Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

 Another year is just about done, and I hope you all have a safe and happy one.

Just don’t over do the punch…

Here’s a few toys I’ve done, all ancients this time.

First up some Romans, mostly Airfix with new bingo chip shields. The originals went astray and I bought these guys sans scutum. I love those old Giant officer figures.

Next up is more Marx Madness. Captain Gallant figures manning Airfix Roman chariots as Persians, and some Persian cavalry from Giant knights.

And finally, a work in progress from a quarter century ago. Spartan hoplites from Marx Captain Gallant figures with plasticene shields, helmets and cloaks. The spears are florist wire and pop off if handled too much, so I made a special box just for them to be stored in. 

Well that’s it this time. Best wishes for the New Year!

Paper Tigers

 Well, not so much paper as cardboard. During Covid I did a lot of ordering from Amazon and I duly cut up the boxes for recycling. Then I thought it might be an opportunity to make some things out of this free bounty of cardboard. I made terrain, rivers, bridges and such, buildings and the like. But I got bored. So I was flipping through the “Marshall Cavendish History of World War 2” (in 25 volumes) and I had a hard look at the paintings of some of the equipment. They were accompanied by the dimensions, so I made a ship. Then some planes. Eventually I had a go at tanks. I had a look at my own 1/76 and 1/72 stock and soon realized that to flesh out the armies would be pretty costly . Models are $10 to $20 each now, or I’d have to go the 3d printer route. So I made blocky tanks in a smaller scale, roughly 1/100 or so. They went together quickly and I made several forces.

This is the start of my Italian forces. The M11 turrets are a failure, I have to find another solution.

And here are the tiny Tigers, and a lurking Panther:

I also made a roughly 1/72 Panther, just to see how it went together:

Not the prettiest, but doable just for gaming. I started in on some Panzer 3’s and 2’s:

Here’s an early Panzer 4 and a Nashorn:

I said earlier I had a go at some aircraft. No scale really, as I tried small aircraft but they don’t do well in cardboard. So these are roughly 1 inch to 10 feet. And round fusilages are tough in cardboard at this size, so I simply put a round wooden disk in front of the square motor.

By Gar, It’s Been A While…

 Here’s some Napoleonics that I’ve been painting and converting.

These are converted French Horse Grenadiers - Grenadiers A Cheval de La Garde Imperial, some musicians, painted up Lucky Toys, and a couple of Line Horse Artillery guns.

I also did the Empress Dragoons.

Finally a lone Cuirassier. I guess I’ll get ‘round to doing the unit, but I ran out of steam.

I also did some  English units, these being Waterloo Hanoverian. There’s a company that put out these guys in 28mm plastics, and I just seized upon the look of them to paint some 1/72 Prussians up.

I also did some artillery. Basically they look just like the English artillery, but I painted the artillery drivers in red like the earlier Waggoner corps. Just a whim on my part.

And finally I painted up French Foot Artillerymen as Russians and Gave them a couple of limbers.

Winter Update

 Not much new this winter, except all the snow.

We don’t get the big snowfalls like people down east with those Nor’Westers or people in Colorado with the huge snowfalls.

But we do get blizzards, which is sustained high winds and snow.

This year they’ve been a near weekly occurrence and we are getting blocked in by all the drifts.

So it’s been a great time to do favourite tv and movie rewatches, read a book and paint toy soldiers.

Here’s a scene reminiscent of Valmy. Hong Kong soldiers made into Revolutionary war period French.

Next are a few Thirty Years War types. The large base is a terico, made of figures from one box of Mars figures. The pikes are those provided in the set and a bit of an experiment on my part. I used to just use florist wire, but after I dropped a biscuit tin full of pikemen, I kinda walked away from them. These soft plastic pikes may not be painted (yet) but they stay in place. 

These next guys are actually lead 25mm Minifigs S range if I’m not mistaken. I bought a bunch of broken figures and these guys were in them. No swords, but they look ok on those Giant copy horses. Also there is  a squadron of Warrior Miniatures 25mm French Cuirassier.  

And finally here’s some of those medieval figures I bought and featured in the last blog post. They paint up nicely.