Palestinian House with Willies

 There you go Ross. Just for you.

Happy Easter.

Palestinian House

Based on descriptions in Prawer and Runciman is this Palestinian house. Equally to be seen in the town as an bourgeois or even noble house or as a small manor in the countryside, each presented a fairly bland exterior with the main buildings being arranged around a central court-yard. The tiled floor is an image I found on the internet, printed off and glued to the MDF base with PVA.

The walls are of foam-core board, the cut edges sealed with filler to stop them from melting when being painted! The tree is from one of those ebay shops punching out great quantities of good quality product in China.

 Mr Donkey is a 1:48th farm figure from Pegasus.

The whole package. The little butresses were added from odd offcuts of foam-core to add a little interest to the rather bland exterior walls. The exterior was painted with cans of variously coloured spay-paint with a little selective dry-brushing toward the end of the job.

Campaigning Season in the Holy Land

I don't know if I'm being a bore with this one, however:

I was a bit bored this week, so I took it in my head to plot the dates of a selection of Crusader battles in palestine in the 11th-12th Century.

I wanted to know if the dates would yield something like a "campaign season", just for laughs.

So, after putting in all the dates, I went fora simple chart showing frequency of battle event by month. Interesting. Then, just to show off, I dropped the frequency information into a bar graph and the results pretty well speak for themselves.

The campaign season for Palestine in the period of "The Kingdom of Jerusalem" is pretty much May to September. There is an interesting spike in January, but that sample is probably too small to draw any conclusions.

A Full Crew Aboard

 Last week I got my gunners back from Gerry. He very kindly sculpted left arms onto my infantry figures to allow me to call then gunners. I think you will agree he's done a fine job of matching Mr Stadden's sculpting style.

 So, I have raced ahead and painted a few up, just enough to crew the first of my pair of 4.7" guns.

Another crew is in preparation as I write this, so expect more pictures next week of the full battery.

I am happy to say this project feels as though it's got just the right amount of momentum. I think that the next job will be either to finish off the 11th Hussars or to paint a Fife and Drum Pontoon Wagon. Lets' see which the postman brings first.

Happy painting!

The Varied Lives of Some Bengal Lancers

 Now something like complete for my "Littler Britons" project are my Bengal Lancers. These have had a somewhat chequered painting history in the two and a half years' since I originally bought them from Spencer Smiths'

 I spent ages looking at various uniforms. If you poke around in the archives here, you'll see what I mean.

 What wound up happening was I found myself with three meticulously painted types following the model of the lovely old Airfix 54mm kit. Then, one day I found I needed a dozen British Empire cavalry tout suite for a convention game.

Boom. I slapped a hasty coat of khaki on a dozen castings. Eurgh. But it got me through. I have slowlty been paying for that ever since and finally they have more or less arrived. The horses still need work. They were an early try of the wipe-it-off painting horses with oils technique and would benefir from a little detail painting - a few socks and stars as well as a bit of brass on the tack.

I do have a few more castings - enough to bring the regiment up to 18 figures, so that ought to be more than adequate.

Spencer Smith "Classic" Normans

 In my last post I was carrying on a bit about how much I liked the Spencer Smith Normans, so I thought I ought to put a few pictures up. That immediately above shows a little bit of their potential - the fellow on the left has an infantryman's arm thrusting with a spear overarm. There is evidence suggesting that "couched" was not the only way of employing the weapon, and I thought this was a nice little nod in that direction. The other fellow has a spare right arm from a figure meant to be in a fairly sedate pose with his weapon held upright. I think he looks nice as he lowers his lance into a fighting position even as he gazes off-screen at a threat we must perforce imagine.

 Going forward to this image, I feel that the altered figure goes well with that with the lowered lance. The two look like they've just spotted trouble and are swinging into action. Note I am using the North Star wire spears (the 40mm ones) which in my opinion go better with the figures than the brass rod Spencer Smiths' supply.

Painting. Ulp. I'm trying to be a little restrained, but it seems as though Saxtorph and the Funckens are edging in a bit. You'll notice I've painted in some brown leather edging around the hems and the mail hood. It seems logical to me that it's be there if only to protect the clothing below and so as not to chafe at their faces.

It will be time to start on the Saracens when I've ordered some up. They'll probably have to be Willies as I can't see anything else more suiable or compatible. It will be fun picking over the catalogue and seeing what can be found. There are at least a couple of useful horse archers in the Medieval range.

Happy hobby times.