2020 Advent Calendar: Day 11

At last! I wrote in the previous post that a peaceful scene would be great for an Advent Calendar, here we are!

For Day 11 of the Advent, let's rest a little as we have a look at a musician in Africa.

This figure comes from a very old 1/72 set, which is set #01733 Tarzan figures by Airfix. This man is practicing on a cylindrical drum. In Central Africa, this kind of drum is called Ngoma, played with bare hands.

Our musician might have been included in this year "musician of the month" challenge, but, I you have read this blog from the start, you know that I regularly fail to achieve it, so that I haven't even tried this year :)

The house is a resin model bought some times ago and painted last year. It represents a Celtic house in the Iron Age, but I found it close enough to represent an house in Central Africa, compared to this picture, taken in Democratic Republic of Congo at the end of the 20th century:

So let's take a break, and for some time listen to the beat of the drum...

Rather different than the previous post, don't you think ? Hope you like this scene, and... see you tomorrow :)

Oh, by the way: I have created a page on this blog to gather the images of the Calendar, you can get to it via a link, simply named "2020 Advent Calendar", under the header image.

I probably will modify this page in the future (when I find time), but you will find one picture for every past day.

Musician of the month: Goblin drummer

Hi everyone! For the first post of 2019, since we're are already late in the month, I must carefully choose my priority, so let me introduce you the musician of the month: a Goblin drummer.

This guy comes from one of the last sets by Dark Alliance, Goblins set 2, that I bought 2 days ago.

I've chosen a color scheme that is meant to recall the Goblins from Goblin-town as we can see them in "the Hobbit" first opus. These creatures live in the depths of the Misty mountains, so we can imagine that their skin is very pale - I never used so much white to paint a skin.

Some more pics:

Oh, I've just realized that I chose the same colors as Paul (from Paul's Bods) for the drum! It must be the only common colors :-)

Well, I hope I find time to finish the others soon.

My plans for 2019 are still vague, but this is a first wishlist:

- finish my Late Crusader army: I didn't take pictures recently, but I only need to paint 2 minis (1 foot, 1 horseman) to finish this army according to DBA (with some personal adaptation), so I should write a post about them rather soon

- paint some ACW figures: YES, something very unusal on this blog, but I see so many interesting pictures everywhere... 6 old references are already painted

- paint a lizardmen troop, including conversions to get some cavalry... I mean, lizardry :)

- add some Mayas to my 3 men Maya warband (a bit short)

- paint a second Frost Giant (work in progress!!)

And I don't say anything about 28mm figures, I have at least fantasy 4 armies for Kings of War to paint.

I wish you a year full of minis, and of many other good things too !!

Musician of the month... and Band of the year !

Good evening everyone! I have been completely inactive on internet these past weeks - sorry for all your excellent creations I missed, I will have a look everywhere and comment where I'm late now that I am on vacation for... two days :).

There is at least one mini I should display this month: the musician of December! Let's have a look:

This man is a Scottish piper from the 15th century. He comes from one of the several Redbox sets dedicated to the War of the Roses: set 72043 Scottish Troops.

More important, this mini comes from The UK, since it was kindly sent to me last month by Sprinks, from  Wronghammer.

This mini is very nice, but the blowstick (i.e. the piece of wood in which the piper blows to fill the bag) was missing, so I had to add one to the model.

The result could have been better, but it is already more accurate.

So this guy is the 8th musician of the month this year. Only the 8th ? Unfortunately yes, I didn't achieve to complete the job, because I stopped painting between may and august.

This is what I did this year:

• January: Ancient Egyptian Drummer
• February: Medieval Swiss Drummer
• March: Napoleonic Fife Player
• April: Skeleton Horn Blower 
• May: - 
• June: -
• July: - 
• August: - 
• September: Napoleonic Neapolitan Drummer
• October: Gallic Carnyx Player
• November: Tambourine Player
• December: Medieval Scottish Piper

8 on 12, 66% success.

Now it's time to have a look at the band :)

 Hope you like them, as motley as they are !

Musician of the month: a tambourine player

One interesting part of the "musician of the month" challenge is, from times to times, to paint an unexpected figure.

I think that, this time, the aim is achieved :)

Here you are my tambourine player, with friends.

Beyond the subject itself, one part in this exercise was to paint different skins, particularly for the man and the woman in his arms.

Figures from Linear-B set 75 Roman Port 2.

Musician of the month: Gallic Carnyx player

I'm back in Ancients these days. After the Germanic warband, I found inspiration to paint a Gallic warrior that was on my desk for... years.
It's the problem with Celts: you cannot just paint them, you have to cover their clothes with tartan patterns, and since they were sort of individualist, you cannot paint the same pattern twice !!

So, what does our mini look like ?

Nothing extremely original here, but the combination of green and red (complementary colours) is always nice to see. And NO, I didn't even try to add another tartan pattern on the trousers :)

Maybe you ask yourself: what sort of thing the carnyx might be ?

The carnyx is a celtic wind instrument from the iron age. It was a sort of trumpet made of bronze, and was used on the battlefield to frighten the enemies before the clash (according to Polybius).
According to the Gundestrup cauldron (a richly decorated silver vessel dating from the Celtic era, and found at Gundestrup in Denmark), it looked like that:

And according to modern reenactors (from the french blog Les Lemovices en fête):

I never heard someone playing the carnyx, did you ? Must be a little monotonous, don't you think ?

Hope you like this little musician :)

Musician of the month: drummer of the 8th Neapolitan Line

Hi everyone!

I hope you haven't forgotten this blog :) I know it is a very long time since my last post, but there are several reasons:
1. Summer: I prefer to live outside than to look at a screen
2. Summer: I prefer to travel than to paint in the cellar
3. Socializing: I prefer to talk to people than to my plastic figures
4. Garden: I had a few things to do in the garden (and it's not over...)
5. In spite of the summer and the holidays (in southern Italy, see here - in french, sorry), I also had a lot of work

So after a long break, I come back to this blog with some newly painted figures, but there is only one on display today: the musician of the month!

Our musician is a drummer in the 8th Neapolitan line infantry regiment during the Napoleonic era, and I must admit that he was a real pain to paint. Documentation first: not so easy to find, I used several out-of-date sources, hoping to be accurate - once again, your wise comments are welcome, dear scholar readers.
Then the painting itself: it is difficult to paint after a 5 months break, and the uniform of this drummer is complicated: white with pink garments, and red and white chequered motif everywhere! I had to throw my brush away after that.

Well, this is the drummer:

 You will notice that this is not a plastic figure, but a converted Newline Design Nassau drummer.

Next week (yes, I promise, the pictures are already taken), I will show you the regiment to which this little guy belongs.

As usual, hope you like him :)

Musician of the month: Skeleton Horn Blower

What is fun with fantasy ? There is no limit, and you can create impossible things. This month's musician is not that original, since skeletons (including horn blowers) are classical figures today, thanks to the major manufacturers of Fantasy figures. Hard to believe that dead things can walk,  even slowly, or fight, or do anything but lie... but in Fantasy, everything's explained thanks to Magic, and especially dark Magic.

... So, a dark sorcerer came with forbidden spells, a gifted necromancer, and he began to raise the dead, lots of them... So many of them that they began difficult to control. He was compelled to use a general to rule them all, and he called a mighty vampire, but the skeletons were indisciplined, they didn't follow the orders, as if they were deaf to any signal... wait, of course they're deaf! The necromancer's spells couldn't make skeletons hear the orders, but there was one spell, a very ancient one, that allowed him to create Black music, the dreadful sound of an ancient horn blown by invisible lungs, yes! So he gave that horn to one of his most disciplined skeletons, and ordered him to blow again and again, and, because of this horrible dead sound, every skeleton began to walk West against the human kingdoms...

"Why West ? What if the humans settled in the South ?"
"Then, my apprentice, you will have to learn another spell, because this is the way of Black Magic. Go back to your books and don't ask foolish questions again!"

This month's musician is our skeleton hornblower. His horn is a very old instrument that remained in an ancient tomb for hundreds of years, so it is made of oxidized metal - green oxidation for brass, or verdigris. That's what I tried to represent on this mini, together with rust on the iron parts.

A few pictures:

The fierce skeleton proved good enough to be enrolled by the Vampire general, to summon the skeleton army to go West! Er... to go to the right, as we can see in the following pictures:

 

"Eh, come back, all of you! West is on the other side !!! Who gave me an army of unlateralized skeletons !!!"

Musician of the month: Fife player

At last! We're on the last day of March, it's still time to publish a post about the musician of the month :)

I am in my Napoleonic period (I can hear the Ancients calling), so I painted a musician that belongs to the Napoleonic Chasseurs à pied de la garde: a fife player.

Let's begin with the pictures of the figure:

You may know that there were two sorts of musicians in the Napoleonic regiments. The first belonged to the military bands, who walked in front of the troops during the parades, and the second were the fifes and drums, who were used in battle to communicate the orders. The fifes were used during the Napoleonic era, but were replaced by the trumpets in the middle of the 19th century.

The fife is a small wooden flute, such as these:

I chose to paint a dark brown fife, which means that it is rosewood, a tropical hardwood that makes very good music instruments.



This mini was given to me by Borodino - lucky me, these minis are out of production! Thank you, mate.

And one question for my scholar readers: my first idea was to paint a fife wearing the colors of the Bataillon of Neuchâtel, a famous Swiss troop in french service, but I couldn't find any evidence of such musician, even though fife playing is a Swiss tradition nowadays. What do you think of it ? Do you think I might paint a fife player of that sort ? Any help welcome :)

Musician of the month: Swiss drummer, 15th century

Remember my challenge, to paint a musician every month ? I explained here what happened in 2017. In 2018, I'm in for another attempt. This is the musician for February: a Swiss drummer from the 15th century, when the Swiss confederation was at war with Burgundy.

You will recognize a drummer from an Ultima Ratio set, UR008 Swiss Infantry (Bern) released en 2017.
For those who appreciate Fantasy, you will notice that this guy might also be used as a drummer in a Empire army from the city of Talabheim (from the Ancient World created by GW).

So this year, two musicians so far:
- January: Ancient Egyptian drummer
- February: Medieval Swiss drummer

For March, I would like to paint a man from another era, and another music instrument. Will you guess ?

Musician of the month: Egyptian drummer

Hi everyone! In this rainy Sunday afternoon, nothing better than to paint a figure related to warmth and sun. I also would like to challenge myself once again (2017 saw a complete failure, only 5 guys instead of 12): to paint a musician each month.

So, a musician under the sun ? The best would be an Egyptian drummer, for my New Kingdom army !

Ecce homo (after a famous Angus McBride illustration, no doubt):

And to show that he doesn't play alone in the desert,  a family picture (me, seating on the left :))

Hope you like him. I must say that the Caesar range is a real pleasure to paint.

Musician of the month: Imperial Guard Bass Drummer

Back from the land of the Giants, I managed to paint the musician of the month and to take pictures this morning.
Last time (see last month's post: http://philotepsfigures.blogspot.fr/2017/03/musician-of-month-orc-drummer.html) I explained that I needed more drummers in the band, so after that orc drummer, I wanted to add a bass drummer, and I found one manufactured by Strelets.

Today's musician is a companion for my Bassoon player, since he is the Bass Drummer of the band of the Grenadiers à pied de la Garde, in campaign dress.

 

Bass Drummer and Bassoon Player

Not that original, but not that common either. I hope you like him.

Musician of the month: Orc Drummer

Ok, let's face it, I didn't say everything.

Painting and playing with 1/72 figures is one of my hobbies, and I briefly explained why in a topic published at Benno's Figures Forum (link: here - See Kekso, in case you check, I put a link :D).

But I must admit that it is not the most time consuming hobby I have. Another hobby is playing music, alone, or with my family or friends, or even in bands - I have been a member of a Salsa band for several years, and at that time, I played on stage almost every week... I didn't paint a lot in this period, even worse than today :)

That's why I particularly appreciate the figures that represent musicians - military, fantasy or civilians (there's a lack of civilians in my pictures, by the way, but I like wargaming :)).

So I decided this year to paint a musician per month, and at the end of the year... I have a complete band !

What do we have for now ?
December 2016 - a Napoleonic Bassoon Player - he will play in the 2017 band as a soloist :)
January 2017 - a Late Empire Roman Cornicen
February 2017 - a Germanic Horn Blower

They are all wind instrumentists. I need various instruments, it's time to get some percussion. Ok, the easy way would be to paint a drummer in any napoleonic army... hmm, too obvious. I wanted a bit of fantasy... Fantasy! Yes, even Orcs are able to play drums :)

So this is my fourth musician in the 2017 band: an Orc Drummer, found in a Dark Alliance Orc set (set nr 1).

He doesn't look very happy, that's because he 's focusing on the tempo :)

I hope you like it. I would very glad to read your suggestions for the next member of the band!

Musician of the month: Germanic Horn Blower

Just a few hours before the end of February, I had to hurry to publish pictures of the monthly musician!
This time, I painted a Germanic warrior from a tribe of the Marcomanni confederation, blowing a war horn.

The Marcomanni gave their name to the Marcomannic wars, a series of wars between Rome (under Marcus Aurelius) and several Germanic confederations that lasted from 166 to 180 AD.

At the end of the year, I intend to take pictures of the whole music band :)

1/72 figure by Caesar.

Musician of the month: Roman Cornicen

After the Napoleonic bassoon player, the musician of the month is a roman soldier from the Late Imperial Rome period. He is a Cornicen, named after his instrument, called a Cornu. His role on the battlefield was "to draw the troops attention to their standards before these were used to signal tactical movements" (Phil Barker, Armies and enemies of Imperial Rome, WRG publication).

He will be a welcomed recruit in my Late Roman Empire army.
Figure by Hät.