Back to Basics!

 First off, Happy New Year everyone!  Sorry it has been so long since my last post to this blog, but working my job in a COVID environment has turned out to be very challenging and has been extreme time consuming.

That said, I wanted to continue on with some of my wooden fellows and I have several constructions done for the more detailed figures (let's just say I have done some "caped crusader" figures).  But if I am honest with myself, these more detailed figures while I do enjoy them, are not really what prompted me to make wooden miniatures for wargaming out of spools, toothpicks, and such.  What I have always wanted to do was create miniatures that anyone could make and paint to a standard that they would be happy putting on the table top.

I am not sure if this is present on this blog or not, I don't think it is, but way back, about a decade ago to the day honestly (I can't believe it has been that long!), my original intention was not to create miniatures for wargaming.  What I wanted to do was to make playing pieces for the game of Chinese Chess.  Those of you who are not familiar with the game, it is a wonderful type of chess that is related to the game that we all call "chess" currently but has some important differences.  First, it is less abstracted in its pieces.  The pieces are more consistent with the types of troops used in actual ancient warfare.  For example, there are elephants, cannons, and chariots as pieces in Chinese Chess.  Second, the board is slightly different in that there is a "river" in the middle and at least the soldiers ("pawns") behave differently when they are on their side of the river compared to the enemy side.  In summary, the game really is more akin IMHO to ancient warfare than is what we call today "chess," at least in terms of its pieces.

The problem I encountered was, however, significant in that the game is played with flat discs (similar to checkers) as playing pieces and on these discs is written using a single Chinese character the name of the piece.  First challenge I encountered was, you guessed it, I don't read Chinese.  Second, the same characters are not always used for the same pieces in the two armies.  For example, the "elephant" character in the red army is a different character than the one used in the blue army for the "elephant" piece.  Yikes!  This proved to be a very difficult challenge for me to overcome.  Not only would I have to learn the characters for the pieces, I would in many cases have to learn two sets of characters for each piece depending on the army.

The good news for me, however, was that there were some 3D Chinese Chess sets available with pieces that were shaped like the troop type.  For example, the cannons looked like cannons, the elephants looked like elephants, etc.  Great!  I was in business!  But the issue was that these sets were a bit on the pricey side (for me anyway).  So after looking at these pieces, I thought, "I bet I can make a serviceable set of pieces out of wood craft parts that would allow me to play Chinese Chess.  I can use these spools with these mushroom caps to make 'pawns', and I can use these candle cups tipped at a 45 degree angle with these little discs on the side as wheels to make cannons," etc.  

But then once I did that it dawned on my that I could make huge armies for ancients wargames for very little money using these inexpensive craft parts and, equally importantly, with a simple paint scheme I could put hundreds of figures on the table top in not a lot of time.  And so that's what I did.  And since then, because of seeing the great work of all the folks out there that do more detailed figures, I started to do more detailed once myself.

I have decided, for a little while anyway, to return to my roots ... get back to basics ... to return to doing the simpler figures of a decade ago.  And further, to make pieces for board games that I really like.

Chess was an obvious choice, and I will do pieces for traditional chess eventually, but before that I have always wanted to do a homemade version of the old Parker Brothers' game "All the King's Men."  There are several variants out there, but this one is my favorite and it has a medieval theme.  Here is a picture of the game:

It is not the most popular of games, it is often seen as too simple and not challenging enough, but I have loved this game since my youth.  There are only three types of pieces, the King, four Knights, and seven Archers.  The King and the Archers each move one square.  The Knights can move any number of squares.  Fair enough, it is a very simple chess-like game, no doubt.  But the one thing that this game has that no other game at that time did (this was the late 70's) is that the board squares determine the direction the piece could move.  The distance in squares moved was established by the type of piece.  But the direction was dependent upon the arrows on the square the piece currently occupied.  It has been proposed by those who studied the game that this was done to simplify the movement of the pieces for beginners and make the game easier for even younger plays to enjoy.  Fair enough, I do think this is true.  But the wargamer in me saw something else, and it is what I have always loved about this game.  The squares effectively serve like terrain in a wargame.  If the square does not have a "forward" facing arrow in it, the piece cannot move in that direction.  This really is an abstraction of terrain in a wargame!

So, in an effort to return to my roots with crafting figures, I decided to make my own pieces for the game "All the King's Men."  The board?  I will try, but I know it is going to be difficult.  But I will try.

Consistent with the original, I am going to make a brown colored army and a cream colored army.  I am also sticking with the medieval theme of archers, knights, and a royal (I am going to do one King and one Queen however just for fun and also as a shout-out to the new Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit").  I am just going to use peg people and paint the designs on them to indicate the different playing pieces.  Keep it Simple Stupid approach here.  I am going to base coat all of the peg people in black and then paint the colors on top of this black base coat, being careful to use the "negative space" (in other words leave black showing throw) to create definition and a break between the different parts of the piece.  I am not shooting for something "realistic" or even necessarily proportional here.  In fact, I am only doing the figures from the waist up.  Instead, I am aiming for interesting looking playing pieces for a board game.  Also, I know that pieces of the same type will differ slightly from each other.  I'm okay with that.  This is supposed to be a "handmade" game, not a manufactured one.

 

Here are some photos of the brown colored army.

The King is about 3" tall, the Knights are about 2.5" tall and the Archers are 1.75" tall.  I did nothing to these pawns other than paint them.  The armor and weapons are somewhat abstracted, and I purposefully did not paint facial features on them.  This, along with their size difference, gives them more of a board game "playing piece" feel than a historical miniature wargame feel, which is what I was going for.

Here are the two "Royals" side by side, King on the left, Queen on the right.  Obviously I chose to use base colors for their outfits consistent with their army (brown and cream).

The Knights might be my favorite pieces.  I wanted them to have some plate armor on but also holding swords in their right hand and shields over their left arm.  So really, the plate armor is really only visible when looking at their helmet and their right arm holding the sword.  Again, I used the brown or cream colors to paint their surcoats as well as their shield front to make it easier to see in which army they serve.

Here is a better shot of the sword.  Super easy to do and I like the way they came out.

 

 

Here is a better shot of the right arm holding the sword.  Again, my goal was to create a "plate armor" look.

 

The archers were the first figures I did.  I couldn't decide whether to paint their mail head and shoulder covering as mail or just leave it gray.  I went with the more simple option of not painting the mail and just leaving it gray.  The bows they hold in hindsight I should have put in their other hand, but that's okay.  I used different colors for the bows to give more visual distinctiveness to these pieces as they are the smallest on the board.

The board will be tricky.  I have some ideas but even if I can't pull it off, I am happy with these playing pieces.

African Wars Technical

Well, this is probably about as "finished" as I am going to get with my first "Granny Grate" vehicle, a Technical for the African Wars.

My hope is that as I get better using wood filler for the body, I can get a smoother finish. I suspect the culprit was my impatience at sanding such a small item.

I am happy with the glass window effect – I watched several Youtube painting tutorials on the subject – but admit that it should probably be a bit dirtier than it is. I will have to experiment with that more.

The weapon system is made from the same needlepoint canvas as all of the guns were for my troops. I used one piece for the tripod and another for the weapon. Simple, but it conveys the effect, which is all my minimalist style goes for.

I am still trying to figure out what style of grill I want to use. For now I am keeping it black while I paint different styles on scraps.

My next effort has to be either a tank, 2 1/2 ton truck, armored personnel carrier, or a helicopter. As it stands, I am very pleased with the results. I look forward to experimenting with more designs.

Saxon Slingers Painting Tutorial

Dale has been asking me, and I have been putting him off for far too long, to provide a painting tutorial post for the blog.  I decided when I started this latest batch of figures, which happened to be the Saxon slingers (skirmishers), I would do just that.  I took several photos from "naked" to completed in an attempt to show the stages of painting for the figures that I do.  One of the things that can sap folks' morale when they are sitting down to do figures like this for the first time is that honestly, the figures do not look very good until you have finished painting them.  This is especially true until the eyes go on.  So what I am hoping to show is that up until the end, my figures don't look all that great.  The beauty of any crafted figures in my opinion cannot be fully appreciated until they are finished, and therefore, they sort of look pretty bad until the entire paint job is done.

So here we go ...

First picture - no paint.  I've finished gluing all the parts on at this point.  This is the first time I have tried to do paper slings.  I usually use twine, but I wanted to try the paper because I think given how the paper reacts with the white glue, even when being glued to a tile spacer "hand" it will stick better to the figure than the twine has in the past.

Next step is to prime them.  I brush on a very dark brown color called "Soft Black" by Americana.  It looks quite "black" in this photo but it really is a very dark umber brown color in real life.  I do two coats of paint for the priming stage so that the color is nice and rich with no "thin spots."

I pretty much follow the same method I use for metal or plastic miniatures when I paint these as well in that the flesh goes on next.  I paint the hands and also the heads whatever flesh tone I want to use for the figure.  I paint the entire head because it is easier to paint the hair on top of the flesh color than to try and paint the hair on and then meet the flesh tone up to the edge of the hair.  Also, I always have to touch up a bit with the Soft Black afterwards as I've painted the hands too large or got some of the flesh tone from the head onto the clothing.  I do two coats of flesh tone for this step.  If you don't, the dark under color really causes the paint to look "blotchy" and at least for my style, clean, crisp lines are essential ... no blotchy.

Next up, eyes, hair, and shoes/boots.  I do the Soft Black as the first color for the hair regardless of the shade of hair, and then on top of that I paint whatever shades of brown I want to use, leaving a little of the Soft Black visible on the edges to create depth.  For the eyes, I paint a black oval and then after that dries I paint white dots on each side (just one coat of each color).  I do NOT paint the pupil as in the past when I've tried to do this I just mess it up.  Be careful to pay attention to where the figure is "looking" as that will determine how much white on each side of the eye you will want to paint.  For example, if the figure is looking to its left, for each eye you would want small white dots in the left part of the eye (from the figure's point of view) and large white dots (or longer really is the better way to say it) in the right part of the eye.  This gives the impression that the figure is looking to its left because very little of the white part of the eye is visible in the left part of the eye, but a lot of the white part of the eye is visible in the right part of the eye.  Also try and leave some of the black from the eye uncovered around the edges to create depth.  The shoes/boots I always just use one coat of a medium brown color and paint the tile spacer feet in a way that looks like they are wearing low boots.

I typically do the pants next.  The tricky thing with them is to create a crease around the groin where the legs bend at the hip, and also some "space" between the legs.  In both cases I just leave the Soft Black visible to create the space between the legs or the folds in the pants, and paint a single coat of whatever color I want to use for the pants allowing those lines of dark brown to show through.  You can't really see the pants very well in this picture, but here it is.

After the pants drie I do the tunics and hoods if the figure is wearing one.  For the tunics I leave a "band" of Soft Black to not be covered around the middle as this will serve as the basis for the belt.  I also try and paint the arms and other parts of the tunic to mimic folds by leaving some of the Soft Black visible with the tunic color on each side of the line.  I just paint one coat of the tunic color.  Same is true for the hoods as well.

Finally come the belts, buckles, and slings.  I usually use a brown or a dark blue (for a black belt) and just paint a line representing the belt around each figure (one coat), trying to allow some of the Soft Black to not be covered at the edge of the belt to create a shadow effect.  The buckle is just a dot of light gray (one coat).  The slings are painted similarly to the clothing, allowing lines of the Soft Black to not be painted over to create folds and shadows (one coat for the sling color).

All that's left is the base.  I do two coats of fairly dark green (I believe it is called Pine something by Americana).  After those coats dry, I do blotches of lighter green to finish off the grass, and darker tan for the base dirt color with a light tan on top for highlights.

And this next picture is how they will likely appear on the actual gaming table in more of a skirmish line/formation.

I timed myself and the entire painting process, not counting drying time, from the first coat of Soft Black primer to the last lighter green blotch was a little over 2 hours.  If these were metal miniatures or plastic ones with the flash already removed, to paint and base 8 figures of the same scale (roughly 28mm) priming them with three colors for everything (a la the Foundry Painting System which although I do not use their paints, I use their style/approach to painting miniatures) would take me more like 8 hours.  In fairness, the build takes me longer than it takes to remove the flash, but not 6 hours longer, and there is nothing fun to me about removing flash.  The builds, though, are sometimes sort of fun unless I cut my finger with the craft blade or poke the drill bit into my hand or finger.

Norman Infantry Unit!

Got a little sidetracked with work towards the end of last week, so this unit was completed about 3 days later than I planned.  But it's done.  Norman infantry in a shield wall.  Four bases of 4 figures each.  Here they are being screened by a skirmish line of Norman archers.

And a close up.

From the right side.

Left side.

And rear.

These three new bases are identical to the "test base" I did a couple of weeks ago except that for two of the bases, the ones that make up the rear ranks of the unit, I put three spear men and one guy with an two-handed axe just for variety and because it looks cool.

Given the total number of units I'm going to need for a Hastings game, this is going to be my historical 2018 project, and here is hoping that I can finish it by November for Fall In.  I'm not terribly confident about that, but I may surprise myself.

I'm going to do a fantasy figure next, but after that, I'll do a unit of Norman cavalry.

Norman Archer Unit!

Finished 3 more stands of Norman archers yesterday, completing the four-stand unit.  Here they are skirmishing from the wood line.

Again, I tried to make them look at least a little "un-uniform" with some with helmets (one with a leather helmet!), some bare headed, some with hoods, some with mail armor, some with leather armor, etc.  Evidently there was a cap that was popular (the guy with the orange head wear) that I just made with a strip of paper in a circle around the head and a small bead split in half.  I think he looks a little "Baltic Sea area" in appearance, but that's okay with me.

Here are a couple of close ups of all the stands.

And finally here is a shot of a 2 x 2 stand configuration which would be used in many rule sets, including Neil Thomas's Ancient and Medieval Warfare rules.

With simpler figures like these, they always look better to me en-mass than individually.

Next up, three more stands of Norman infantry to complete that unit!

Norman Infantry!

I did a test base of Norman infantry at the same time I was finishing up my undead bosses.  I often work that way, having multiple projects going on at the same time.  It keeps me motivated and makes it more fresh for me, especially when I am having to do several of the same figures at the same time.

I compared what a three figure vs. four figure stand would look like.  There is no comparison, the four figure stand for infantry in a shield wall like the Normans would typically be in looks infinitely better than the three figures.  Plus, I may want to use the three figure bases to indicate differences in quality of the unit.  Anyway, I attached the four figures to the base before painting them.  Then glued on everything (arms, weapnos, etc.) except for the shields.  I also did not paint the flat side of the arm where the shield would eventually be glued to, and in fact if I got paint on that part of the arm I immediately wiped it off.

I painted the figures fully on the stand, after they were totally constructed except for gluing their shields onto their arms.  This turned out easier than I thought it would be, even though they are pretty close together.  I then painted the back side of the shield piece and glued the shield onto the figures.  Then I painted the front side of the shields, with the details, after the glue had dried.

I only took one picture of them, but this is enough to get the idea.

This means there will be 16 figures in a unit (for bases) but I think it will be worth it in the long run.  But I've clearly got a lot of figures in front of me still.  I hope to put on a Hastings game this September.  I should be able to get them done by that time.

Napoleonic Spanish Infantry (1808) in Bicorne

Well, I finally made progress on something! The last time these made an appearance in the blog they were in the development stage. But I needed another Allied unit for an upcoming battle and these fit in well with the British that I already have. They are Napoleonic Spanish infantry in bicorne (1808).

Spanish troops look pretty nice, even if they are usually rated rather poorly on the tabletop by most Napoleonic rules. They have almost Seven Years War style uniforms, reflecting a Revolutionary France influence of replacing the tricorne with the bicorne.

This build is fairly similar to all my 42mm soldiers. It uses a standard 1 11/16" pawn for the head and body, with craft foam used for the arms, cartridge box, bicorne, and rosette. A small piece of square balsa dowel is used for the bayonet sheathe and the musket with fixed bayonet is a flat toothpick. As always, the feet are a wooden heart shape. It really does not get much simpler.

One thing that is different about the arms and bicornes from previous experiments: I used a computer controlled cutting machine to make the parts, resulting in a quicker and more consistent product.

I used some white dimensional paint to make the strap over the rosette on the bicorne and on top of the shoes, to make the feet more three-dimensional. Other than that, the rest is pen and paint.

I decided to use a permanent marker with a brush tip for things like the eyebrows, mustache, and dark lines separating colors. I then used thick paint to edge right up to the pen lines in order to control the thickness.

Unlike previously, I did not add painted muskets to the painted figure at the end; I glued them to the figure before I started painting. Big mistake. That made it harder to get paint on the back side of the musket without slopping over onto the white uniform or black bicorne. It is not so much that it looks bad – I doubt you can even see it unless you actively looked at a awkward angle – but that it plays on your mind when you are holding the figure close to your face at awkward angles. You notice it all the time, so the error looks much larger than it really is.


In the end, though, I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. Sad it took me so long to finish them, but happy they are done.

36 Goblins, 3 Goblin Officers, and Two Frodos

For the Balin's Tomb scenario in the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game rulebook, you need 36 goblins (12 each of spear, shield, and bow guys), 3 goblin officers, and one cave troll for the evil side.  Of course, on the good side you need the Fellowship.

I started this project about one month ago (I checked on the date of the first posting about goblins I did) which means that I've been working on this project off and on over the past 5 weeks.  During that time I completed 36 goblins, 3 goblin officers, and all of the Fellowship, including an "invisible Frodo," except for Gandalf (who is at this moment on my painting table almost fully constructed, so he'll be finished this week).  There is NO WAY I could have ever painted this many regular miniatures during this time, not to the standard that I like to paint to.  As for the cave troll, I can't decide whether to go with my old cave troll (who frankly looks a little outdated at this point ... he is after all almost 2 years old!) or make a new cave troll with my more developed construction and conceptualization skills so as to be consistent with these newer LotR figures.  I'll probably end up making another one.  But my point is that a little over a month ago, I decided I wanted to put on a fantasy skirmish game for my gaming club.  In what will end up being about 6 weeks time, I will have completed all 50 figures for it (you need two Frodo figures).  Not bad!

Onto the figures.

Rather than showing you the "new goblins," I thought it would be more impressive to show the three different types with an officer all in one picture (almost as units here even though they do not all stay together in the same unit during the game).  So I've got a group of 12 spear goblins with an officer, a group of 12 bow goblins with an officer, and a group of 12 shield goblins with an officer all in the same picture.  I think they make quite the impressive horde!

Event though these miniatures are identical to each other in terms of body and feet, the variation in the arm position and the head tilts really makes them look a bit less uniform (more like a horde of angry goblins!).  I continue to be impressed, actually, with how much just varying the arm position increases the diversity of appearance of these clearly simple miniatures.

Onto Frodo ...

I wanted a regular Frodo and an invisible Frodo.

Nothing new construction wise, and this close up picture makes me realize I need to go back and make his blue pupils round again ... forgot to do that after I added the whites of his eyes.  Obviously there is no way to make a wooden figure "clear," so I went with the "ghostly" gray look for him when he is invisible.  I just stuck with the exact same pose of him holding the ring between his fingers, even though it wouldn't be correct when he is invisible as the ring would be on his finger.

Same traditional Hobbit construction.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, Frodo's clothing except for his bright green cloak is quite boring (just different shades of brown with a white undershirt that you don't really see because of all the layers he wears!).  The only new thing really with the non-invisible figure is Sting.  I just painted the sword blade a white undercoat and then used the florescent blue paint, that I sometimes use on my sci-fi figures for bright lights and buttons, and coated the white blade with this blue paint.  I ran the brush along the edges of the sword blade while the blue paint was still wet to take away some of the paint to allow the white to show through more, giving the impression that it is "glowing."

When I get Gandalf finished, I will do a shot with all the Fellowship, and then I will do a shot with my new Fellowship figures next to the old Fellowship Craftees I did a couple of years ago and let you be the judge of which you like better.

Orc Variant

One of the things I like about the new goblin construction is the head, ears, and shoulders.  I wanted to do an orc with a similar type construction, but in order to make the figure human sized, I would need to use the milk bottle construction method.  I combined the two and here is what I came up with.

Turned out pretty well, I think.  I used a bead that is one size larger than the ones I use for the goblins (I believe it is a 1/2" bead) and split it for the head.  The shoulders are the split 1/2" spool, just like for the goblins, and the ears are cut out of tile spacers, also just like the goblins.  I used paper for the leather "skirt" and tile spacers for the feet just like I did for the Aragorn, Boromir, and Legolas figures.  I gave him some upper arm armor plating cutting tile spacers to fit.  You can see this best in the second and fourth images.  This is obviously a test figure, but I think I have enough to go on in terms of making a whole unit of Mordor Orcs, or I could also probably use this same construction method for Uruk-hai.

Toy Making Dad

Had a blog reader contact me recently. He saw my French Napoleonic artillery and pointed me to his blog articles on how he makes toy cannons and spoked wheels. Must better stuff than mine, but he appears to be strictly a "build from scratch" type with a much better workbench than mine. Definitely worth a look though!

Articles on Cannons

Articles on Wheels