Codex Manesse – Pavilion

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Today another (after the church) simple 3d model for Codex Manesse range. This time it is a knightly pavilion loosely inspired by Winli’s tent.

It is one of most commonly depicted (though not necessarily most common) kind of tent of high-to-late middle ages – round pavilion supported by a center pole. (As this model was to be as simple as can be, the center pole is not included :D. You can easily make one of paper roll or bamboo skewer). How the perimeter of the tent was erected is not entirely clear. Several concepts are used by re-enactment groups and experimental archaeologists with spoked wheel concept being  most common.

As you can see the tent is actually almost as big as CM church. I tried to keep it’s relative size to characters, according to original miniature and Codex Manesse art canon, and that demands inconsistent scaling of “architecture” elements :).

Manesse-tent

Anyway the model is fairly simple to make. Simply cut out elements, fold togue tabs and insert them into slots marked with corresponding letters,  then put the tent top on the walls, and that’s it. The tents should stand on its own with no glue required (depending on paper density), allowing easy assembly and disassembly for storage. You can always glue it together if you like. Click on the image below to download PDF file allowing you to make a closed or opened tent with 3 different scallop patterns (Use layers tab to turn desired options on or off ). To add size variety to your tent field you can cut out some segments of the tent to make narrower but taller tents. (The tent to the right on the photo above had 4 scallops and corresponding wall sections cut out).

namiot

Aftercuts 2014

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Papercuts 2014 showcase is 2 weaks behind us…

I bearly managed to find time to submit a single mini, but not enough to prepare a proper presentation, or even a photo session. (This is supposed to mean “sorry for the quality of photo below).

Still it was enough for 4th place.

Daria_FnB

This is Daria, a not so ordinary kid in a postapocalyptic (or actually sort of trans-apocalyptic) world. Here you can find my submission, and a brief description of the scene. According to new rules of Papercuts all submissions were to be free to download so, you can download miniature of Daria here.

I think that overall level of the competition was slightly better than last year with some really cool concepts and/or executions. Congratulations to all the winners. You can browse all submissions on Cardboard Warriors board here.

Especially best of show winner is worth your attention with some cool rain effect’s printed on diorama. You can also browse all submission photos and download models and miniatures on OneMonk page.

Codex Manesse – Frauenzimmer

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Wow… Three months no update…shame on me…

Well, I’ve been extremely busy mostly with mundane things, also trying to dust off my drawing skills (perhaps I will show some of this in near future). But despite all that I finally managed to find some time to make another set of Manesse Minis.

The Frauenzimmer  was a generic term used since XV century in Central European courts (under influence of German imperial court I guess) used to denote the female part of the court – both chambers used by females and their inhabitants themselves. In Poland the term (localized as Fraucymer) was used almost strictly to indicate the mistress of a major court (a Queen, Duchess or other lady of higher nobility), and her closest handmaidens often also of noble (although lesser) blood. The term was coined much later than Codex Manesse, but I think it is a good title for a miniatures set focused on noble ladies. Anyway, here they are.

codex-manesse_frauenzimmer_lresAccording to medieval Christian tradition women wearing head scarves would be married women of respectable position and/or age (such as the lady of the court herself or her house-mistress – overseer and tutor of younger maidens and servants). Those wearing barbettes and fillets (these bonnet like things) would be maidens in age suitable for marriage, while servant maids, and young girls would go with their hair uncovered. Such rules were, however, not always and not everywhere respected and many women wore fillets even when married, at least until their beauty (and fashion) was more important for them than an image of a respectable matron. Anyway, just right click and “save target as” to ad the ladies of the court to your Codex Manesse collection :).

Harnessing horse power.

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This build was intended just to help me to layout shades when texturing, and test harness concept, but of course it resulted in some changes in the general design that i need to test further. Anyway this is where the horse design is now. Harness was designed by hand and I will now try to make it into vectors and add some details like buckles rings etc. I plan to make two harness types to choose from first with collar as and second with breast band. We will see if I make it.

As no wagon was ready yet, to test if the harness works this horse pulls an impromptu improvised spike harrow.

Scottish style blackhouse – using Meadow fences and Walls.

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I was watching Rob Boy lately, (a  film  I recommend to everyone, even if only roughly based on real Rob Roy’s life) and that inspired me to make this:

RR_1Meet Robert Roy MacGregor and his wife Mary MacGregor (and his cow – Cow MacGregor :P) in front of their house in the Scottish highlands. The characters are of course just a 5min sketches to set the mood, as the subject of this post is the house itself.
I love the look of the Scottish blackhouses. It’s like they were grown or pushed from under ground rather than build, and they blend into landscape as if they were always meant to be there.

Such houses built with dry stone walls with earthen core,  roof covered with thatch or (as on this model) with turf, are actually one of the branches on an ancient tradition (reaching back to neolithic) of Central and North European longhouses where people and livestock were sheltered under one roof. Most these neolithic longhouses (where resources allowed) were build either of logs or  wattle and daub, but where wood was scarce (as in Scottish highlands or Islands) stone or turf was used. Germanic or Viking longhouses stem Read more…

Gabion gun emplacement – using Meadow Fences and Walls

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Here comes another gun emplacement made using elements of Meadow Fences and Walls set (and a linen thread).

20140409_Gabion-emplacement_2

This time it is more modern gabion emplacement. As the firepower and widespread of firearms and artilerry increased in renaissance period, medieval wooden shields and hurdles proved not to be enough to protect the artillery crews and were replaced with gabion fortifications. Esentially a predecessor of modern sandbags or steel gabion fortifications these early Read more…

Back on horse.

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When you leave an unfinished project and return to it later, you will find that a lot of issues that were not bothering you when you left it, now turned annoying.

Actually it is rather that with a fresh eye you can see faults that were omitted earlier but still, having to improve things over and over again is annoying (I believe all designers of whatever know that). This time it refers to the horse. I’ve returned to this project last week, and already fixed some things that were not as good as they should (e.g. pasterns, ears and head) but still have to fix others. Especially neck-shoulder joint. My attempts to make it fully adjustable made it really difficult to assemble, so I’m going to simplify it retaining only slight adjustability. It should be enough to get a diverse horse team anyway.  There are some other minor issues, much easier to fix before I’ll get to texturing. Oh and there is still harness to design.

Below you can see the last build of the horse. It may be a little clunky but it was made to test some changes in the design so I wasn’t focused too much on overall effect.

20140409_kon_2   20140409_kon_1

20140409_kon_3

Medieval cannon emplacement – using Meadow Fences and Walls.

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As promised, here comes the first idea of what can you do with Meadow Fences and Walls. – a medieval cannon siege emplacement.

20120405_Cannon-shield_2

Shield lowered, as the crew is reloading the cannon

To be effective early cannons had to be placed and operated relatively close to the walls, often within range of bows or crossbows or other engines of defenders. To protect the crew against missiles and to hide operations from the sight of the enemy wooden hurdles and shields were erected at gun sites. Read more…

Walls and fences in the field.

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I hereby announce that Meadow Fences and Walls set is up for grabs at Wargame Vault. As I have a lot (a LOT actually) of test prints made during designing this set scattered around, you can expect some tutorial or inspirational posts with examples of what you can make of this set beyond of what the name implies.

Incoming – Medieval fences.

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Fences_01

This is something I started just after finishing Concrete barriers.
Playing mostly fantasy (or historical) wargames I decided I need something similar – simple linear obstacles – but more suitable for historical and fantasy battlefields and thus an idea for a set of medieval field or meadow fences was born.

To be more precise it is rather a set of pre-industrial not just medieval walls and fences as these fence types were used for millennia before industrial made fences and bricks replaced them in many places of the world. Read more…