Saga Arabs

I'm on a roll, another project finished! Saga Arabs this time. I've always loved plastic figures and the newer generation of plastics are a God send especially if your like me and love converting figures and doing Frankenstein conversions! Although for once I've pretty much built these straight out of the boxes.

 8 horse archers, 8 foot archers, 8 spearmen and 8 swordmen. The swordsman are made by combining parts from the Arabs cavalry boxes and the Arabs infantry box. Slight conversion maybe but nothing drastic. 

 I enjoy painting and very rarely game nowadays! So these may not stay in my collection for long, space is becoming rarer and rarer but i keep meaning to thin out my collection. I'm attending hammerhead this weekend and hopefully I will sell a few bits and pieces at the table top sale. Although not spending any money I make on something new and shiney will not be easy! But I'm waffling on so back to the figures. 

 Every warband needs a leader and here's mine, hopefully a true leader. 

 The swords are here, a bit of mixing and swapping of parts but they appear to work out pretty well. 

 The spears, I let myself run riot on the shields, after seeing some the patterns I couldn't resist.  

 The bows, it was nice to paint these. No shields so pretty quick to finish. 

 The mounted bows, the hosres are lovely looking crearures and paint up a treat, some of the riders needed to be matched to certain horses or it requires a little bit of trimming to get them to fit.  It could just of being me or I was just unlucky. 

 So thanks for looking, feel free to comment and thanks again for looking 

Cheers for now Russ  

More SAGA Vikings

After a couple of weeks I've managed to finish up a few bits and pieces off the paint table! So I've added some more Vikings to my collection. I've gone for a mix of berserkers and hirdman, the Vikings are Gripping Beast plastics and I've converted the berserkers from Warlord Games figures.

 I added some different shield designs, I'm not the best at freehand but hopefully once mixed in with the rest of the warband they will blend in nicely. Painting shield's is part of the course but they can make or break the look of the figures. 

 The berserkers are a easy conversion from the warlord games figures and although not perfect they do the job nicely. Ive added a few tattoos although I'm not entirely happy with them! 

 The first four Hirdman I gave them all spears and apart for the green shield looking more Irish than viking! I think they worked out pretty nicely. 

 The second four are armed with a mix of swords and axes. I wasn't impressed with the GB plastic Vikings at first! The Saxons where the first figures I built from Gripping Beast and I was impressed massively with them. Then when I started on the Vikings they didn't seem as easy to put together and I didn't think they looked as good! But once i painted some I changed my mind and hopefully it shows. 

So as always thanks for looking 

   All the best

                  Cheers Russ 

A trip down memory lane

I strayed into old territory with my more recent works! Airfix, Italeri and Revell kits. I had more fun then I expected revisiting some of these old kits. Although I'm pretty sure the wespes were matchbox when I first built one. Still it's being almost forty years since I last built some of these kits. 

    So on to the models

 From left to right, pakwagon from hasagawa, two Stugs from Airfix, two wespes from Revell/matchbox and an armoured car from Italeri! It's given me a chance to add bits and pieces to each kit and make them more individual. 

 A lot of the crates are made from scrap ends of balsa wood and bits and pieces of plastic card. The tarps are made of tissue paper soaked in PVA and rolled or folded up. There are of course accessories from both PSC and various other manufacturers that I've horded over the years. 

 I've a few more models to add before I've finished, three PSC half-tracks, an Airfix Tiger and a marder. It wasn't really my intention to get into 20mm WW2 but I've enjoyed this walk back down memory lane so it may not end here.

So thanks for looking 

Cheers for now Russ