bench update 25 March 2023

Ten days later. Last weekend all I could manage to do was visualize how I was going to approach the Normans. Today, I followed through with a burnt Siena base. Then I did some more visualizing on whether some dry brush highlights would help or hinder. I decided "help" but may have been wrong. 

bench update 15 March 2023

Just adding a quick note on results for using superglue to fix riders to mounts.

Pretty good overall. One was not seated at all well, so I had to take it off and carve some more saddle away, but the other 11 are ok, if brittle. I went over them all with a 2nd round of glue.

I used a completely new tube, to get maximum thinness from the glue, which has to soak between the pieces.

I hope that once they are all layered over with varnish base coat the brittle nature of the join won't be a problem. 

bench update 11 March 2023

For the Norman project, I turned to OneNote again. Three pages: required, have, needed. This is a morph army, using extensive amounts of Spanish and Crusader elements. After working through the army list, and those three pages, I calculate that I actually did not need to buy those Strelets Norman foot! All this project needs is the dozen Norman knights minis, and five crossbowmen. 

Those crossbow minis come from another Strelets set, medieval crossbowmen, M025. The strength of this set is that the minis are from right along the timeline, and there's no trouble finding five vaguely 11th-century looking fellows. They are sculpted with very stubby bows, allowing the crossbows to be posed realistically.

The Norman knights, 085, have quite a lot of mould lines and minor flash to trim, so that's what I've done, to this point. The saddles make an extremely tight fit, so some extra trimming and boiling water are needed. I plan to squeeze some superglue into the crevices and skip pinning them. The look is tidy and handsome, for Strelets, but some lances are just awful. The mounts are much better sculpted than their riders, frankly, and are possibly the first I've seen to be sculpted as geldings.

Vikings III/40b complete

Everything to the left is extra bits of other armies or camp followers!

bench update 04 March 2023

Vikings nearly done!

After evaluating the minis I liked or could put up with, I decided to focus on the 40b or 9th-11th century Vikings with their 4Bd formations. They fit all of the "age of conquest" campaigns. I would still like 40a Vikings but not until I have cobbled together a middle Saxon army, because I really want Saxons on horseback for some reason!

Anyway here they are at a couple of stages today, and I've just added grasses to them. There are a couple of extra bits to paint or highlight, so they should be all ready to matt spray tomorrow.