Bandits

I finally painted something this year!

Bandits, or peasant partisans, or village militia, etc. They're a mix of Zvezda peasants and Hat/Airfix Robin Hood figures with a few mods, as I first showed off back in August (ugh). They look pretty good as a group, but let's take a closer look.

Melee dudes. You can see that the Zvezda figures are similar in style but noticeably taller. My wife asked me one time if I ever tried painting non-Caucasian figures. I pointed out that most of my figures had green skin, but she had a point that all my humans so far were people of pallor, so I tried a darker skin tone on some of these.

The Lord of Loxley himself, plus a fiddler, converted from a sitting Imex pioneer figure with some legs pilfered from one of the Merry Men. I'm pretty pleased with how seamless it looks.

Ranged units. The Zvezda slinger and archer with the mondo longbow absolutely tower over their Airfix counterparts, alas.

I've got a few more post ideas lined up, plus the guards I started at the same time I started the bandit project to finish up. Stay tuned!

Guards and Bandits and Bondic

No I'm not dead, real life vs. hobby time, etc. Let's move on:

I finally got a chance to take some pics of my next project, these bandits and guards.

The bandits are a mix of Hat's reissued Airfix "Robin Hood" figures and Zvezda's medieval peasant levy. The guards are mostly Caesar medieval soldiers, with a couple Accurate knights (acquired in a trade with Mike) thrown in. Most are out of the box, but I indulged in a few mods.

Fantasy guards are often depicted with polearms and crossbows for some reason, so I tried to select the Caesar figures that were so armed. This only left a few available poses. The answer: headswaps, plus some knifework to remove scabbards and the like for variety.

The bandits didn't need as many mods, but some of them that would otherwise have been wielding scythes and similar peasant weapons got armswaps (a scythe-wielding bandit seemed very strange!). Here you can see my new fascination in use. Normally when doing mods like this, I'd use wood glue to fill any gaps. But lately I've been experimenting with a newish product called Bondic, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Bondic is a non-adhesive bonding agent that's sort of magical. It's a solution with various plastic elements as the solutes. These plastics tend to form a solid, except the solution prevents them from doing so almost indefinitely. Zap the liquid with a UV light (the orange device in the pic above) after applying it with the pen-like tip, though, and the solvent evaporates. [edit: I didn't have this exactly right. See my comment below] The result is a solid mass of plastic in about four seconds where there once was a liquid. Magic!

I've found all sorts of household applications for the stuff, but the relevant use is for filling gaps in modded figures.

I also made up this bard-type figure, using an Imex pioneer figure for the torso (Sean did something similar, but I can't find the post right now).

You can perhaps see that the gaps around the arms of the gray Zvezda figures have some clear plastic around them. The base of the tan Hat fig also has some to fill the visible part of the hole in the washer I used as a base. That's the cured Bondic in use. The big advantage Bondic has over glue for this sort of thing is ease of control: you can add as little as you need, it tends to flow into crevices, and you can always build up applications if you need more. It's also a lot more durable than glue, as it's solid plastic. Just remember that it can't be used to glue things together like adhesive, but for filling visible gaps it's hard to beat.

I also took some shots after priming, just so you can see how it looks painted. No gaps!

I'm still in the middle of a big freelance job, but hopefully I'll have more time to work on figures soon. Thanks for checking in!

Fountains

As I was painting these fences, I was also working on some other scenery items. As it happens, they were all fountains, or other water-bearing structures.

These first two are Reaper bones pieces, a "Well of Chaos" and a "Water Weird. They are a bit oversized compared to Sven, of course, but I think they look okay. The "weird" has been modded so it doesn't loom quite so tall over Sven.

Subtitle: "The Joy of Drybrushing." The texture on the stone made these a breeze to paint: several layers of gray, a bit of brown, some gold on the details, and a blackwash.

The water is just some white glue, with a couple coats of Future Shine. Looks pretty good here, though I had some trouble with this method on the 1/72 fountains below. I think it works here because I only needed a few thin layers of glue for it to look like water. The water flowing from the tap is also Future Shine, mixed with a bit of black paint.

This piece was cast in blue plastic. To make the "Weird" more 1/72 compatible, I chopped off part of the base and took about half the height off the water elemental. The stonework was painted using the same techniques above. The water got much the same treatment as this large water elemental.

Here are a couple fountains from Italeri's "Urban Accessories" kit. These are actual 1/72 scale models; If the models above were 1/72, they'd be about this size. The one on the right is built per instructions. The one on the left has a lion head taken from Hat's "Jungle Adventure" set; I'm pretty sure I got the idea from Paul. I had to fill in some gaps with putty, which looks a bit rough, as does my attempt at highlighting. The water is again white glue with top layers of Future Shine. Unfortunately, I had to use more layers of the stuff to fill the basin, which despite my patient applications meant that the glue doesn't look very clear.

Finally, the small well on the left, from Imex's excellent "Southwest/Alamo Accessories" kit. Not much to say, but I think it looks very nice. On the right is an Italeri desert well, which I discussed previously, along with some other sources for 1/72 scale wells.

Let's wrap up with a quick discussion of other 1/72 scale fountains.

This piece is a resin cast from Airfix, designed for WWII games but perfectly suitable for other genres. The box shows a sort of spigot that's not included in the kit; the hole in the top basin is part of my attempt to install one. A similar piece is by Armand Bayardi. It's a bit more expensive and harder to find, and whether you get it direct or from Michigan Toys (only store I found that has it), the shipping is awfully high. Still, it's a very nice-looking piece.

Fences

Quick post of some scenery items I've painted recently. There are other scenery bits I've done lately as well, but I've got one more I want to finish before featuring the rest.

These are fences, from Imex's excellent Battlefield Accessories set. Only two of each fence type per set, but I lucked into getting three sets cheap on eBay, so I have six each. There are also "broken" versions of each type, but I haven't painted those. Pretty simple to paint: prime, base color, drybrush, wash.

Wooden split-rail fences. I see now the bases need some touching up! The fence pieces are pretty thin, which made painting just a little tricky, but not too bad overall.

Stone fences. The small washers make pretty good, solid bases, especially on these pieces. Some sort of metal strip might have been better, but this was a pretty cheap method.

Overhead view of the stone fences. There aren't enough pieces here for large wargaming scenery, but for small RPG-type scenes I believe I have more than enough.

Kris just did a post about making similar stone fences for 28mm; his technique may be adaptable to 1/72 scale. He's done a lot of great posts in the past year about cheap do-it-yourself scenery, often for 1/72, that are worth checking out; his scourpad trees in particular are on my bucket list.

More new soon!

Four more orcs (of sorts)

Wrapped up a few unfinished minis over Labor Day weekend.

From left to right: An unmodified Caesar Miniatures orc, an orc scout or shaman made with an orc head and weapon and an Imex "Friendly Eastern Indian" (originally discussed here), an orc musician made with an orc head and a Hat "Jungle Adventure" figure (a repaint, since the paint started coming off the original figure, seen here. Somewhat disappointed by how this turned out, since I botched a lot of the details trying to quickly re-prime it), and lastly an orc figure from the D&D Wrath of Ashardalon game, adapted here as a 1/72 scale bugbear.

Here's Sven hanging out with all my orcs.

And here he is trying to fit in with a few of my bugbears.

The other bugbears include another D&D figure (actually manufactured as a bugbear, first shown here), and a few converted Age of Mythology figures. I'm thinking about repainting or replacing the AoM figures; they make merely adequate bugbears, and at any rate I think I can do better paintjobs and conversions now. The D&D orc and bugbear figures, on the other hand, complement each other quite nicely.

This will be a busy month, but I have a few post ideas. Stay tuned!

Ask the CFM: Female characters

A pretty big installment of Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist today. Back in August 2013, Taylor Jordan writes:

I was wondering if you were going to sell any figures that could work for female warriors/cleric/paladin archetypes in the 1/72 scale. I'm finding that to be the most difficult thing to find, and of course my randomized Caeser set didn't come with any female fighters ><

This is an excellent question, and one that I've been wanting to explore more fully. I don't want to give the impression that female characters are like some sort of alien species, like elves or orcs, but female characters in general do present a challenge to the 1/72 fantasy miniaturist. 1/72 scale is principally a historic hobby, and the fact of the matter is that historically speaking, very nearly all soldiers have been male. So male figures are vastly over-represented in this scale as far as fantasy gaming is concerned. Luckily there are options if you know where to look. So let's see what's out there.

We'll start with 1/72 figures made specifically for fantasy. From left to right are a Caesar Miniatures Undead vampire, three Caesar Adventurers, two Caesar Elves, and an Alliance Orc (set 3) which could just as well be human. More Caesar Adventurers can be seen here. You'll see I'm missing the female warrior character that Nathan mentions; it hasn't been in either of the sets I've purchased (which seem to be missing the exact same figures, but that's another post maybe). A lot of these are on the mild, Larry-Elmore-esque cheesecake side, which may not be to everyone's taste. Other options abound, luckily.

Arcane Legions figures, for more 1/72 figures made for fantasy. Left to right: a Han hero, three Roman priestesses, and Egyptian lion rider and Han "jorogumo" (spider monster) with leg swaps from Caesar figures, and three Egyptian sorceress types.

Some historic 1/72 figures easily adapted to fantasy. Left to right: three Orion "English Pirates", two Hat figures from the "Gallic Chariot w Warrior Queen" (i.e. Boudica) set, a Hat druid from their "Gallic command" set (which seems female but also seems to have a mustache, so ??), a Caesar "Hebrew Warrior" (who could be Deborah or possibly Judith), a Caesar noble from their "Samurai w Ninja" set, and an Esci/Italeri barbarian.

Civilian figure sets offer many more female figures in 1/72 than military sets. These are just a sample of what I have, from sets made by Strelets, Linear-B, and Imex. The figures represent diverse eras from Rome to Renaissance England to Early American, but I think they actually hang together just fine for fantasy.

As I often mention, halflings and gnomes from larger-scale fantasy miniature lines—such as Dungeons and Dragons or Reaper Miniatures—may be easily adapted to 1/72 scale. This is a great, if relatively expensive, way to find female character minis. The painted minis are D&D figures; the unpainted are Reaper Bones. From left to right: a gnome fighter, Champion of Yondalla, halfling cleric, halfling archer, Lidda the halfling adventurer, halfing paladin, Elliwyn the gnome bard, and Cassie the gnome sorcerer. The D&D halflings can be a little on the small side for 1/72 humans but should work fine at the table. The Reaper figures are about the right height, though the large heads may be off-putting to some.

A special challenge is finding suitable female minis for gnomes, halflings, and dwarves in 1/72. Here's the best I've been able to find. From left to right: a D&D halfling tombseeker, D&D halfling veteran, Lidda the halfling rogue (repainted), a gnome rogue and dwarf cleric from the World of Warcraft board game, and Ingrid the gnome rogue from Reaper Miniatures. The last two are the best I've found for cheap 1/72 female dwarves, though the World of Warcraft figures may now be hard to find.

Here are the female figures I've painted myself. To the left of the Arcane Legions witch is the original bizarre "Modu Shanyu" figure for comparison.

These are perhaps not all the plastic female character minis available that will work for 1/72 fantasy gaming. Hopefully that gives an idea of what's available. As always, if you have any other questions for the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist, please ask in the comments!

Well, well, well!

Well, well, well, well, well. Well.

Well. This post is about wells, continuing my recent theme of 1/72 fantasy terrain and scenery. Wells are great for fantasy terrain. They exist pretty much anywhere there are people, they are usually centrally located, they are distinctive, and they're central to all kinds of myths and tales. All that, and they're pretty small, so they have a lot of character for such a little item.

Here's a well I just painted up.

It's a kit found in Italeri's 1/72 scale "Desert Tents" set. I like it, as it's pretty close to my classic impression of what a well should look like. It being a desert well, it has a skin instead of a bucket, and it doesn't have the protective gable covering you might find in more wooded areas. But it's round, loose stone, with wood supports and a rope. That largely says "well" to me.

The kit was pretty easy to put together. Everything fit together very nicely, even the rope and waterskin, which could have been obnoxiously fiddly. As you can see, the base was originally quite a bit bigger, more so than I thought it needed to be. With no undue effort I was able to cut it down to what was barely essential, then glue it to a 1.5" washer, as is my wont. I had to do another simple mod when I was scrubbing the kit before painting and snapped the waterskin off by accident. With my pin vise, pin, and glue, I was able to reattach it. Yes, the rope that hangs the skin from the crosspost is a smidgeon of metal pushpin, with a bit of woodglue dribbled on. It's certainly a more durable model this way, so I'm actually glad my accident occurred when it did.

Here are some other wells I have.

To the right of the Italeri well are a Mines of Moria well from Games Workshop and a Bones "Chaos Well" from Reaper Miniatures. These larger scale bits actually compare favorably to the Italeri well in terms of scale. On the right is a sort of watering hole from Imex's "Southwestern Alamo Accessories" set, which has a great many interesting bits. This will be good for more hardscrabble or remote communities. Another in-scale well kit I'm aware of is made by Green Line. It's got the winch and gabled roof that are probably what most people expect from a well, but is fairly expensive for my taste.

I'm pleased with the little Italeri well. I'm sure I kind find a number of uses for it.

Sven gets more than he counted on when he seeks to quench his thirst

Orc Shaman

Hey, wouldn't it be nice if I posted some new minis every once in a while? I've got the typical hobbyist's lament: darn real-world obligations keep getting in the way of painting. Still, I've got quite a number of projects in the works, and almost by accident I found that I just finished this guy:

This is a conversion job, as you can see in the photos below. The green plastic is from Caesar Miniatures' orcs set. The orange plastic are "Eastern Friendly Indians" from Imex. The yellow is Milliput to fill in the gaps.

The other guy is another version of the orc shaman concept, who I was trying to make look something like this guy (for my boardgame replacements project). I feel a twang of politically-correct guilt for using minis of Eastern Indians—who I'm sure in the main were quite Friendly—to make monstrous orcs, a guilt which is ameliorated by the recollection that I used some very European-looking "Barbarian" minis to make zombies. Culture is no barrier—everyone can become a monster under the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturists knife!

Finally some comparisons. The first is an unmodified Caesar orc I painted a year ago. This is mostly to show the difference between "The Dip" and "Magic Wash". Basically, there is none, plus the Magic Wash is easier and cleaner to use, and doesn't try to dissolve my figures! Magic Wash is a clear winner.

Second is the obligatory scale shot with Sven the 1/72 comparison viking, who needs some refinishing. Somehow these look just a few millimeters taller than they actually are, but the shaman is still pretty tall, with his fancy headdress and all.

We'll see if I have more time to paint, but I've got a lot of projects that are on the verge of completion: more orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and a party waiting to happen. Just keep an eye on this space!