ECW Moulds

First job was to get a mould made using original masters and other figures so I could put together the production moulds. Apart from tidying up the figures I've now sorted out figures for the moulds needed to complete the ECW refurbishment. 

After this, think I'll take a break on casting until some time in September!

Some of it is to rationalise moulds, putting a lot of the figures together instead of scattered. However, the EW6, musketeer in helmet (classic Roundhead figure) mould was no longer fit for purpose. 

EW15, Pikeman armoured in hat at rest and EW16 Pikeman unarmoured with plumed helmet at rest. These two didn't have moulds attached to them so I looked at a master mould that had some pikes on. The pose was the same as the 'Reserve' figure so I discounted them... until I finally realised that the rest and reserve  poses were the same. So now they will be on a production mould...

This is a case of putting everything together - so I will now have a production mould with all the ECW cavalry together. Still need to do some tidying up on the figures first.

I did start a plastic Swedish 30 Years War army back in the 90s. Blog post here. 

I have also updated the ECW entry on pages.

20mm Newhaven police station

 

I allowed myself to be influenced by the TTCombat station... hard to believe I made it nine years ago! Not as good, and I probably should have taken the photo so it looked 3D, but...

Barred windows where the cells are.

Other side of the building. 

And the back. I've kept windows to a minimum for security reasons :)

Reimagining Newhaven - a progress report...

 

Very much a work in progress with a lot of place holders.

The factory in the foreground is acting as a place holder for the brewery. Behind that the unfinished University opposite what will be park and cemetary.

This view extends Newhaven back from behind the church. 

A view of the tenements. Nice and dark and crowded... The church in the foreground is a card model I picked up in a shop in Sheringham a few weeks ago. 

University opposite the park and cemetary. A police station should be next to the park area -Not made yet so a bank is holding the fort.

Lots still to do and I'm still not sure how well it will work. I'm not totally happy trying to mix my crude card buildings with the more fragile looking plastic ones. 

Tenements finished

 

Seems like I'm not putting much in the blog at the moment, but these things are taking time!

16 tenement buildings including a couple of shops. Should be enough for now.

General store after Sutter Cane. The name of Peyton's Plaice seemed obvious so I had to look for a justification in a 'horror' town - easy. It included one of  Mia Farrow's first roles, later she was the star of Rosemary's Baby, listed as the second best horror film of all time.

New World Incorporated was involved with advanced technology, shipbuilding and munitions. From  The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopaedia. 

Curwen House, named after Joseph Curwen.

And one I haven't named to give me a bit more flexibility. I intend to do a few more of these bigger buildings - might even go up to four or five stories!

Comparison between 'my' 20/25mm buildings and Sarissa's 28mm ones.

Side view. My buildings cover about a quarter of the ground space, allowing for a much bigger number of buildings and more realistic 'city'.

A buildings update

 I seem to be operating in extreme summer mode at the moment, spending very little time on the blog. One project I am getting on with is building card models for a 20/25mm Newhaven to supplement the 28mm version.

This is the base model. I'm experimenting all the time as to how to do these - main idea is red brick buildings with a range of doors/windows, including shops. My intention at the moment is to have 12 - 16 of this standard design. 

This is where I am up to with larger buildings - tower blocks, factories, etc. Roughly joining three of these into an 'H' shape will give me a basis for the university or possibly a hospital. Well, the H design is based on Norman's Riding, so a hospital building is a given!

I considered different ways of doing doors and windows but finally just decided to make most buildings with various clipart doors and windows - many of these have been modified to increase the range, for example a stretched window can become a door, two doors (one a reverse image) put together to make double doors!

Starting 20/25mm Newhaven buildings

 Sarissa (and others) produce excellent mdf buildings though the biggest ranges are for 28mm - as are all the ones I have. However, most of my figures tend to be 20mm or 25mm, So I thought, why not start building up a load of homemade 20/25mm card models to expand on the 28mm ranges? Apart from anything else, smaller so I can cram more of them on a table.

So I've got a load of buildings under construction, but the one I finished first is this church. The windows are from a load of bits I bought years ago - some were used to refurbish a load of other buildings a while back. The windows show worshippers of a god that came from the sky... it's Newhaven, Christian churches not such a big thing there.

I probably made it a bit too wide and the roof looks oversize as a result.  Drawing the roof tiles was a bit of a pain.

Clocks are simply painted mdf bases. The building itself doesn't look this lopsided on the table!

Gold window and door frames of course.

Seaford museum

Got back from our annual visit to Brighton a couple of days ago, during which we had hopped on the bus to Seaford. This time we walked up to the Martello Tower (number 74) and were surprised to find it was a museum... as in, saw the sign on the gun!

So, couple of pictures of the mounting.

Which extends below what you can see from the promenade...

There's a lot more to it than you would think at a distance... most of it being below ground.

As the sign says, it's bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Couple more signs, don't think I need to explain these further.

It does have a lot more than just the gun - a few models of local interest.

I admit this one was more for personal reference.

This is a model of what the local railway station looked like.

And lots more of course -this is a model of a Victorian bathing hut! There is a lot more than I've shown here - early computers/games consoles, for example.

Well worth a visit, meanwhile it has a website and is on Facebook.

Note, all photos taken by my wife Sandra.

Warrior Greek Army Review

 

Added to just act as a record...

Warrior Thracians and other light infantry

 

I put the Thracians together as two units 18 strong - my 'standard' 6 element units.

I kept the flesh and black tunic, everything else was overpainted. I originally considered painting the cloaks in a tartan scheme but remembered that I wasn't out to do complicated designs... the original figures had a rather strange hair design. I painted hair underneath and the original 'hair' I did in red leather to represent fox skin caps!

There were also a few other odd figures...

I left the weird flesh colour... also added a shield to give a couple of elements of long spear/shield armed peltasts. I should probably have given these fox skin caps but left it so they could represent any Greek peltast, not just Thracians.

Not really anything to say about these two elements...

Finally, some archers. These were the only figures I didn't do any further work on.

Second Warrior pike unit

 

Doesn't look very impressive at this angle!

Put the two units together 8  deep and it looks a bit better.

Even better with an overhead view - spoiled a bit by the difficulty in putting these things together in a light box - those pikes really get in the way!

Warrior Greek cavalry

 

I have a few Warrior cavalry, just about enough to do a couple of bases...

Not bad, though spears would have been better if replaced - they aren't good. Horse legs a bit iffy - tried bending them back into shape a bit. Design of the horses is pretty reasonable though.