Scarves and Cloaks without Greenstuff

Yesterday, I posted a short video showing how I have added scarves and cloaks to some of my miniatures for the Retreat from Moscow Project. I have tried using Green Stuff, but I'm not very good at sculpting, and all my previous attempts have looked truly awful! However, I think I have found a different method that achieves the same thing, using liquid putty and real fabric.

For years now, I have been using a product called Liquid Putty from Vallejo. It's a mixture of marble dust and an adhesive medium that dries hard with minimal shrinkage. I guess its similar to GW's Liquid Greenstuff (only cheaper!) and is designed for gap filling when assembling multipart figures. And that is exactly what I have used it for until recently. Now I water it down to the same consistency as paint and brush it onto fabric (in my case, cotton T-Shirt material) to make scarves, cloaks and any item of clothing. The end result is rock-hard, waterproof and paintable, and for my money, a much easier and realistic way of adding small items like scarves or cloaks to models.

Apologies for the terrible video of me trying to show the method in action. I need to practice making these sorts of how-to videos, and part of that involves keeping my hands in shot during filming and having all the tools and materials I need ready on the workbench! I bought a new arm to hold my camera over the desk, but finding the right place to position it where it doesn't get in the way is a matter of trial and error (mostly error in this video! 🤣)

Cossack Sled Guns During the Napoleonic Wars

This week I have finished converting a few figures to make an unusual unit for the Retreat from Moscow.  Russian Cossack units, apparently employed an innovative solution to winter warfare: sled-mounted light artillery. These "sled guns" helped maintain Russian mobility and firepower across the frozen battlefields. Standard artillery carriages often failed in deep snow and extreme cold. From what I can find, these small-caliber guns — typically 2- or 3-pounders or small licornes — were mounded onto wooden sledges. These sleds, fitted with runners instead of wheels, enabled the guns to move swiftly across snow and ice. 

The sled designs varied from simple flatbeds to reinforced frames capable of absorbing recoil. Often, sled guns were hauled by small horse teams and fired directly from the sled, sometimes anchored to stabilize against recoil. Cossack sled guns fit seamlessly into their hit-and-run style of warfare. Small detachments used these guns to ambush French supply columns, harass stragglers, and raid lightly defended posts. Their light weight made them ideal for fast attacks and rapid withdrawals.

During the 1812 retreat from Moscow, sled guns would have contributed to the constant harassment of the Grand Armée. Although not powerful enough to shatter major formations, the psychological impact of mobile artillery attacks in the depths of winter was significant. French morale, already collapsing under starvation and exposure, deteriorated further under the constant threat of sudden artillery fire. 

The gun in this model is scratch built, utilising two small prussian artillery pieces and their carriages to make one sled gun. The sled itself is made from parts of the gun carriages and is a rough approximation of the custom built sleds described and illustrated in the picture above. For crew I used cossacks from Wargame Foundry's Seven Years War range, replacing a rifle with a sponge/rammer and a sword with a slow-match.

If you want to see more, check out my latest YouTube Short showcasing this model. And if you want to see more of the 1812 Retreat from Moscow project that Ray and I are working on check out this video on my channel.

Sandbag topped dug-in markers

Last week I posted pictures of some small hedges that I bought from Pendraken and wondered if there were any other scatter terrain items I could produce. Then I remembered that I had some old prepainted terrain that I had bought for my Western Desert games of Flames of War (many moons ago). These had seen better days and needed a repaint anyway, so I decided to start afresh and paint them for my NW Europe/Normandy games. 

These are actually Dug-in Markers for Flames of War and originally came prepainted for European games. However, when I bought them I converted them for use in the desert with some selected dry brushing to turn the earthen banks into 'sandy' banks topped by sandbags. As I mentioned, they had seen better days, having been stored poorly and bashed around a bit so they were due for a repaint anyway. So I cleaned the models and gave them a new basecoat of Brown primer. 

The paint job was very simple after that, with several layers of dry brushing on the earthen banks and the sandbags, followed by some careful inking of the sandbags to increase the contrast. Once they had dried I gave all the models my prefered practice of using multiple layers of varnish (two Gloss followed by one or two Mat/dull cote) to give them a tough protective layer. I didn't do that with the originals because they were pre-paints and the resulting chips and scrapes were why I needed to repaint them. When everything was thoroughly dry I added turf and grass tufts so they will blend into my other terrain for this setting. 

Hopefully, these will see action soon and I think they will be very versatile.  

Natal Native Mounted Contingent

Earlier in the Challenge, I painted some Natal Native Contingent and described how they were given relatively little equipment and their uniform consisted of a red bandana to wrap around their foreheads. Fortunately, there were some native troops that were better equipped. The Natal Native Mounted Contingent were relatively small in number and were formed into six Troops of approximately 50 men each, lead by a European Lieutenant and a native NCO. They were largely recruited from the amaNgwane (a tribe from Natal) traditionally hostile to the Zulus.

These troopers were much better equipped than the Native infantry; troopers wore a tan-coloured European style uniform, their mount had full equipment and each trooper was issued with a breech-loading carbine. The European officers usually wore a blue jacket, brown trousers and white helmet although there was some variation. I decided to give one of my officers a soft hat similar to the troops under his command. This involved cutting the pith helmet off, then filing down to the brim and using a tiny dab of greenstuff to form the new core of the hat. A bit fiddly on a 6mm model, ill grant you, but it means my two officers look a little different to each other. 

Five troops were present at Isandlwana under Colonel Durnford. They fought well against the Zulu's, but late in the battle Colonel Durnford dismissed them in order to save as many of his men as he could as the battle descended into chaos. Being mounted they had a much better chance of escape and many are credited with having stopped to give rides to desperate British Soldiers fleeting the massacre. Around 200 NNH survived the battle and were reformed later in the war. 

The newly formed Troops of the NNH went on to see action at Hlobane; the Battle of Kambula; and at the Battle of Ulundi. After the war, the NNH was retained as a police force in conquered Zululand, and saw action during the Zulu civil wars which began in the early 1880s. They were finally disbanded during the Second Anglo-Boer War, due to a growing fear that they could side with the Boers.

I have painted these as both mounted and dismounted troopers. There are 32 mounted troopers, 4 mounted officers/NCO's and 32 dismounted troopers. By my math, that should net me 52 Points.

Frostgrave Terrain Conversions

Back in April I bought the Frostgrave rules and recently I decided that many of my old Dungeons and Dragons models could be easily converted to fit this setting. Today I started doing just that by adding some ice and snow effects to terrain pieces and figures that were originally painted for a decidedly warmer setting.

I have tried out a new product (well, new to me). Tamiya Diorama Texture Paint, in this case Snow Effect / White. This material is sort of like a paste that can be diluted with water but dries quite hard. This means it can be brushed onto a model with a little water to make it pliable and sticky. When the water dries off the finished effect is quite hard and durable and is therefore ideal for adding to bases or terrain pieces. I brushed it over existing painted 'grass' bases and over rock to simulate frost, with thicker clumps in recesses and on some flat areas to replicate snow that hadn't melted. One of the good things about this paint is that it can be applied over pretty much any surface, including previously dry layers of snow. This means its possible to add snow until you get the right look. 

Quite a lot of the 'fantasy' terrain I have can also be 'iced up' in this fashion. Old resin terrain that hasn't seen the light of day for many years is getting a new lease of life with just the addition of some snow.

The rocks and standing stones are from Ainsty Castings and are probably over 10 years old. Some of the broken pillars and fallen statutes are old Lord of the Rings terrain items by Games Workshop. 

I also started on a few figures just to see how the snow effect looked on these. I'm pretty happy with the finished result and will work through my remaining collection of fantasy models in the coming weeks.

Finished LRDG Chevy's

As mentioned last week I have been working on some LRDG vehicles for my 6mm 1942 North Africa Project. I bought the models several months ago but I wasn't going to rush into painting them until I was happy I had a good colour scheme for them and a clear idea of how I was going to use them in future games. As I mentioned on Friday I found several excellent websites and a back copy of an article from Model Military International that I found very inspiring and helped me decide on a daring - even risky - hard edged camouflage pattern consisting of Desert Pink and Pale Blue. As you can see from the following pictures I have finished, and personally I really like the way these have turned out. 

Three Half Patrols with two Jeeps as the HQ Section.

A close up showing the side front and rear of these Chevy trucks. The truck on the left has a captured 20mm Breda anti-aircraft gun mounted in the back. In a moment of madness I also added small painted details such as the black strip of paint on the front nearside hood which would have had the name of the truck painted in white. 

As usual I have labeled all the bases although fitting these longer labels on was a tight squeeze.

The models come in one piece with just the machine guns separate. But the guns were far too fragile to stand up to rough handling and the lack of extra crew (other then a driver) really bothered me. In the end I raided my 'bitz-box' and found some suitable artillery crew, HMG's and officers to mount in various positions within the trucks. A lot of clipping and filing later the new crew fitted well and mean each truck is different to the next. 

Mixing the right shade of desert pink was difficult. I used some old Squid Pink (from the Vallejo Game Colour Range) and added white until I had the shade I wanted. It needed to be much lighter than the finished look to allow for the dark ink wash I would apply to the model after base coating. 

The pink base coat still looked scarily bright (this picture just doesn't show that well). After I had added the light blue camo pattern and dusted the whole model with weathering the brightness was brought under control. The final ink wash completed the process so the finished models don't look 'neon-pink' on the games table!

I have to say these trucks were great fun to paint. The models were very well detailed without a single flaw or piece of flash on any of the castings. The lack of additional crew was a little bit of a disappointment but I had great fun finding suitable models for a bit of micro conversion work. And painting these was great fun as well, albeit a little nerve wracking when I applied that first coat of pink. I'm really happy with how these turned out and I can't wait to use them in a game... now I just need to build myself an Axis airfield for these guys to attack! 

Chabra

These models are conversions I made several years ago to feature in a home grown campaign written and run by the EvilGM. The Chabra as they were called were one of his best creations and his worlds equivalent to Goblinoids. There were various types but these little critters were the most common and proved a real problem in combat.

I made these models from a couple of old Games Workshop plastic goblins. Being plastic it was relatively easy to remove the arms from another goblin model and position them on these figures to give them an extra pair of arms. A little green-stuff and some careful sculpting helped the new appendages blend in and look like they belonged to the figure. A relatively simple conversion job but they looked effective.

These models were found in my old collection of figures along with the Undead Standard Bearers I unveiled yesterday. Like those models they needed a bit of work as these were also gloss varnished and rather poorly based. They were also quite dusty and needed a good clean before re-varnishing with DullCoat and getting an upgrade to the base 'dressing'.

These models have spent most of their life stored in a box and hidden from daylight. Now that I've given them a spruce-up they are going in my display cases to provide a constant and happy reminder of a great DnD campaign.

Kick-Ass Monk

This is a conversion job I did on one of the pre painted plastic miniatured from the D&D Mini's range. I needed a monk for a character model and I liked the figure I had...but wanted more from it. So away went the sword, the boobs (the character was male, the model wasn't) and the white robes.

I used a metal rod to represent the characters quarterstaff and give the model more ridgidity when completed.

Four armed is forewarned

This strange creature is a Chabra and featured in a home grown campaign written and run by my good friend Peter Greenaway (no, not the director). The Chabra were one of his best creations and were his worlds equivalent to Goblinoids in other traditional settings. The Chabra were the weakest of the types encountered but they were not to be underestimated in combat.
I made this model from an old Games Workshop plastic goblin. It didn't take much conversion work to fit an extra set of arms on this model and I was quite happy with the way it looked when finished.

The Gates of Hell

Last year I started a building project for my D&D Campaign. Its inception was one of those moments where I spontaneously burst into evil laughter ("Bwahaha!!!")...which was rather embarrassing as I was in work at the time.

My campaign storyline revolved around the evil schemes of a Lord of Hell, bent on getting his claws on as many souls as he could harvest, even if that meant invading the Material Plane. There were various routes by which the players might end up in Hell but all ultimately involved passing through the Gates of Hell. So I set about doing a little research for inspiration. Time and again I was drawn to the etchings of Gustave Doré that accompanied Dante Alighieri's most famous work the Divine Comedy.

The tortured detail of Dore's etchings were a fertile guide to how I wanted my gates to look. I was also greatly impressed by a sculptural work called The Gates of Hell by the French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from The Inferno.

I started off by buying the Warhammer Arcane Ruins set by Games Workshop. This would require a far bit of conversion work to achieve what I wanted but working with plastic is very easy. I created the top of the door archway from two sections of monolith lintel. I then 'decorated' the columns with a selection of body parts from my plastics bit's-box.

I took advantage of the melting effect of polystyrene cement to make the pieces sink into the column so they looked like carvings rather than stuff I'd struck on the outside. The completed model was then left for 24hrs to dry and was then washed and undercoated before being sprayed in GW Rough Coat Spray. I then dry brushed an orange 'glow' from gate itself. This was a relatively quick conversion job because I knew this model would probably only get used once. 

Below is a photo of the finished Gates as used in the game.

When my players realised that they were going to have to enter Hell (having been tricked into opening the portal by the subtle machinations of the Lord of Hell himself) I got responses ranging from incredulity to hostility to stunned silence. I, however, just laughed maniacally. After all, being Evil towards ones players is a perk of the job as a GM.

Dragonborn Fighter Conversion

This is a recent conversion project I completed. My D&D gaming group, the Dagenham Dungeon Delvers, started playing a 4E campaign last year. I chose to play a Dragonborn Warlord character and began hunting around for a suitable model. I pretty soon found that my choices were limited by the fact that there were very few Dragonborn models to choose from. The best I could find was one of the plastic, pre painted mini's from the D&D Miniatures range.

The Dragoborn Fighter is part of the War of the Dragon Queen set and like all the minis in the set comes pre painted. It also sported a wobbly plastic axe that just didn't fit the character concept I was working towards. MY character, Uthek Van'tar, wielded a mighty war hammer... not a floppy axe. Conversion was the only option if I was to field a painted mini when the game commenced. I found a suitable hammer from a sprue of weapons in my bits-box and set about cutting away the redundant weapon on the plastic mini. I then used a pin drill (for accuracy and control) to bore through the centre of the clenched fist. It was then a simple process to glue the metal weapon into the plastic hand. I then cleaned and primed the model before repainting it entirely.

OK, I admit that this probably wasn't the most ambitious conversion of all time but I am very happy with finished miniature. I have converted a number of D&D Mini's in recent years and the one lesson I have learned is to be patient and think through the conversion before you start. The plastic is often 'soft' and doesn't take kindly to radical conversion. Soft plastic can be very dificult to cut or drill so it's essential to take extra care when working on these models.