Arabic vilage (15-20mm)

Here are some pictures of one of my older projects: a small 15-20mm Arabic village. The village consist of a house, minaret and mosk (yes, it's very small :p). It was built to serve in the Middle East during colonial and the worldwar era's.

The entire projects price was under 5 euro's

The tools:

- Stanley-knife

- Scissors (to cut out the cartonboard entrance of the mosk)

- Saw (to cut the bases)

- Hot glue gun (for attaching the houses to the bases)

- Sandingpaper

The materials:

- Filler

- Sand

- PVA

- Pieces of dry moss (collected in the Ardennes)

- Paper tape

- Tooth picks (to hold the walls together)

- 3mm MDF

- A plastic bowl ( for the mosk's roof)

- "Isomo" the cheaper polystren with the little white balls.

- Ironwire and paper (for the palmtree)

- A piece of a napkinholder (for the minaret)

- A isomo ball (for the minaret)

- Fly mesh (for the windows)

- Canvass (for the ground texture)

- Paints (black, green, brown, dark grey, light grey, light blue, dark blue, light sand and dark sand,)

The building:

1) Cut pieces of isomo to form the basic form of the buildings.

2) Glue them together with PVA and toothpicks.

3) Add details suchs as doors, windows, special roofelements...

4) Texture the building with the filler!

5) Glue them to the base.

6) Texture the base with sand, PVA and canvass.

7) Paint the building sand colour, the pavement dark grey and the doors black.

Finished buildings:

A shot of the mosk, house and minaret.

Here you can see the top of the minaret (made with a napkinholder, isomo ball and the top of a medicine bottle which you can't see on the picture!)

A close up of the mosk (watch the details such as the tapistry, bushes and palmtree) and the nice dome. Just a pity, I don't took a picture of the back of the mosk where there is a big window!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and information!

For more information, just ask!

Greets,

Perry Miniatures: Napoleonic French Heavy Cavalry Reviewed!

Today, I'm presenting you a review of Perry Miniatures: Napoleonic French Heavy cavalry. This box is their fifth plastic box and is adored by many napoleonic wargamers. Finally they are able to field heavy cavalry units at a fraction of the price of metal miniatures! Just like most of the wargame industry, the Perry twins also invested in a plastic range of miniatures. However their plastic range is made to bulk out armies and their metal range fills the ranks with artillery, command and other specialised units! This is a good balance between quantity and the pricetags.

The box

Just like their other plastic boxes, the artwork is done by Peter Dennis and is breath taking! But the most important is the content. The box contains 14 cavalrymen which can be assembled as cuirrassiers or carabiniers. You also have the choice to assemble them charging or with their swords against the shoulder as they would do in rest.

First all we take a look at the trooper sprue which contains the trumpeteers body, arms with attached swords, carbines, cuirassiers and carabiniers heads. You can find three of the followings prues inside the box.

The second sprue contains 4 horses for the cavalrymen and 2 wounded or dead soldiers. The wounded soldiers and battlefield debris are some nice details to put on the bases and really add more value to the box. There are three of these sprues supplied in the boxed set.

The thirth sprue contains the command units such as the officer and banner bearer with their mounts. While the fourth sprue in the box is the plastic bases sprue.

Opinion

Because this is only their 5th plastic box, I want to congratulate the people of Perry Miniatures for their amazing sculpts and skills! This box which is a must for any wargamer who wants to start a 28mm napoleonic army without being bankrupt. It's dirt cheap for the amazing 14 plastic cavalrymen which have lots of bits, conversion opportunities and especially lots of detail! And what is best all this for a retail price of £15 or €20!

VSF-project continued

Here are some pictures of the latest progress I made on this project. Not really much has happend but I managed to built some flight stands for the hot air-balloons, pterodactyl riders and my British airplane(ship).

The flightstands were made with metal pipes, hotglue, plaster and filler. Now they only need some sand and paint!

On the photo: six flight stands, 2 pterodactyl rides, 3 wargorrilas and my little steamtank.

Greets,

American paratroopers Battalion (15-20mm)

Here are some pictures of the finished rapid fire American paratroopers battalion. Just finished them today!

How do I base my figures?

1) Cut your bases out of 3mm hardboard(to the size you want).

2) Attach the painted miniatures to the bases with PVA.

3) Smear the filler on the base so you cover the entire base(watch out for the mini's).

4) Let dry and add some texture with PVA and sand.

5) Paint the base in a browntone and drybrush with a lighter browntone(or even a kind of beige).

6) Let dry and finish the bases with some flock!

The battalion in all it's glory.

Another shot to show the bases.

A sideview of the unit.

Greets,

Ral partha monsters!

Here are some pictures of monsters I picked up at crisis. They are manufactured by Ral partha, I never bought miniatures of them but I like them very much, nice sculpts and detailling!

They will be used in a pulp-fiction setting or in a small jurrassic park game (dinosaurs! This project isn't a priority so it could take some months to take off!)

The dinosaurs were packed together with a female warrior! (which can be used as some sort of native queen). Notice the arms aren't attached yet.

The mutated lion (real name, ... ?) I'm to lazy to find the blister.

I hope you love these mini's as much as I did,

Greets,

American paratroopers Battalion (15-20mm)

Here are some pictures of my 15-20mm paratroopers battalion for rapid fire rules! The figures are Esci which I purchased recently from a guy who sells hundreds of 1/72 figures of all era's. I really love the pathfinder guy with the mohawk and the soldier throwing a grenade.

Battalion exist of

- 1 commandbase (1 figure)

- 3 squads of 4 bases (18 figures)

- 1 heavy weapon squad (2 figures)

Total = 21 figures or 14 bases

The painting

1) Clean the mini's with soap and hot water!

2) Let them dry and give them an undercoat of 1/3 chaos black and 2/3 of water.

3) Drybrush them heavily with snakebiteleather .

4) Another drybrush with 1/3 snakebiteleather en 2/3 skull white.

5) Painted the guns mithrill silver and scorched brown.

6) Painted some faces with dwarf flesh and the details with elf flesh (see pathfinders).

7) painted some details like the ammopacks in scorched brown and highlighted with 1/3 scorched brown and 2/3 skull white.

The figures

The officer, I really like his face (which I left with just a snakebiteleather drybrush).

The machinegun squad (not attached to the base).

The entire battalion ready to be dropped!

I hope you liked this short post,

greets,

Desert dwellings

Here's a better post about the desert dwellings of Consilience of the wargames factory forum.First of all I want to thank our american wargamer for the use of his pictures and more details about the built of the desert dwellings. This done, I can start to tell more about the houses themselves!

The terrain set was built to fit with some science-fiction infantry. But the project was finally started when Consilience picked up a couple of sets of Pig Iron Kolony Ferals. He decided he needed to start a new type of terrain. After considering everything he decided to built a desert wasteland village with rough and uncivilised dwellings. These dwellings are entirely made of kiln-fired ceramics!

Now what if you don't have kiln-fired ceramics?

Paper covered with papier-maché to create structure and then hollow out the inside after it hardens.

There are also various air-dry clays available from art supply stores.

Plaster of Paris over paper would work but might be difficult to clean out the inside if you want it hollow. Similarly there are things like hydrostone which cures even harder.

Concrete patch might be an option if you are building for a game store as they get a lot of hard use.

From the other direction, wood filler made of latex or some other plastic is flexible and more forgiving than the rigid products on the market.

How to make these dwellings?

Soon after, while sitting in the ceramic studio looking for artistic inspiration, Consilience realised that he could try a completely new material for wargames terrain - ceramic! (EUREKA)

He crumpled up some paper for the the basic structural support and taped down the edges to keep it the shape he wanted.

Second he rolled out a slab of clay about 7 mm thick though (thicker or thinner was possible with almost the same result!)

Agter that he Draped the clay over the paper and pressed it down firmly to the working base, He made the doors and windows and added surface details.

Think of all the tools you could use for adding texture and interesting effects to the clay:

- Spoons of various sizes

- forks

- piping and tubes

- miniature feet (for the footprints deuh :p)

- etc

The next stage was kiln firing (hup, in the oven)

The result: some basic structures for his desert dwelling (now only some texturing with sand and a quick paintjob and they are ready to serve)

Pictures

Dwelling 1

A shot with an 28mm figures for scale purposes.

A shot of the exterior wall which is nicely textured!

Dwelling 2: the beast's head

Here's a shot of the beast's head the name was easy to find because of the distinctive shape of the dwelling. There's also a small wall and hut included on this picture.

Dwelling 3: the elephant's trunk

Here are some pictures of the third dwelling called the elephant's trunk.The gun emplacement above the entrance on the backside.

The front of the elephant's trunk with nice texturing!

American jeep Battalion (15-20mm)

Here's a picture of one of my most recent buys that I bought on crisis, 3 American jeeps which will be used for the rapid fire rookie rules together with an american marine corps unit (Okinawa) or an airborne unit (Normandy, Europe).

I don't know the manufacturer but what I know that they were very cheap 1.5 euro's for the three! So I bought them immediately on the bring and buy.

I hope you like them as much as I do!

Greets,

Russian armour (15-20mm)

Here are some pictures of my Russian armour also bought on crisis' bring and bought. they were purchased prepainted and were manufactured by easy models.

KV 1, my favorite (need somebody who speaks Russian want to know the name or slogan :p)

T 34/85 Yes, this tank was used in vietnam and not in the second worldwar but who cares :p

Greets,

American Sherman Battalion (15-20mm)

Here's a picture of some tanks I bought yesterday at crisis' bring and buy! They will serve the United States Marine Corps(usmc) on Okinawa!

This are 3 hasegawa shermans with 76mm canon ready to kick some japanese asses!

Stay tuned for more progress,

Japanese Imperial Army (15-20mm)

Here are some news photo's of my JIA for my Okinawa project, this unit on the photo's is representing the 44th mixed brigade garrisoned on the island during the American invasion. The number of soldiers and bases is based on the rapid fire rookie ruleset.

The unit (battalion ) consist of

- 1 command

- 4 squads of 4 bases (= 32 men)

- 6 heavy weapon bases (3 mortars and 3 machineguns) (= 12 men)

- 1 no retreat marker (just for fun)

Total = 45 men ( 23 bases)

Commanding officer (commandbase) made of a cheap 1/72 plastic cowboyhorse and and esci officer (such as all the soldiers in this unit)

The 6 heavy weapon bases (3 mortars above, 3 machineguncrews below)

The 4 squads

The "no retreat marker" a quit horrible scene but war is horrible!

The entire unit on the parade ground soon (after the project is done and painted) they will crawl in the Okinawa tombs and mud.

I hope you enjoyed the picture,

Crisis?

No not the economical crisis,...

Today, I visited the wargameconvention "crisis" held in Antwerp organised by the members of the tin soldiers of Antwerp. This crisis was my second crisis so far and I hope that they may last forever :p

Again a lot of stands and demogames but unfortunaly I forgot mycamera so I wasn't able to take some pictures. But don't worry be happy, I've saw a lot of people with big professionnal cameras so there will be photographs enough soon on different websites!

Impression

- I though there were less stands but I wasn't sure

- Friendly people positionned at the income (almost fighting for clients :p)

- Just love the bring and buy and the new system they use +++

- Nice tables, really awesome!

- And lots more,...

- Just a must for wargamer who live in Europe :p

My personal top 3 gametables,

1) "Welcome to Tsingtoa" presented by THIS (team for historical simulations)

A very nice and big wargametable with lots of chinese houses, ambassey, large warship, zepplins, really the most cool table of the convention (personal opinion)

Their site (www.ths-wargames.de)

2) An 28mm vietnam-table, lots of jungle and nice Huey's! Really worth seeing!

creators: unknown (help is usefull :p)

3) A vampire gametable, totally painted grey! really nice was ment to represent a 1922 vampire movie with F.W Murnau and was totally awesome even breathtaking, nice quayfeature with a docked ship,...

Realised by Vitkotnik

WIP's and more info

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=3846.0

Off course all the tables were pretty in there own way,

- The 6mm islandwhana-table

- A cool underwaterfighttabl

- A very nice WWI table

(http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=13726.0)

- ...

For more news on crisis and possible photo's

http://www.tsoa.be/html/crisis09_titelblad.htm

Photo's on the forum, go to the subforum crisis 2009

My purchases

- 3 painted 1/72 hasegawa shermans

- 3 painted 1/72 plastic jeeps

- A box of perry napoleonic french cavalry

- Ral partha blisters (monsters, lions, dino's)

- Other blisters ( foundry blister for 3.33 euro normally 17.15!!)

- A can of varnish

- A t34/85 and a KV 1 from easy models (prepainted to a very high standard)

Pictures will follow soon,

I hope you enjoyed the post and everybody keep wargaming!

Greets,

Japanese Imperial Army (15-20mm)

Here's a single shot of my JIA, I based only 16 of them and now need to base another 134! I decided to base them first and paint them afterwards, If anyone has some good tips on painting 15-20mm figures please let me know!

They are part of my Okinawa-project and are ment to represent the 44th mixed brigade. When this brigade was shipped to Okinawa their transportship was sunk and only 600 of the 5000 soldiers survived this tragedy and reached Okinawa unharmed. Later on the remains of the 44th were strenghted by additional soldiers from another unit, the 15th mixed brigade.

Greets,