Assyrian army

Assyrian army

Tuesday 21 December 2021

Add a few camels to the mix.

 All that sorting out a while back wasn't just about finding metal to reuse, it also meant finding and putting together assorted figures from all over the place for further use. One thing that surprised me was the number of camels I had all over, including some that had already been 'recycled' by the Dettol.

So here I am with two more camel units.

I'm starting with another unit of the Funcken style camels, though this time on armoured camels.

There are 2 Garrison armoured camels - one in the early '20mm' range, one in the later '25mm' range. They are so similar in size that I'm just mixing them in the same unit! The front one is the 25mm version!

The howdahs started life as 15mm squares on a piece of card...

I think these pictures give a good idea of the construction method... the 1mm or so cut is because this is the piece that goes on the inside when gluing the two faces together - they don't want to be the same size. If you try it, it soon becomes obvious why!

Note that the howdah has no floor. It sits directly on the camel's back - if there was a floor it would sit too high. Likewise, so would the crew. So the howdah is glued directly on the camel and any crew will be glued in place directly on the camel.

So here are the 6 camels ready to be undercoated then sprayed sand/camel coloured. I'll probably glue a shield on 2 on the sides first.

The next lot is a full size unit of Arab camels. Both riders and camels have been reclaimed from other uses, the riders being one of my conversions - basically a general purpose horse archer. These still need a bit of paint removing, I thought it would certainly be easier to get the riders cleaner if they were attached to the camels - easier to hold!

8 comments:

  1. The camel howdahs have worked really well indeed!

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    1. They're easy to do and look effective one you get over the idea there's no driver!

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  2. Self driving camels, those Persians certainly were ahead of their time!

    They do look good though.

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  3. It seems the King of Kabul came up with that design for camel howdahs long before you did, although it seems no-one was willing to actually ride in them.
    https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1038956001

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  4. You give me too much credit - the design was taken from Funcken, I just didn't have space to put a 'driver' in front of the Howdah.

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