A hint to my next SAGA Warband

In Memoriam, Johan Edbäck 23d of May 2012

Johan you will be missed, this was to soon and to early, go in peace brother.

Hold the line, reinforcements will arrive.  

The SAGA Continues Chapter 3: Scots

Here are the first WIP pics from my 3:d SAGA project.

Warlord - Will be based with a small suprice.

  

One of the 8 Herth Guards 

More WIPS will follow stay tuned.

The SAGA Continues - Scots

This Friday a small pack of minies from Gripping Beast ended up in my mailbox.
Some Scots, 25 of them to be exact, they are now washed, mounted on bottlecaps and primed, well 17 of them anyhow. The last 8 will have to wait, all out of caps at the moment.

The minies are well casted, none or little work with the file, the only thing I reacted of was the large hands on the minies.
We are talking some serious sized hands here.

The plan is to have the painted buy the end of this week.

The shields will be the main focus of this one.

The 40k then?

Well I have been doing some reading and thinking, I'm still not sure about that. Its fun to paint but I don't know if the playing is for me. Have 6 more minies to complete of the first 10 and then we will see what happens.

   

Gray Knigst the first unit...

Here are some pics of the first GK painted for my 40k projekt.

3 out of 4 GK finished.
More pics will follow...
Enjoy

The shit has hit the fan... Warhammer 40K is back on the menu boys.

To day I did something that I never thought that I ever do again...

Got my self some 40K miniature to start play 40k again. 

I have to jump back on the train, the majority of the gaming society in my vicinity has passed over already, to the DARK side. 

Come to us we have cookies, that's what they say anyhow.

A box of Gray Knigt is bought from GW, just to try it out, if it sucks to paint then  Ill just put them out on Ebay...

Picture borrowed from http://amongtheway.blogspot.se

Claymore Castings

A few days ago I decided against my better judgment to order some more minies, I have plenty and don't need more minies.
I decided to checkout the Claymore Castings range of Medieval minies, not that I have any project for them, I just wanted the Archers, but anyhow.

Today I got them...

8 well casted miniatures whit little or  no casting flesh, high quality and great details. The only disappointment was the fact that I only ordered 8 of them, 16 would have been better. Well that Can be fixed can it not...

Still don know what to use them for but 16 is better then 8 and 8 is better than none.

Pics and updates will follow.


Some Links
http://claymorecastings.co.uk/
http://claymorecastings.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=76
http://claymorecastings.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=75

Some new orders... Gripping Beasts and Claymore Castings gets a chance.

Just did some new orders from Gripping Beasts and from Claymore Castings.
Was planing to go Bretton in the next saga project but they was a bit to much like the Normans I painted earlier so I decided to go all foot, just to get a completely different warband all together.
http://grippingbeast.com/product.php?ItemID=268441506

I also wanted to try out the Claymore Castings minies just because I lite them, I have no project for them but I'm a sucker for bowmen and, longbows, so Ill just paint them and see where to go with them.
Claymore is fairly new on the market so it will be fun to see what they can do, hoping for the best.
Their website is neat and far of better then many other and they take PayPal, that is a big plus for me.

http://claymorecastings.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=20&product_id=76
http://claymorecastings.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=75

All is quite in the painting station

Not much has been happening in my paint station since my completion of the Normans for SAGA.
A few minies has left the production line, but they was a shoot in the dart, not fitting in any project what so ever. So what are the plans, Japps or Muslims, both for SAGA.
Was  bidding on some  Dixon 28 mm Nipps the other day on EBAY but I lost the auction, but the buyer paid close to retail prices for the minies in the end. Glad I didn't win.
My Ebay auctions has not bee so successful as I hoped for, most stuff is unsold.

So what to do mean while then?
Well I do have some Wood Elfs needing some attention before Ebay, but do I even want to bother with painting them. Well its something to do.
 

The SAGA Continues, Bretons in the making

Bretons in the making, decided to go at bit more in to detail on this project, so each minie will be individually painted and a bit more time and effort will be put into the project.
Also I decided to go Black Tree Design in this project and not Gripping Beast. The GB minies have been great and is super fine, but the BTD , they have some other poses and the detailing is a bit different. And further more they don't mix in projects.

Missing on the 2 first minies is the shields on both, first model has i swung upon to the back and the second i holding it by hand in front of him. I only have kite shields but I'm planing to go round shields on these.

Some stuff on Ebay

Have some stuff out on Ebay at the moment.

Some Artizan WWII Btitish 8th Army and Air Borne and a signle Deutches Afrika Corps Riflemen blister.
All unopened and "new".
Link to my auctions

I also have a quite unique Woodelf from Games Workshop that was issued as a X mas gift to the GW staff some years ago.
Link to auction

 

The SAGA ends: For now

This is the end of part 1.

All Gripping Beast, all shields are painted Freehand, banner as well.

Project started on 22 of Feb 2012
Project ended on 21 of Mars 2012

Norman Warband
1 - Warlord
1 - Unit of Spears 8 minies
1 - Unit of Crossbows 8 minies
1 - Unit of Bows 12 minies
2 - Units of Knights 2x4 minies
1 - Unit of Sargent's 8 minies

Total  7 pts in the SAGA rule system.

The SAGA Continues. The end is nigh

The end is near:
to do:
4 shields
mount 4 riders
12 of 16 cavalry bases needs to be fitted with Gravel and turf.
1 banner 


Then a photo shoot, pics will come

The SAGA Continues: WIP, Cavalry and commander

Here are some WIP pictures of the Warlord and the1:st Cavlary unit of 4.

WIP Warlord, rider missing..

 

The SAGA Continues: Got some help...

This morning I discovered this...

We had lost a bow, och the crossbow...
Magic you say?
I say Leon, 10years with itchy fingers...

- Dad just wanted to see if I could draw the bow.
Nope the bow is nowhere to be found, and he had hoped that I would not notice. Once again I had to have the yours and mine discussion.
Now its time for some severe punishment...

Well it took me a minute to fix, but Ill let the kid sweat a bit before I tell him.

Just need some GS to fix the end, and some nice deatails.
Oh yes some paint as well.

The SAGA continues: All your bases are belong to me

Started to do some bases today after Priming the riders, they will get the first layers tonight if I stay sober enough.

The bases will get a bit darker after putting varnish on them, don't ask me why, I don't know why!
All the Crossbows and Bowmen are done, 17 horses, 8 spear men and one warlord to be done.

Bases from Warbases
Turf from Games Workshop

Painting Calvary

I generally paint Horse and Rider separately First horse and the the rider.
I often Mount the base coated  rider on the already painted Horse, this leading to some small problems, but this time I decided to do different.
I built my self a riders mount :)

Of the wooden horse, this to avoid the small problems with painting the rider on the horse already painted.

This being the first time doing this I will be giving you a review of how it works.

Priory of Sion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion 

The SAGA Continues, Banners a tutorial.

Stick to what you know, right! That often gives the best results.
So to day I did:
If you follow my blog you know that I took some heat for my poor performance on the Kite Shields on my Norman Spearmen LINK, so I repainted the shields and this was the result, LINK. Quite an improvement.

I was relay satisfied  with the weaved shield design, it had it all, depth, good matching colors, I was proud of it, can I be?
So to day the turn has come to banners. I use linen sheets that I have acquired from the Swedish military, the sheet I use is probably  made some where in between 1915 and 1920, this I can tell because of the stamps made on them. Cant find the pics of the stamps at the moment but I will look later and post them for you if you are interested. Well these sheets have been i the service for almost a decade and where now being thrown away so I saved a few of them. Now how can we better honor these sheets that have been bedding and nursing Swedish military service men and women, then make them in to banners of war, leading brave men on to the battlefield.

WIP:
How its done:

This show all the steps taken in the making.
Yes the picture sucks.

First I glued the Linen piece on to a wires spear from Perry I think, it's actually a "Yari" but hey, I don tell If you don't. This was a bit tricky I have previously used SuperGlue but the result has been some what bad. So this time I tried PVA, it works. but not to my full satisfaction- Got a hint on Contact glue, this will be tested.
Enough of the glue stuff.

Painting:
I started out with just painting the whole banner with a base of Flat Brown from Vallejo, mixed in much water in the paint and painted the both sides at once.
Then I let the paint dry fully.

I took a pencil and just made a square pattern with 5 mm with in between, diagonally on both sides, thes lines I used as a guideline when painting the basic design in black.
Lessons learned here: If you don't have base coated the banner properly you will get bleeding of color to the other side of the banner and the capillary force will kick in and the design intended will be a Mandelbrot,  Not what I had in mind Go back to step one redo the base coat.

Redone the design, onward...
I then used Vallejos Cavalry Brown to paint each square, letting some of the base coat shining through in corners and on the edges, time consuming.
Next step:
Vallejo Beige Brown, here I started to pain the weaved bands, to make the illusion of the bands being weaved on to the fabric. Leaving a small amount of black on edges and ends.  When this was done I started all over again with the bands but this time with Vallejos Yellow Ochre, once agin leaving some of the darker colors from the previous layer in the ends and edges.

Finally some touch ups where I missed and goofed, nothing heavy.

Colors used for this particular banner.
(All Vallejo)
Base coat - 70984 - Flat Brown
Basic design - 70950 - Black
Squares - 70982 - Cavlary Brown
Bands - 70875 - Beige Brown
Bands highlight - 70913 - Yellow Ochre


The result.

Happy Pi day 3.14

Today its Pie at Casa Lundin, why?
Cause its PI day

Out of stock

Just my luck, the steel spears from Gripping where out of stock, the one thing I could not be without...
Crap.

But the Norman spear Command and the Civilians and Priests  arrived in good order, they where a bit smaller in size then I expected but they will work just fine with my Black Tree Design monks, and the Spear Command will be my Standard bearers.
Wonder If I can fit 3 foot and 1 horse on a 50mm base. Was thinking 2 or 3 banners or perhaps I need to amp the base width to 60mm.

Pics later today...

Now i need to find some other solution to the steel wire spear problem. Needs to, well want to paint banners.

Must resist, don't give in...

Surfed the Gripping Beast site to night and found out that I want lots of minies.

Well no new projects until the SAGA Norman Project is Completed.

Thinking to use the skirmish rules Bonnie Blue, a Swedish set of rules for ACW, with the a WWI complement, 5 - 10 mines per side. Some turks and ANZACS, French african and FFL, Gurchas, you name it :).  And some realy nice civilians with guns. Thinking Pulp, 1930-s Shanghai, the orient spys...

Dark and musky...

There has been a lot of GB lately, well yes I do look at other suppliers as well, but GB is nice looking. This will be expensive be so sure, and fun.


And then I found Hitler and Churchill

Oh BTW almost forgot, 10.000 visits the last 6 months, now thats BIG. I was hoping for 3-5k or tops 1k visitors a month.

Thanks.

The SAGA continues...

The last tow night shifts have been spent, to some extension, painting the Crossbowmen unit for my SAGA Norman Warband. Next up 17 Knights and Sargent's, some banners and basing.

So enjoy