Isle of Lewis Chessmen Statues

Earlier this year I picked up three plaster casts of the Isle of Lewis chess men. The casts were not very good, in fact they were miss-cast with lots of air bubbles and some serious damage. However I thought they were worth saving and here you see the first re-modelled statue, The Queen.

The Queen had the base sanded smooth and a was mounted on to a rough oval of 3mm thick plastic card. I used a small wooden chip and DAS modelling clay to add some interest to the plain base then sprinkled sieved sand and small stones over uPVA glue to texture the groundwork.

Image Two - Shows the lop-sided Queen alongside the poorly cast King. The very poorly cast King!

Image Three - I 'sealed' the plaster with some dilute uPVA glue.

Image Four - The basecoat of grey, drybrushed grey was slapped on.

Image Five - The stonework was tinted with various washes to give the stone colour some 'life'.

Image Six - The base was painted in my usual Snakebite Leather cocktail with odd stones picked out in grey.

Image Seven - Then the base was decorated with dyed sawdust and static grass.

I think the newly based and painted Queen looks OK and considering the fact that they were destined to be thrown away - I believe that this is a win-win.

Tony

Models For Wargamers Book is still available to order

Another quick reminder. Dampfpanzerwagon Guide No. 3 - Models For Wargamers is still available to order. For details of how to get your copy, follow this link.

In addition, there are still limited quantities of Dampfpanzerwagon Guide No. 2 - More Wargame Terrain available. for details see this link.

Thank you.

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - test #2

This is an image of a heavily converted 1/24th scale plastic figure that was bought from the Internet. I was searching to see if I could find a 60mm - 66mm miniature to use with the 1/27.7 scale or 11mm = 1 foot scale test (see earlier posts), but this search proved unsuccessful.

I therefore purchased 10 plastic figures from e-bay. Two of these miniatures can be seen below, next to a couple of 1/43.5 scale or O gauge figures (7mm = 1 foot).

I chopped the mannequin into sections, cutting at the neck, waste, knee and foot, then removing about 20mm of plastic.

These pieces were then glued together with superglue.

I used Green Stuff to re-build the body.

Then more Green Stuff to cloth the figure.

Even more Green Stuff to detail his dungarees.

Following comments on The lead Adventure, I painted the new miniature with Games Workshop Green Filler - (a water based filler that comes in the standard GW pot).

Then undercoated him with brush applied grey primer.

The flesh areas were painted first. Snakebite Leather then highlighted with Snakebite/white with some more white and a little red. Finally the model was washed with GW Flesh wash.

The shirt was painted over a Stonewall Grey acrylic colour from Vallejo, highlighted with white.

And the dungarees painted in dark blue, highlighted in Regal Blue.

This final image shows the finished workman alongside the O gauge figure.

The model stands 63mm tall or about 5' 8'' in 1:27.7 (11mm = 1foot).

Tony

Olde World into the Wild Kickstarter - final day!

I will be watching with interest as the Apocalypse Miniatures Kickstarter counts down. For more information see this link or use the Label Oldhammer on the right.

Good luck Ryan/Rob.

Tony

Update;
£2914.00 pledged from a £1000.00 goal. Congratulations to Ryan. 

Now the hard work starts.

The Witches Hovel

Here is the latest terrain piece for the Apocalypse Miniatures Kickstarter - Olde World Into The Wild. The Witches Hovel or Cottage. The master was sculpted by me as a super stretch goal, but as the Kickstarter has gone so well Ryan has agreed to include it as an 'Add On'. Here you see it beside the Two Storey House to show just how big this beauty is.

For more information please use this link.

The model is unique in this range as it has a fully modelled interior and a lift off thatched roof.

Act now as there is less than a week to go on this Kickstarter and I know that once the initial pledges have been made, Ryan is looking to remove the discounted price option.

I hope you like it.

Tony

Oldhammer Kickstarter into its last week

Image borrowed from the Kickstarter page

Ryan at Apocalypse Games has updated both the AP and Kickstarter pages to show even more of the painted resin models that make up this Kickstarter. For more information follow the AP link above or go to this link.

Most of the buildings and terrain have been mastered by me and cast in resin by Rob at Hysterical Games.

Hurry, only 7 days to go.

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - test #1

This is an image of a short piece of modified narrow gauge track that I have modelled to test the idea that I can make the Peco 'crazy track' look more realistic and in scale if modelling narrow gauge in 1/35th scale rather than the 1/43rd for which it is designed for.

I started with a scrap piece of wood, actually a piece of a used pallet. The ends were cut and sanded square.

I had this spare piece of Peco 'crazy track' (designed to be used as narrow gauge track when running HO-OO motors with modified O gauge engines and figures), left over from an earlier project. The gauge or distance between the track is 16.5mm (HO-OO).

I removed some sleepers and re-spaced them. This was not a detailed test, the spacing was done my 'eye' at about 16mm centres.

I have in the past used thin cork sheet to build up the track and banking. I didn't have any cork, but did find this piece of balsa wood which I cut and sanded to shape.

The balsa wood and track was glued in place with a hybrid superglue and small nails were used to secure it while the glue set.  The ends of the sleepers were cut square as my plan was to extend them using pieces of spare sleepers.

In this image you can see the extended sleepers. I used superglue and accelerator as Peco plastic is notoriously difficult to glue. The joins were hidden by applying Green Stuff to the edges.

I have used DAS White (applied over uPVA glue) to build up the banks either side of the track.

The groundwork was applied over dilute uPVA glue and then using a small dropper and some Wet Water (water with a small drop of washing-up liquid), I soaked the whole area to make sure that the small stones and sand were held in place.

Painting was done with standard acrylics and some washes. I wanted a well worn look so there was lots of green applied to the sleepers.

I will be using diesel engines on my planned layout and so I added a very dark black/brown to the centre of the track to show lots of oil and diesel deposits. I have also painted the track with various rust colours and cleaned the top of the track with some fine emery paper to get that well used look.

Finally, I added some small static grass tufts and some ground foam to show weeds and growth coming up between the sleepers. I gloss painted the oil and diesel spills to make them stand out against the matt base colours.

This is only a short test piece. The wooden base is just 180mm long by 70mm wide and the track is only 150mm long, but it did allow me to test the theory that I could use the modified Peco crazy track to model 1/35th scale (or larger) if I wanted.

I am still to decide if I will use 1/35th scale figures and scale or a larger 1/27.7 scale to model this project - stay tuned for more updates.

If you 'click' on the images, you can super-size them.

Tony