This box art by LW

(Para a versão em Português, clique aqui)

I know that LW was (or still is? Does LW still exist?) a miniature manufacturer heavily criticized by the guys from Plastic Soldier Review specially for selling kits that were actually conversions of other manufacturers' works, but, damn... the box art for their "German Knights" set goes hard:

This is one of the best box arts I've seen in this hobby so far.  

The depiction of the knight clad in black armour waving the german hawk flag makes me wonder what this man's backstory is. 

To me, this image fits nicely with Prokofiev's "Dance of the Knights" (search for it on youtube, it's 100% worth it!). 

The castle walls in the background, the open fields, everything is just right for me in this picture.

I tried to find the original picture (without the text and LW logo), but could find nothing. 

So I asked grok on twitter to remove the texts from the box art. The result was quite good (it slightly changed the knight's face, the symbol on the flag and erased the castle gate):

It makes me wish this set was still widely available! At least I own a copy of the Revell French Knights set which was the base for the conversions made by LW!

Eventually I'll paint at least some of them as German Knights!

Esta arte da LW

(For the English version, click here)

 Sei que a LW era (ou ainda é? A LW ainda existe?) uma fabricante de miniaturas bastante criticada pelo pessoal do Plastic Soldier Review, principalmente por vender kits que eram, na verdade, conversões de trabalhos de outros fabricantes, mas, nossa... a arte da caixa do conjunto "German Knights" é incrível:

Esta é uma das melhores ilustrações de caixa que já vi neste hobby!

A representação do cavaleiro vestido com armadura preta, brandindo a bandeira alemã com o falcão, me faz pensar sobre qual seria a história desse homem retratado na caixa, criando um personagem interessante.

Para mim, essa imagem combina perfeitamente com a música "Dança dos Cavaleiros" de Prokofiev (pesquisem no youtube, recomendo!)

As muralhas do castelo ao fundo, os campos abertos, tudo está perfeito nessa imagem.

Tentei encontrar a imagem original (sem o texto e sem o logotipo da LW), mas não encontrei. 

Então, pedi ao grok, a IA do Twitter, para refazer a imagem removendo os textos. O resultado ficou muito bom (só alterou ligeiramente o rosto do cavaleiro e o símbolo na bandeira e também apagou o portão do castelo):

Quem dera esse conjunto ainda estivesse amplamente disponível no mercado! Eu compraria, só por causa dessa arte.

Pelo menos eu tenho uma cópia do kit de Cavaleiros Franceses da Revell / Accurate que serviu de base para as conversões feitas pela LW!

Eventualmente, pintarei pelo menos alguns deles como Cavaleiros Alemães!

Mais miniaturas vikings pintadas e cenários

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 Outro grupo de miniaturas pintadas.

Esses bravos guerreiros abaixo são dos seguintes kits:  Strelets M004 - Vikings, Strelets 250 - Vikings (as peças exclusivas do conjunto Stamford Bridge), Orion Vikings, Orion - Antigos Russos (aqui recrutados como vikings!) e Emhar Vikings .

O drakkar é na verdade uma decoração para aquário que comprei recentemente - seu tamanho é quase perfeito para a escala 1/72, na minha opinião. (Eu não tenho aquário: só nós, wargamers e colecionadores de miniaturas, olharíamos para essas coisas e imaginaríamos tais usos alternativos!)

Ao fundo de algumas das fotos acima, você pode ver:

- uma das casas de camponeses do meu outro post

- algumas cabanas redondas de pedra com telhados de palha que estou construindo.

- um pedaço de rio que estou fazendo para minha mesa de jogo - feito com folha de EVA, e as margens feitas com massa de EVA que posteriormente serão pintadas.

(Notem que tenho muitos projetos em andamento, e muito pouco tempo! Acho que não muito diferente da maioria de vocês).

More painted vikings and scenery

(Para a versão em Português, clique aqui)

Another group of painted minis.

These brave warriors bellow are from: Strelets M004 - Vikings, Strelets 250 - Vikings (the unique sprues from the big box "Stamford Bridge" set), Orion 72004 Vikings, Orion 72029 Early Rus (here recruited as vikings!) and Emhar Vikings.

The drakkar is an aquarium scenery that I recently bought - its size is almost perfect for the 1/72 scale, in my opinion. (Only us wargamers would look at such things and imagine these alternative uses!)

On the background of some of the pictures above there are: 

- one of the peasant houses from my other post 

- a couple stone huts with hay roofs I am currently making. 

- a piece of a river I am making for my game table - it is made with EVA foam sheets and EVA putty.

(I've got many, many projects running in paralel and very little time - not much different from most of you!).

Fazendo casas de camponeses

(For the English version, click here))

Aqui estão algumas casinhas camponesas que fiz usando apenas materiais domésticos baratos, como:

- caixas vazias de chá

- fita crepe

- mexedores de café

- tinta acrílica

Comecei cobrindo as caixas de chá com fita adesiva, pois achei que a tinta acrílica grudaria melhor na fita do que na caixa.

Em seguida, para a primeira casa, apliquei uma camada de base de primer branco.

Depois que o primer secou, ​​apliquei a tinta nas cores que eu queria.

Quando a tinta secou, ​​cortei e pintei os mexedores de café para imitar aquelas vigas de madeira que sempre se veem nas paredes das típicas casas alemãs/bávaras (essas casas sempre me deram aquela sensação "camponesa" - vida rural, trabalhar o dia todo nos campos sob o sol, celebrar festivais de colheita, etc.)

- usando un papelão mais grosso (por exemplo, de uma caixa de bombons), cortei pequenos tijolos, portas e janelas e colei-os nas paredes das casinhas.

- usando massa de EVA, esculpi os telhados simulando palha

(Ainda preciso fazer molduras triangulares para preencher os vãos entre as paredes e os telhados nas laterais. Elas também serão feitas com papelão e mexedores de café de madeira. Também preciso terminar de pintar a terceira casa.)

Da segunda casa em diante, tentei pintar diretamente nas caixas em vez de usar fita adesiva e primer, e funcionou perfeitamente.

Como essas casas foram feitas com caixas de chá, elas são dobráveis ​​e, portanto, podem ser guardadas em espaços pequenos!

E, claro, são bem baratas. Prefiro priorizar gastar dinheiro com miniaturas  do que com cenário (e geralmente cenários são mais caros), fora a alegria de fazer coisas artesanalmente.

Making peasant houses

(Para a versão em Português, clique aqui)

 Here are a few little peasant houses that I've made using only cheap household materials such as:  

- empty tea boxes

- mask tape

- coffee stirrers

- acrilic paint

I started by covering the tea boxes with mask tape, because I thought the paint would stick better to the tape than to the box .

Then, for the first house I applied  a base coat of white primer. 

After the primer was dry, I applied the paint of the collors I wanted.

When the paint dried, I cutted and painted the coffee stirrers to emulate those wooden beams that one can always see on the walls of the typical German / Bavarian house (such houses always gave me that "peasant" feeling - rural life, working all day on the fields under the Sun, celebrating harvest festivals, etc.)

- From thicker cardboard paper (e.g. from a chocolate box) I cutted small bricks, doors and windows and glued them to the walls of the houses.

I still have to make triangular frames to fill the voids between the walls and he roofs on the sides. They will be made with cardboard and wooden coffee stirrers too.

For the second house onwards I tried painting directly on the boxes instead of using mask tape and primer and it worked out just fine.

Since these houses were made with tea boxes, it means that they are foldable and thus may be stored in small spaces!

And, of course, they're quite inexpensive. I prefer to prioritize spending money on miniatures over scenery sets (and such sets are usually more expensive), not to mention the joy of making things by hand.

Trying some 15mm medievals

(Para a versão en português clique aqui)

This is a blog focused on 1/72 scale miniatures, but the nice details of Essex 15mm minis caught my attention and so I decided to buy some and add them to my medieval colection.

I've bought, so far:

1) from Ebay, a Hussite army pack, which contains:

 - 1 Horse wagon with 2 horses

 - 3 "mantlet wagons" (I'd call these "wheeled pavises") each with 2 horses

- 1 artillery wagon (with a wooden frame with sliding doors, to protect men and guns)

- 1 small canon with a crew of 2 men

- 3 knights (I'd say heavy/medium cavalry)

- 2 mounted crossbowmen

- 8 halberdiers

- 8 flailmen

And quite a few hand gunners, crossbowmen, etc.  I do not remember the exact number right now. 

2) a lot of separate kits straight from the Essex website: 

- A command group consisted of a king, a herald and a standard bearer

- Many knights on horses, from light cavalry to gendarmes with armoured horses

- 8 knights on foot

- 8 medium swordsmen

- 3 groups of peasants (which are 3 different kits: armed peasants, armed pilgrims and "poorly-armed hordes")

- 6 monks (I like miniatures of priests. They add more realism and variety to games)

- 24 pikemen (3 groups of 8, each group holding the pike in a different position, in order to make a pike block)

- And others (do not remeber how many: crossbowmen, handgunners, assorted footmen, etc.)

Yesterday I started to  base them, since most of them do not stand by theirselves (no pun intended) due to their very thin lead bases.

I do not like the idea of gluing miniatures to a base forming a permanently based group - I like versatility. So I decided to base each miniature individually and then build larger bases in wich there will be holes where to fix each individual miniature in a way that I can change each one whenever I want.

To base each mini, I cutted small round discs made of biscuit (for those of yiu who might nit know: biscuit is "cold porcelain", which hardens after a few hours of contact with air) and then I glued each miniature on a disc using loctite superbonder:

All these minis are from the Hussite army pack. The first ten discs are all irregular. Only after a few tries I came up with a quick way of making standardized biscuit discs.

.

The 24 minis pike block. On the front row I placed heavy pikemen (these have "Conquistador-style helmets). On the middle row, landsknechts (with plume hats) and on the back row swiss pikemen (dressed in various ways, resembling a town levy). All in order to add some variety.

3 different types of gunners from the Hussite army pack

I chose green collored biscuit because I think it will mix well with grass (and I will use diorama grass and pebbles to cover the bases).

Honestly I expected that this hussite army bundle would have peasant miniatures (my favorite kind of medieval minis), but I guess this army represents more "professional" hussites - after having fought a few battles and after looting fallen soldiers and knights. I guess the flailmen could represent "better armed peasants" or "battle-hardened peasants", I guess. Anyway, the flailmen are very versatile and could fit into a peasant army as well. I mean, every miniature from this Hussite army pack is very versatile and could fit into any dark ages, late medieval and renaissance army. Some even in ancient armies. Versatility is a key word here, and I like it a lot.

Eventually I'll expand this european army (adding more peasant units, siege weapons., etc.) and also build a Muslim army. Perhaps a 15mm viking army too. I've been checking the Essex website and I think that many English Civil War miniatures could easily be used as medievals (specially the pikemen, billmen and civilians).

Let's see. Time will tell.

For the muslim army I think I'll use grey biscuit  for their individual bases because it probably will mix well with either grass or sand (the grey bases will pass off easily as pebbles). 

On a future post I'll share the results of my basing process and (hopefuly) pictures of a few painted minis and the assembled war mantlets and wagons.