Dark Ages Two-Handed Axemen (Minimalist)

Dark Ages Two-Handed Axemen

I've started painting more figures for my minimalist Dark Ages army. This time it is armored warriors with two-handed Danish axes.

Sorry that the close-up is a little blurry!

Front and side views.

It was a moderately complex build, but it required very little modification to the component parts.

Here are all of the components to the figure.

The figure consists of the following components.

• The head and helmet is a button plug, also called a mushroom plug. It is a plug for holes and is used in furniture making.
• The body is a cylindrical, plastic bead. I would prefer wood as the paint sticks better, but I cannot find a cylindrical one that is the right size.
• The feet are a polymer clay 'bead' that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. Because it is a flat disk it works well for adding height, and the polymer clay is very easy to cut with a hobby knife to shape.
• Because I use a lot of toothpicks as spears for my other Dark Ages warriors, I end up with a number of wooden scraps as I only use the pointed ends.
• Finally, I found a smaller, flat, polymer clay bead that, when cut in half, makes a passable axe blade.

If I have any criticism it is that I need to do a better job of trimming the ends of the axe handle so they don't look like the were squeeze cut with wire snips (which they were). Also, I probably need to put shields on their backs, although that is not strictly necessary.

Another Minimalist Experiment

I have a lot of painted Napoleonic miniatures, but they are all 6mm, and to be honest, they are very hard to discern what they are (Nationality, troop type, unit designation, etc.) so it makes it harder for gaming. Forget about photographing them!

Although I like the two component body design I generally use – a round bead or button plug for the head and a cylindrical or square bead for the body – I want a little more height on the figure. So I continue to experiment with designs with an eye of replacing my Napoleonics, or creating a 'imagination' army.

I started with three flat head plugs. Again, these are used for filling holes in furniture, but being flat-headed, they are intended to lies flush with the surrounding surface. What makes them a 'plug' and not a 'dowel' is that dowels are straight-sided and plugs are tapered.

I started with a 5/16" flat head plug for the body. The widest end is at the top and represents the shoulders.

On top of that I glued a 1/4" flat head plug for the head and hat. If you want a shako, put the widest end at the top; put it at the bottom is you want a kepi.

Below the body glue a 3/16" flat head plug for the legs. The widest part is at the bottom, although I could see putting it at the top also.

Finally glue the polymer clay bead to the bottom of the legs. You can use a hobby knife to trim it to size. It will also give more stability to the figure.

I used an all-material adhesive for all of this. When I am done I will cover it with Mod Podge (glorified white PVC glue) to seal the wood pores – making it easier to paint – and giving more strength to the figure. I am concerned about this popping off of a base, however.

These plugs do not have much of a taper, so the idea of using wood, or plastic tile spacers, for the arms seems like it would take more work trimming off some material so it would lie flush to the body. I would probably use simple dimensional paint for the arms. Definitely will use that for the shako/kepi peak or any ornaments like a shako pom-pom. I would probably drill a hole and use a toothpick if I wanted to go so far as to create a shako plume.

By the way, a round head plug – it is what it sounds like – makes a great grenadier bearskin or round helmet. Flat head plugs also make great Crusader helms.

I used to be concerned about pulling these troops out for public games. Not any more. I may get funny comments like "I am glad to see the mushroom heads are getting some play" or things like that, but I have never had anyone say that would not game because they had to use them.

Normans for My Hastings Project

In my last post I showed the start of my Saxon and Norman forces for gaming out the Battle of Hastings, but apparently I forgot the Normans! This led to Matt asking about "how I was going to do the Norman cavalry", which I interpreted as "how are you going to make those iconic Norman kite shields, which were used by both the Norman cavalry and the infantry. (If it pertained to something else Matt, you need to let me know as I am being a little dense.)

I will be honest, my first attempts were rather simplistic, as shown in the figure below.

Basically I took the rounded end of a flat toothpick and trimmed it to get the kite shield shape. As you can see, I did an inconsistent job on the size between the three examples. It was because of these results that I cast about for another solution.

First, I wanted something simple to shape. As I had been using a hole punch with thin craft foam sheets that seemed a likely candidate to try. All I needed was to get the shape right. I searched on the internet for "Norman shields" and came across numerous images of shield transfers that are commercially available. Most are for 28mm scale figures (given the popularity of the rules Saga) although I knew that there were some for 15mm. That said, both were too large for my figures, so buying commercial transfers was out. What I needed were digital images that I could scale. So I found some.

I first scaled the figures to an appropriate length, top to bottom, and increased the DPI (dots per inch) of the image so it would lose as little fidelity as possible. I then printed the images out using my inkjet printer on the brightest paper I had. I did not use photo quality glossy paper, however.

I took the printout and glued it to brown craft foam sheets and carefully cut the shields out with tiny scissors. Those, in turn, were glued to the figures.

With a close-up shot you can see obvious flaws, but not when the figures are at arm's length. I did not even color the paper edge, nor paint the craft foam; I liked it the way it was.

What do you think?

Hastings in a Minimalist Style

 If you follow me on my blog Dale's Wargames you will know that I really like the rules Tin Soldiers in Action. One limitation of them is that they only cover 1650 through 1914. I like the core mechanics, but could not use them for other periods. After speaking with the author he indicated that the did expand the range, to include from ancients to futuristic. He sent me the Hastings scenario which has the necessary rules and order of battle to game the battle.

As it happens I have sufficient troops in 15mm metal, but I am actively trying to decide on how to reduce my collection. Although I have decided to keep 15mm as the scale of choice for mass battles, I am considering selling the painted troops I have and replacing them with wooden miniatures. Why? Well I like the creation process for one, and now that I am retired I have more time on my hands. But more to the point, I am concerned that when I pass I will leave my wife with trying to get rid of my collection and trying to recoup some of the money. (If she gives them away it would not be a disaster as she will be well taken care of, but I would probably roll over in my grave.) However, if they are my wooden creations I would neither be upset if they are given away or even thrown away. (Strange, I know.) Besides, I really need to downsize anyway.

With that morbid thought in mind I decided that the Hastings project was a great start to see if I even have the ambition to carry it out.

I decided that I wanted to use the minimalist style that I started some time ago, rather than the larger, more detailed style Matt used for his Hastings project. (I love Matt's stuff, but can't match his paint jobs.)

If you follow the first link you can see how I build these figures. They come out about 12mm tall, but about the chunkiness of 15mm. They have a cartoony 'big-headed' (chibi) style where the upper wooden part represents the head and hat and the lower wooden part represents the torso and legs. (This is how you achieve that chibi look in such a small scale.

Saxon Fyrd

In the image above, I used a mixture of round beads and round head plugs to represent the upper part, and round beads, cylinder, and flat head plugs for the lower part. The shields are ½ a sphere of clear plastic, to represent the shield. As always, spears are made from a standard toothpick.

More Saxon Fyrd

The above are ones that I made and posted about in 2016. (All projects eventually get finished!) They are all round beads for the upper part and square beads for the lower part. Shields are made from thin craft foam using a hole punch.

More Saxon Fyrd

More figures from 2016 that use a small flat 'bead' for the shield. I could never find one the proper size, so I switched to craft foam hole punch shields.

Saxon Huscarls

To emphasize the metal helmets, beyond simply painting them a metallic color, I used button (mushroom) plugs. Some figures have a 'Phrygian' cap, like the end figures in the second rank. Here is the look I was going for.

The intent was to use two beads and some filler to simulate it.

The light gray bead is a cylinder. Although mine was square with rounded corners, it would have looked better if it were wider than it was tall. The dark gray was an oval bead, very much wider than tall. Finally, the white represents where I put filler, to try and hide the gap between the two beads at the back of the head, but leave it in the front, in an attempt to give it the 'floppy cap' look. In the end it sort of fails because I always have trouble filling gaps.

As a side note I can see using this same technique to represent a beret, with the open gap to the side and gluing the top bead at a slight angle. I may also have come up with a better gap filler: 'sprue goo'. Sprue Goo is where you take plastic sprue from plastic models, and dissolve it in acetone or plastic cement (acetone and butyl acetate). You can use it like liquid plastic which will harden. I used it in this experiment below to make spear points on the toothpicks. (It worked but was too much trouble.)

Some people ask me: why do you spend all of that time making figures? Isn't it faster to just buy miniatures? My response is always: how long do you think it takes to glue two beads, a toothpick, and a hole-punched piece of foam together? How do you think it compares to removing flash from metal figures or mold lines from plastic ones?

The real time savings comes with painting. Because there is zero detail on the figure – it is all shape – you can add or leave off as much detail as you like. Further, exact placement of details is not necessary and further gives your figures a more realistic look in that everyone is not perfectly uniform, in either detail nor pose.

One factor I did not mention, and is something I have been pondering, is 'block painting' versus 'figure painting' versus sub-assembly painting. What do I mean by those terms?

• Block: all of the figures are assembled and then glued to the bases before being painted.
• Figure: all of the figures are assembled, glued to painting strips (typically popsicle strips), and then each figure is painted before being glued to bases.
• Sub-Assembly: the figures are partially assembled, painting each sub-assembly before assembling them into complete figures and gluing them to bases.

Why would you do any of these particular methods?

Block painting allows you to ignore painting details that can't be seen, i.e. if your paint brush cannot reach it, you generally can't see it either, so why paint it? This saves time, but sacrifices quality. (It also cannot be used if you are mounting the figures individually.) The surest way to make this method look good is to prime everything black so that the unpainted portions look like they are in shadow. The 2016 figures above were all block painted.

Sub-assembly painting is the other extreme. This allows you to easily paint everything producing the fewest mistakes (in terms of your loaded paint brush accidentally hitting an adjacent figure or part). It is very easy to paint details that you do want to appear. Hiding the glue spots after painting will be your hardest task. The figures I consider doing this with the most are the cavalry.

Finally figure painting is the happy compromise. You will still end up painting details that might not be easily seen, but will still have color in those hard to see, but still visible spots. Gluing will be covered with paint. All of the figures painted in the last month used this method.

I am curious what you do (or would do) and does it change with scale of the figure?

I'm baaaccckkkk ...

Okay, so my right eye is still not quite 100%, but I am getting binocular vision again so that means I can paint ... at least the wooden guys.  Regular figures are a bit more challenging but I am still starting to paint some of those again as well.


So I finished the unit of Norman archers that I had on my painting table now for a little more than 2 months, unable to work on them.  Felt great to paint them!  There is nothing new construction wise although I do notice that the more figures I do the more varied in terms of construction I start to make things like helmets, arm positions, and other minor details that add to the diversity of the appearance of the stand and figures, but really don't add anything to the "craft" of making these little fellows.  Anyway, here they are.

Although I am still invested in doing the Battle of Hastings game, it is a bit tiring to be doing Dark Ages figure after Dark Ages figure after Dark Ages figure, so I need a project that I can use these guys for, but will also serve as figures in another game.  Since my first love is fantasy gaming, not historical gaming, I decided to revisit a game that I've been wanting to do for a long time, well before the Hobbit movies came out.  I've always wanted to do the Battle of the Five Armies that is more in line with how Tolkien wrote about it, not how it was portrayed in the movie.  These Dark Ages Normans and Saxons will fit perfectly into this game as the human men of Dale and such.  And being able to do some units of elves, goblins/orcs, warg riders, and some hero bases thrown in for good measure will keep my motivation up for getting the Hastings project done as well. 


The inspiration comes from this old article and webpage that I just love.  I'm not using these rules, but I am using the map, more or less, and the units described in the write up.


http://larsen-family.us/~1066/5armies.html


Right now I'm doing a test base of goblins/orcs (general troops, not the special bodyguard ones) and a test base of elves.  I'll post pics when I finish!

Saxon Huscarls Unit!

Real life has been incredibly busy this fall so I haven't been able to get as much hobby time as I would have liked, but I finally got my first unit of Saxon Huscarls done for my Hastings game.  Here are some of my standard shots of them.

They are very similar construction wise to the previous Dark Ages infantry I've been doing but there are some differences.  First, I wanted to put some face masks on some of them to help me tell the difference between them and, say, the Norman allies.  I may also go back and paint some facial hair on them too, but I'm not sure I'm going to do that.  I also put a mixture of round and kite shields in the unit, which also makes it easier to tell them apart from the Norman side (I use only the kite shields for them).  I also gave them a greater mix of weapons with spears, swords, and two-handed Dane axes.

The face shields were easy, I just fashioned them out of paper and glued them onto the head.  The top part of the shield was a straight edge so that it would lay flush against the bottom of the helmet piece, and I creased the center so that it would have some 3D effect that is consistent with the way they were constructed, at least as far as I can tell from the pictures I looked at.


I also angled the shield arms a bit away from the body so that it looks like they are holding their shields out to accept a charge, the bottom part of the shield sticking out further than the top part.  It also keeps the shields from being perfectly parallel with the body, which is not very natural in terms of how people really hold a shield, at least for any length of time.


I like how they turned out, they are "regular" enough in their appearance to denote skill and training which of course would be a part of a more elite Huscarl unit, and "chaotic" enough in their weapon choices, shield types, and arm positions to convey their ferocity when in actual combat.


Now onto another Norman allies unit and one more Fyrd and I will have one entire wing for both sides finished!

Craft Paints, Gesso, and Dark Age Colors

Interesting that Matt has been working on his Dark Ages forces recently as so have I. I have a huge backlog of audio books to listen to and computer gaming has gotten stale, so it is time to cycle to other interests, like picking up a paintbrush again. And my subject: finishing off my 42mm Anglo-Saxon force for Saga. No pictures yet, but you can find their enemies, the Anglo-Danes, in older posts.

Matt and I have talked about, through this blog and emails, about craft paints. Matt swears by them and I, well, swear at them. I hate the lack of covering power and don't really fancy painting figures several times to get the color I want. Painting larger figures exacerbates the issue as your are painting more surface area, increasing the time and expense. The two things craft paints bring to the table, however, are color range and cost. So it is hard to completely discount craft paints.

Gesso is a compound of plaster of Paris or whiting in glue, often used as surface preparation for wood. I have increasingly been using gesso on my wood projects as it reduces paint absorption in the wood, thereby reducing the amount of paint required to color the surface. When mixed with color, specifically craft paint, it reduces the number of coats required to get the color you want. With some colors, one coat of craft paint and gesso is all that is required.

The issue with gesso is that it is itself colored, either white or black. So mixing it with craft paint changes the color. No matter how much of the paint you put in, it will never go back to that color if it has gesso – white, black, or both – mixed with it. So mixing becomes an adventure in and of itself.

Working on my Anglo-Saxons, I wanted to try and use more 'realistic' colors for the cloth, so I found a page with some yarn dyed with materials available during the Dark Ages in Europe.





I was actually surprised by some of the colors. Basically, by mixing modern, vibrant colors with white, and sometimes a little black gesso, you can achieve some pretty nice colors for a Dark Ages palette.

So I decided to give it a try. Start with a little blob of white gesso, add some color that is more vibrant than a color similar to the above, then start mixing. Add another color, add some black gesso, and so on. One of the things it does is make the color slightly inconsistent, as maybe a stray bit of color is not as thoroughly mixed as the rest. This adds a nice, minor variation in the color, whether it is on one figure in a large surface area or it is between two figures.


In the end you tend to add a little color to the previous colors, getting more variations in color, and allowing you to paint several figures with like colors, but not exactly the same color. This makes the figures less uniform. Your palette also ends up looking very strange, with colors you used completely obscured.

I am not ready to declare complete success, but we will see after the paint dries on my Anglo-Saxons. I have the cloth parts done, but there is still a lot of work with the shields and the faces, so it may be some time before I get them done, especially as there are 24 infantry and 5 cavalry to do. I will be showing them later. But, I have come to wonder something else. How color-coordinated were they really back in the Dark Ages? Is it okay to combine colors that we would not combine today? Or are we, in the end, doing all of us for our eye?