Step by step: Basing a giant scorpion

 Hi everyone!

Today, I'd like to share a new step in the building of my 1/72 Mythological Egyptian army - the previous episode is here.

You certainly know that 1/72nd scale is much less used by wargamers and role players than 28mm or even 15mm. Aside from the fact that you can't find a player for miles, one of the consequences is that the number of manufacturers is rather small, particularly regarding Fantasy. And so, it is difficult to find mythological creatures for your 1/72 army.

Is it ? If I have a figure of creature in 28mm, it can be considered as a giant creature in 1/72. And if it is a giant creature in 28mm, it becomes an extra-giant creature in 1/72. Ok, that's easy, and I've soon discovered that many gamers have had this idea already. But what if you want to be able to use your creature in 28mm AND in 1/72 ? You will probably need different bases (unless your system is very open regarding bases, or you don't care). And even more if you have figures on round bases that you want to use with wargame rules that work better with square bases.

So you have to adapt and create a new base in which you can insert the original mini. That's what I've done to get a giant scorpion in my 1/72 Mythological Egyptian army. Let's have  look:

 This scorpion comes from the 28mm Conan range by Monolith. All the figures in this game are sold on round bases (35mm in diameter here), and I since I'm playing that game, I don't want to remove that base. And the other hand, I need to put it on a 60mmx60mm base for a Fantasy variant of l'Art de la Guerre. So I've cut a round 35+mm hole in some balsa wood (very easy, even with an ordinary cutter), and I've stuck the outer part with wood glue on my MDF square base.

No no, Mxxxxrix isn't my sponsor :D

 

The hole in the balsa wood is a bit larger than just needed, inserting the figure will be easier

Then I've stuck a few stones (gravel) with wood glue on the balsa, and now we wait until it's dry.

When dry, I cover the base (except for the hole) with some desert sand by AK. It gives the base a nice sand texture, but I don't like its color. No major problem of course.

 

When the result is dry (yes, you spend more time waiting than anything else, so it's better to do several things in parallel), I cover with a better sand color in my taste, GW's Zandri Dust.

And I add some dry grass - my desert must not be completely sterile!

 

Last step: I need to dry brush the sand with a mix of Zandri Dust and White Scar.

 I'm happy with the result, and I have at last a good method to base my whole Egyptian army. Last picture, some 20mm Romans in front of the scorpion for the scale: it is a giant scorpion, indeed :)

 

 

Here you are. I hope you will find this modest tutorial useful, and that you like this cute scorpion - by the way, he resembles those that live at my mother-in-law's house in South France, same color and size. The real ones are completely harmless :)

See you soon! 

 

Egyptian Mythology: of Gods and Beetles

 Hi everybody!

Sorry for the lack of update on this blog. Not a lack of mojo this time, it's just that sometimes, real life's stronger than hobby. I didn't paint a lot since last winter, though I have a few figures to show. After Nordic then Greek mythology, I wanted to extend my Ancient Egyptian army into a fantastic version. It's far from complete but I have enough figures for a decent post.

First, the family picture:

 If you've read this blog in the past, you might identify some mummies on the left of the picture. Let's have a closer look:

These figures come from a Dark Alliance set, ALL72045. The same manufacturer also produced some Anubites (named after god Anubis, a reference to the Mummy movie series, set ALL72053), and you can see them here:

I also wanted to represent some Egyptian Gods. Fortunately, Reaper Minis produced some in their plastic 28mm range, and I chose to paint Thoth, god of the Moon, wisdom, knowledge, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art and judgment. He is often depicted with an ibis head an a human body.

A could also find a swarm of scarabs in the Reaper range - though big for 1/72, they do the job.

Of course you also need some human troops. Here they are so far, some archers:

Some heavy warriors, including a few Sherden elite.

And the usual light infantry. Nubian archers:

And Libyan warriors:

Still a lot of work to complete this army. I need:

- a second scarab swarm figure

- more heavy warriors

- more Anubites (my favorite figures in this army)

- some giant scorpions (I found some in the Conan range by Monolith)

- a sphinx (Reaper)

- some Chariots (some are on my workbench for aeons...)

- and some generals, foot and chariot

Hope they are worth the wait :) 

EDIT: I also wanted to apologize for the lack of answer to your nice comments lately, but there's a security issue between Firefox and my Google account, so that I am now unable to write a comment on my own blog!!! Very sorry. I'm considering leaving Blogger if I don't find an answer to that problem.

EDIT #2: I've found a way to solve my problem, at last! If I use Firefox private navigation, I can write comments on my own blog, and also on the others. If this info is of help...
 

Mythologic Greek army complete

 Hi everyone! It's high time to write a new post in this blog. In the end of June, I showed you the creatures painted for a Mythological Greek army. Since that post, I've been painting some Greek hoplites, and I have now enough of them to consider my modest army complete. Modest meaning that this is a 123 pts army for l'Art de la Guerre v4 - with house rules for the Fantasy elements.

Here you are the result (before basing):

The army list is as follows:

General in chief, brilliant: 4 pts

Subgeneral, competent: 2 pts

1 element of Heavy Centaurs: 10 pts

1 element of Light Centaurs: 7 pts

3 elements of Hoplites: 24 pts

1 element of Amazons: 10 pts

3 elements of Psiloi: 12 pts

1 element of Minotaurs: 36 pts

1 Cyclops: 18 pts

 

 Let's have a closer look at the hoplites:

At ADLG, you need 8 figures for a Heavy Infantry element. The first figures on the left are Theban hoplites, with a general element behind. The next are a mix of Athenian and Spartan hoplites, with a Spartan general in the background.

I've also painted 4 more Amazons to complete the Amazon hoplites element.

For hoplites, it's always good to have a screen of Psiloi, here are these young and agile warriors.

Let's have a closer look at the hoplites. I like painting these guys because of their shields, or aspis. Some figures have engraved patterns on their shields (some of the Hät Thebans and Zvezda hoplites), but I must say that I prefer plain shields to paint whatever design I wish, as you can see on the Caesar, Linear and the venerable Atlantic figures.

The last close-ups focus on the command elements - first the Theban subgeneral:

And the Spartan commander.

So what's next ? Still some work. I need to base all these figures, and paint some new ones to have a 250 pts army, which means:

- more hoplites

- more Amazons, hoplites, Psiloi and command

- some more Centaurs, or maybe Minotaurs

They also need some opponents, the Mythological Egyptians! That's another story, but let me tell you that the paintjob is well under way :)

See you!

Greek mythology: of Minotaurs and Amazons, and more

Hi! 

What if I could write a post with tags such as 'Ancients', 'Fantasy', and '1/72' ? Yes it is possible, I promise... let's have a look at some 1/72 creatures from the Greek mythology!

A few years ago, Dark Alliance began to produce Fantasy figures from various universes, something rarely seen before, since only Caesar had produced this sort of sets before - all out of prod nowadays, and incredibly difficult to find at a fair price!

Some of their figures are clearly related to Greek mythology, for instance the Minotaurs:

And this is my painted version:

The first Minotaurs have a very classical color scheme, so I wanted to try something else:

This white figure can be seen as a boss, or as an infernal version of a Minotaur - what do you think of him ?

Next set, the Centaurs:

One of them made an appearance in the 2020 Advent Calendar in this blog - you can see the related post here.

Dark Alliance also released a set containing Cyclops, a dream come true:

If you read this blog for some time, you will remember the post dedicated to this very nice figure.

Dark Alliance also made a set dedicated to Amazons, but I must admit that it is far from my favourite (the sculpting is not the best, and my copy had too much flash). Fortunately, Linear A also released a set dedicated to these female warriors, and this time, the figures are really great:

Last but not least, the Hydra. I had to search among my oldest 25mm figures to find a relevant model, a wonderful Ral Partha figure bought some 40 years ago :)

This old snake fits well with a Dark Alliance Amazon. Here is a link to a post dedicated to this figure, one of the first of this blog back in 2016.

I now have enough figures to add 6 elements to my HoTT Greek mythology army (the Greeks themselves are ready for a long time, see here), but there will be further developments. I would like to add:

- some more of the above figures, of course

- a Harpy: I have an old 25mm citadel figure that could do the job

- a Sphinx: a 28mm figure from Reaper Bones - maybe a bit large but I haven't an alternative yet, tell me if you have any idea

- some gods represented with 25mm figures

 And I'm sure that even more is possible. All suggestions welcome!

I hope you found this post useful, or at least recreative :)

Nordic mythology

 We're still in a heat wave here in south-eastern France, so I will keep on displaying winter scenes to cool my mind, if not my body.

If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you may have noticed that I am interested in mythologies from all around the world. Among many projects, I wish to paint mythological armies for HOTT, which allows me to use historical and Fantasy figures together. 

The first 1/72 Fantasy figures appeared on the market in 2007, originally made by Caesar and related to Heroic Fantasy. The first batch consisted of 6 sets: Dwarves, Elves, Undead, Adventurers, Goblins and Orcs. They were soon followed by another Manufacturer called Dark Alliance (or maybe Alliance, since we have the dark and the light sides) who produced their first Orcs in 2009. Their main source of inspiration was the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, so Heroic Fantasy once again.

Alliance proved to be the most prolific manufacturer. Most of the range is related to the Middle Earth, but they also produced unexpected sets related to Greek and Egyptian mythologies: Centaurs, Minotaurs, Cyclops, Amazons, Mummies, Anubites. These new sets gave me the idea to create three armies inspired by a video game, Age of Mythology. But how to represent the Viking army without dedicated mythologic sets ?

The answer is simple: most mythological creatures are bigger than humans, they can even have the size of a monster. And to find big creatures is very easy: you just have to look at 28mm figures ranges. And for other creatures, you must remember that Heroic Fantasy such as Tolkien's opus is inspired by Nordic mythology.

And here we are the result, in Cinemascope :)

All right, what do we have here ?

 

Two frost giants, always attractive (for painters) with a blue skin. The right one was painted several years ago as you can see in this post. The left one was painted last year. As the previous one, it is a soft plastic figure from a boardgame called Zombicide: Black Plague.

You know what? Painting 32mm figures (ie big 28mm) is much easier than 1/72 - it depends on the quality you want to get, of course :)

I've also painted a representation of Fenrir as a giant black wolf. In the Norse mythology, Fenrir is one of the children of Loki, and it is foretold that he will kill Odin during the Ragnarok, the battle at the end of time. There are several wolves in 28mm figure ranges, and I've chosen one among the first boardgames I offered to my children, Dungeons and Dragons (see a description of this game here).

Not the biggest of the Wolves, but good enough on a wargame table.

Last figures, more classical: three dwarves (some Nibelungen ?) from the Caesar set.

As a conclusion, I could say that, together with my DBA Viking army, I have enough figures to create a 12 elements warband for HOTT. But it is always possible to add figures for more options, and I've planned to paint the followings one day or another:

- Valkyries on horse ("Modern" Amazons by Dark Alliance)

- Bersekrs (various vikings and germanic warriors with wearing wolfskins)

And of course, I need to base them all :)