Tents

Based on the tutorial by DMscraft youtube channel, I give you tents.

The tents are cardboard folded over, and a triangle wedge within for structural support.

The outsides were hit with a hot glue to give a folding look. I regret that tho, they woudve looked better without it...

The tents are covered with white glue, followed by a covering of a wet paper towel piece (shown on the top left tent). Fold flaps on the back and front of the tents. Followed by a Cover of white glue on the entire outside.

The finished tents. Im not gonna base them because Im not too thrilled with the folding effect and the texture of the paper towels still showing.

Some work done

Ive always had a soft spot for turtles, so I couldnt help grabbing these lizardmenesque snappingturtle warriors from reaper bones. Didnt even prime these guys, the paint went straight on. Washes dont adhere to the unprimed bones miniatures, but regular paint does. Once regular paint is applied washes can follow.

Started the basing process on these fellows

Added some woad to my pagan archers

My Finished models for the Teutonic Crusader army, many more will follow.

Also in the background are the finished swamp trees, with the bases flocked

The 95% finished snapping turtle warriors

10 pagan archers nearing completion, the unit will eventually be at least 15 maybe 24

Cardboard Shields!

Hey everyone, here is how to get your shields going:

Step 1:Go to this blog and hunt around for shield and banner images you like

http://michasfiguren.blogspot.com/

 Cut the images out

paste them onto some form of cardboard material. I used the back of notebooks and rubber cement for glue.
Once the shield has been cut from the cardboard, carefully bend the shield around a thick pen to give the shield a realistic curvature. 

Cut the shields out and carefully paint the back and edges of the shields brown. A good technique when painting the edges is to have the side of your brash drag along the shield edge with the point of the brush always towards the backside of the shield.

Some shielded miniatures.

Pavises for Crossbowmen. 

The only plastic shield in the post..... But none the less a finished warlord type for my Barbarians

Been trying to get my hands on these musketeer miniatures for quite some time. They are hard to come by in the states. This was a cheap ebay auction because the bannermen's sword was broken. Easy fix even for the likes of me. I also screwed a hole into his left hand for a banner pole, which didnt exist previously. I really hope to get more musketeer miniatures now that they are opening footsore miniatures with a distributor in the USA.

Special thanks to micahsblog for the shields and banner!

finished trees and some crusaders

Heres a look at the finished trees

another look

The defending barbarians are westwind saxons and merlin, with one warlord dacian model

 A look at some tartan patterns on the dacian and merlin

a peak at some WIP crusaders

I redid the mounted knights helmet, and these crossbowmen have been done for some time. 

Trees, Bones, and Torches

These trees are art craft pipecleaners twisted togethor leaving roots and branches at the top. They were then covered in tape. And most importantly covered in hotglue in sporadic up and down motions creating bark effects. Check out DMsCraft youtube video if you want a great tutorial on doing tree bark. Its really easy, just go up and down in sporadic motions with the gun.  

continuing work on the bones figures, apparently I only painted the evil characters..............Coincidence? I think not, MWAHAHAHA. 

 trees pre hot glue.

These torches are q-tips cut in half, covered in white glue and pulled to a flame shape. They were then painted red followed by a less than dry dry-brush with upward motions occasionally top give the flames appropriate color and movement. This q-tip idea was nicked from, none other than, DM Scotty from the DMsCraft youtube channel.

Heres some finished torches with 2 finished bones figures and 2 old WHFB VC figures wraith and banshee

The finished tree is to the left of the great hall. Sorry for the bad shot. The tree was drybrushed a grey-tan-brown mix followed by a random drybrush of green to show moss.  Lichen was hot glued to the top branches.  Eventually the tree will be mounted on a cd base.  

 The other bones figure progress. I made some headway on a Hero, I guess Im not all bad.

A Saga game, with Skeletons and Vampires.

In This Saga game we tried out two new armies, the pagan rus (Undead) and the rus princes (barbarians).  We played the convoy escort scenario. I (undead) had the convoy.  The escort must get at least 1 baggage train of 3 across the table, and the attacker must destroy all 3 for victory.  

The Rus princes hearthguard is a super unit that costs three points for 2 points worth of figures.  However, they generate 2 saga dice instead of 1, and they get free activations.  I put my warlord and unit of warriors facing down his warlord and hearthguard.  Thyrough the magic of the pagan rus i inflicted fatigue on his hearthgaurd, and then got to kill 1 model per fatigue in all units with fatigue with a seperate ability.  

my 8 man unit of hearthguard charged up the road to meet his warriors head on.  Apparently he thought my hearthguard were warriors, a fatal mistake, the warriors died.  

With his hearthguard unit at half strength I geared up my saga board for some close combat and charged my warlord and warriors into the remaining hearthguard. My opponents terrible defence rolls left none of his hearthguard unit standing.  

With only 6 warriors slain throughout my entire army, and his super hearthguard and warrior unit killed and another warrior unit at half strength from fatigue kills, we decided the battle was over because it was impossible for him to destroy all three baggage trains. 

Boat, Banners, Bones, and more!

I wanted to build a generic looking ship that I could use in any situation I could find my gaming in. Check out the youtube channel DMsCraft, it enlightened me in the ways of cardboard and hot glue. I shutter to think of the days, not so long ago, when the knowledge of hot glue and terrain making was in a dark age.

I drew an outline of a boat roughly. two outlines because I decided to make two boats. That fell through and I only made one. 

I measured a halfway point as well as dots to mark cutting lines to create wood planks. Just cutting into the cardboard with an exacto knife without breaking through the other side.

I Cut the outline of the base out and then traced it on cardbaord to cut out an identicle cardboard shape.  An edge around the shape was cut. This will become the boat walls/raised area of the boat.  

Sorry for the poor quality image but here is the base and wall outline glued together.  

The outside walls were created by cutting index card and covering the ugly innards of the cardbaord.

 I also lined the inner wall with a thin strip of index card as well.  

The sale is linen, and is unpainted.  The mast was just hot glued and then white glued to add extra strength. 

 I painted my current terrain projects all dark brown: The boat, stable, and firepit.  

 A tan dry brush was applied.

Here's the boat with some raiders.

The finished firepit and stable. The firepits base is cardboard covered in white glue and sand. The edge of the cardboard is covered in hotglue to conceal the innards of the cardboard.  There is minor warpage, so I am curious to see what happens with a larger cardboard base and white glue.  

These are printed banners I found online. The empire figure is getting the Swiss canton banner of Bern, and the German knight got  a banner from http://michasfiguren.blogspot.com/2015/03/ein-paar-neue-banner.html

The insides of the banner are painted in the colors of the banner edges so when the banner is folded over imprecisely no white shows.  

here's the German Knight

And here is the empire bannermen and german knight alongside the early stages of painting for the bones figures.

I painted this piece a while ago, but i finally cut out the base and glued the rocks down.  I have not been happy with my results cutting foamboard... This time I used an exacto knife that heats up like a glue gun or hot wire cutter, I'm more satisfied this time around but I still think there is something that Im missing.