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| This lot have taken quite a while due to distractions... |
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| 'Production' horse archers - didn't come out too badly. I've given them a sorceress on a tiger as the officer - no idea how she'll keep up with the horses, but then, she is a sorceress. |
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| I have to admit I quite like this figure. |
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| Meanwhile, I am continuing with the home made figures. This lot a proving a bit of a problem - too many bits of metal stuck in the torso so the wings keep collapsing. |
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| One thing I did want to have a go at was make a toy soldier. Eventually I want to be able to produce attempts at those German Christmas figures... got a way to go there. |
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| Few more efforts... problem with these are that I'm not getting on with my Amazons... |
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| Some sort of big not-really-an-insect Queen with teeth and bat wings. My favourite so far. Need to do the children. I made a point of pinning the abdomen sections with lengths cut from spears. |
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| Some kind of Cthonian - looking for a good colour to represent other worldly creatures this orange/green mashup looks good. The figure itself also seems to work. |
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| Not a success but points the way. About all I can say about it really. Again, the colour looks good. |
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| Another 'failure' but again I can see what I've done wrong for the future. I need more of these! |
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| Latest whim I suppose. I have used Green Stuff and similar in the past but never really made much effort. However, thought I might start treating it a bit more seriously. Buy a pack of cheap oven hardening polymer clay and see what I can do. |
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| My major thought was Cthulu Mythos type figures in smaller scales - plenty of them around in 25-32mm, nothing in smaller scales. My first attempt are sort of Great Race of Yith. In fact, I made them a bit too short, but overall they look OK. Lessons learnt - limbs seem fragile, need to have a metal frame. Plenty of spears and pikes lying around. |
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| I should also start modifying figures as well. This is just an initial attempt of simply adding a long dress to an Amazon - conversion types I've done a lot of in the past. Actually this polymer was softer and easier to work than the two parters. Needs a bit of touching up re paintwork, but quite happy with the way the figure turned out. The figure I used was one of my rejects - base damaged, sort of repaired while doing this. Must do more of this type of conversion! |
Re Aly's comment on paint conversions, I have a long history of this sort of thing. One of the figures I produced/converted early on after getting Garrison was a 'universal archer'...
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| So here they are in 2007 from my Egyptian army... |
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| The middle Egyptian/Kushite figure is how I originally made it - for others, just snapped off the feather, though later had a mould made without the feather. Persian, Kushite and Egyptian armies, 2007... |
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| Lousy photo from 2014. Assyrian heavy archer, 2nd rank original Garrison 20mm, others conversions of the 20mm Assyrian slinger. Instead of using Rose shields I already had I bought a couple of boxes of HaTT Assyrians and used the shields from there. Standard is from the 25mm Assyrian range, officer's swords just hammered flat spears. |
Incidentally, the base figure itself is a real Frankenstein's monster. Torso is a Nubian spearman, below the waist was from a cavalry figure, think the bow arm was from the Greek archer, base from some figure or other and quiver from the weapons box.
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| My normal cavalry squadron is 12 figures. For this lot, I went for 18 figures so that it covered 6 bases. |
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| For shield blazons I've continued the animal theme, in this case by using a stag. |
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| The armour is just paint. It works really well. |
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| I went for something different for the command element. The commander is MID3, Midianite Princess on camel. Standard bearer is simply SS62, slave girl with fan, with the base cut off and made to fit on a horse. And finally the defining feature of my Amazon army - a tiger. |
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| When you're casting figures you often have some figures you have no immediate use for. This lot were all put to one side to act as an addition to my various sects. |
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| Normally I would paint them plain brown, white or (rarely and usually the elites) red. This lot I decided to make a bit more colourful. |
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| First of all, painting quality... Not perfect, in my defence still some finishing touches to do. But then, at time of writing it is just 23 hours since the moulds were dropped off by postie... |
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| Both cavalry figures have proved castable at the moment, but of the spear figures only the ones in reserve are OK - the others will need time. |
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| Overall the two infantry figures are quite reasonable. The armour is just paint but looks good - I'll do a unit of this figure painted like this as my next task. I'm wondering whether I should treat the nude figure as a peltast on an open order LMI base? |
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| Of course I already have the original spear figures. |
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| And the Scouts/Charioteers. |
Which means that 'new' figures available are:
SSAC1 Cavalry with spear and shield
SSA2 Horse archer
SSA1 Amazon, in reserve, spear and shield, tunic (bird shield figure)
SSA2 Amazon, in reserve, spear and shield, tunic (deer shield figure)
SSA3 Amazon, in reserve, spear, shield, nude (tortoise/turtle shield)
SSA4 Amazon Scout/charioteer, spear
As a standard bearer, I use SS62, Slave girl with fan. For chariots, Sygian chariot SSS1 but specify crew as SSA4 and SS37 - or whatever! As an officer I use SS61, Amazon enchantress.
Note the codes for these are purely for convenience!
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| Quick turn around by Pete - moulds came back today! Look good, need to wait a while for them to post cure - in the past I've allowed a month but I seem to have people wanting figures so might try test castings a lot quicker. Generally, a new mould is still a bit soft and compressable - some figures take a while before you can cast them easily. I'll post the initial casts of the Amazons later today or tomorrow... |
Figures for new mould have arrived with Pete Brown. Meanwhile I've done everything I intend to on the army until it comes back - unless... MOULD UPDATE! -Pete has also posted it today! (23/10)
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| It wasn't intended to be this big, but it's still too small for a 'proper' Review. |
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| The figures have been displayed in single ranks rather than my usual double ranks. Makes the army look bigger. |
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| Cavalry are very much prototypes... the horse archer is hopefully going to be supplemented by actual conversions and the spear/shield cavalry tidied up a bit. I expect to do a couple more squadrons of spear/shield cavalry and at least one other horse archer squadron. |
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| General reviewing the troops as she passes behind Pegasus. Although there was only one Pegasus in 'real' mythology I'll probably do a herd. |
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| Another lot I'll probably extend. It could be quite spectacular. |
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| One thing I thought of but didn't do was use the Enchantress riding a tiger as a cavalry officer. Might consider that in future. |
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| Apart from another base of tigers I'm working on this is the last unit of the current tranche. Unless I decide to do a couple more chariots of course. |
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| After these? At the very least another horse archer unit, two javelin cavalry units, at least one spear unit and doing a proper chariot force. I also keep thinking about a couple more pegasi figures. Possibly more archers. |
At which point the Amazon army will be officially finished...
Picked up by postie today...
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| I'm still upgrading S&S moulds to be more production friendly - here, three different figures all use the same wings, so I've put them all on one mould. Winged serpent, Hawkman and Griffin. |
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| Meanwhile I'm continuing the Amazon figures. Went overboard with 4 spear variations so it meant I had to cut out better scout representation - though still OK for most purposes. I did add horse archers though, as well as improving the spear armed cavalry situation. |
I had intended to go for three moulds to include a Byzantine infantry mould. Sadly, I wanted the Amazons done quickly while I still retain my enthusiasm for the army and didn't get the Byzantines sorted in time.
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| Went to London for a few days, so this lot a bit delayed... not sure the Tiger shield blazon was a good idea... |
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| Staying with simple tunics for these, in this case sky green. |
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| I probably want to do at least one more unit of these. In the meantime I'm currently painting another archery unit. |
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| Completed the first unit of spears. There is a second unit on the way, plus I'll be doing another archery unit. |
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| Went for colourful shields on these - wish I'd been a bit more colourful when I did the cavalry! |
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| First unit of Amazon spear/shield cavalry done. |
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| I'll probably do another couple of units of these and another unit or so of horse archers. |
Amazon army coming along nicely... still more work to do on them, but generally looking good!
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| First unit of Amazons from new mould finished - a light infantry scout unit. There's a freshly varnished javelin/shield cavalry unit waitingin the wings and the first spear unit has been undercoated. |
Fair to say I've been overdoing Admins recently, so have decided this will be the last lot for now - need to get on with my S&S Amazons...
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| As I've now got both officer and halberdier on a mould, plus the recently discovered mounted Warrior, I thought it would be a good idea to do sections of Militia/Palace Guards/City Guards suitable for both Alice and Dorothy projects. In the event, mainly because I want to spend time on Amazons, I finished up just doing a Dorothy section. |
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| Figures aren't itended to look like anything from the books or film, just to have an Emerald City 'feel' about them. So the balloon motif on the shield is a direct reference to the wizard. |
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| The uniform had to be green of course. I haven't painted these figures in any detail - should probably have painted in the eyes for example. |
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| Again, the balloon motif on the shield... |
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| While the helmet crest paints up quite nicely to represent Dorothy. Bear in mind the crest is 6mm tall :) |
Scale wise, these figures are about 30-32mm tall so a lot bigger than my 25mm Dorothy and Alice figures - I can live with that for a fantasy world!
