - only a couple of hundred years after the tempole was last used. There are broken paviors and some have been lifted out of place. I painted the floor at this point because I wanted to make sure I had access to it.



This image has a MiniArt figure in place to give a sense of scale.

Xmas plans

So hopefully I will log some time with the old paintbrush. The question is what am I going to be doing?

1) the Celt army in previous posts needs a good shove along the road.
2) Zvezda cuirassiers - I waited so long for them. Some of the horses are done - just need to get on and do a few more.
3) Various boats.
Okay that's a good few bits to think on.

I am also planning a new Sassanian army. For WAB, it will be an early Sassanid, not a 'beardy' roadroller 7thC army.
2 or 3 units of cataphracts
1 unit of clibanarii
2 units of light persian cavalry
1 unit of Parthian lights - with persian influe nces to their dress.
HOOOOOGE unit of levy infantry
2 units of bowmen
Skirmishers to suit.

On and 2 elephants.

All figures will be Hat,based on their Sassanians due out next year.

Hairy Beasts

Some work I did on the Italeri Mongols (set - Italeri 6214 Mongol Cavalry) - http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1255 . Or rather the bactrian camel drummers in that set.

I think this is a really nice set of figures. Not that good if you want to build an army but nice anyway.

Well, the camels in the set are a bit runty and they're way too clean. Bactrians as a species are HAIRY like so:-



So it's out with the Greenstuff.





With the camels looking a lot better - out come the paints:-




And

Frank Frazetta RIP

Yesterday marked the death at the age of 82 of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta.

He was the boss, the daddy of fantasy artists.

First pictures of a new 'celt/gallic' army in 1/72 for Warhammer Ancient Battles.

I've wanted to one of these for a while and had some Revell Celts lurking about in my attic. Some new figures due to hit the market prompted me to start, though I'm not trying too hard at the moment.

So when I though about the army, like I do with any army I often start with the general. In this case Boudicca, there'll be a normal general - and I might muck about with that as well but at the moment I'm working on Bou.

I wanted a bit of this:-


And a bit of this:-


So I needed some Hat Celts and they do a queen - I tweaked the figure a bit with some greenstuff - epoxy putty.







I'm adding some dogs to the queen's chariot base - these I got from Gripping Beast and really they're for 28mm figures but they make great 'heroic' wolf/war hounds.
These two are part of the warhound pack with suitably energetic and nekkid handler.

Hi.


Nothing to see right now. Will be soon enough.

A few pictures and works-in-progress of some of my models and stuff.

Keep checking back.

Be nice to see you.