Pimping Perry Plastics

Well, maybe not so much pimping, as making some plain builds from the parts provided.

Made some progress with the Perry plastic Frenchies today, though. The trumpeter came out very defiant! He is not quite finished, by the way, as I am going to add a sheathed sword to his left hip. The leader (without arms), will be sporting a sword, so will have to have a scabbard added, and the standard bearer also needs a sword to defend the colours.

I am not quite sure what I did wrong on the first spear/pikeman, but I did not seem to be able to get a good fit for the arms, so a little greenstuff work will be needed before he gets prepped with the rest of the unit.

I can see that I shall also need to give all the minis a good brush-down with the acrylic leather brush to remove plastic dust and the likes, before that so important coat of primer.

I am not sure if I shall have time for further builds today, as I am going to sleep most of the day after working this night, and then am picking up Anna from school on bicycle, to teach her the route from her school in Ringe to Kværndrup - and we might go to the beach for a dip, as Thursday and Friday seem to be the last days of summer this time around.

USUTHU! Slow but Steady Progress.

As stated yesterday, I have slapped some filler on the Zulu warriors' bases, and they now only need a final touch, before I can prime them. I also put filler on the bases of a couple of LotR minis, but they will be shown elsewhere at another time.

I think I forgot some mold lines on the rightmost mini's shield extensions (spear and shield top) - I need to remind myself to get those removed before I spray them with primer...

Cork Holder - Blatant Theft of a Good Idea!

I made this today - a piece of extra sturdy card, twenty thumb-tacks, and som Loc-Tite Power Glue gel.

I stole the idea from Hammers at the Lead Adventure Forum, as I use corks as painting handles, and when painting batches, I always need more space to hold the minis I am not holding and painting.

Not any more, thanks to this invention, which should let me place up to twenty minis on handles safely upright by sticking the cork handles onto the thumbtacks.

Second Hand Lurtz Rebased

A long time ago, I got this Lurtz as part of a second hand batch, and he has been sitting on my newly re-instituted prepping station ever since.

Now, I have re-based him onto a washer, and I plan to give him a coat of matt varnish when I have finished his base, and then he can be enrolled in my Blood Eagle Uruk-Hai warband (and my Isengard God of Battles Orc army).

The paintjob is not fantastic, but it will do for tabletop standard, until I can paint up my own NIB version of this sculpt (I am pretty sure, I also have the sculpt of him shooting his bow (at Boromir), and I may want to get that one coloured in, first).

This was the last hobby-related task I managed to get done today - I plan to do some repair and/or re-basing on one mini each day, so that I can get some of the clutter away from my prepping station little by little, without just hiding it away in some box.

Lurtz will get some filler on the base tomorrow along with the four Zulu warriors I have assembled over the last couple of days.

Perry Agincourt French -> Dol Amroth Men-at-Arms

In my second hobby session today, I cleaned up these four Perry bodies. They are very good castings, and mold lines are almost non-existing, so they clean up quite quickly, and it bodes well for this project which should optimally yield four 16-man spear/pike Dol Amroth men-at-arms units for my Gondor God of Battles army.

In addition, I should be able to to construct the odd Fiefdom Warrior unit, such as Axemen of Lossarnach (with actual axes instead of the halberds carried by the 'official' GW miniatures), and maybe some Clansmen of Lamedon. I shall have to re-read the passage from Return of the King where the Fiefdom companies are seen arrive to Minas Tirith by Pippin and Bergil to see if I can proxy even more Fiefdom Warriors from this set (I may need to get some Perry English Longbowmen to represent the Bowmen of Morthond).

USUTHU! First Sprue Completed

VERY hot today, and I spent some hours inside, away from the sun, working on several hobby projects.

First, I completed building the second pair of unmarried Zulus, and I shall put filler on the bases first thing tomorrow (I have not gotten my act together and made some gloop for basing, yet).

I had to use a shield from an unmarried sprue, as the married sprue contains only three arms with the large isihlangu shields (there is an extra one on the sprue, but no left arm to  hold it, go figure!).

Building Zulus

It is too hot, today, and I opted to stay inside the house and do a little hobby-work, instead of knocking cobblestones into the ground outside.

Apart from doing some repairs, I continued work on the first Married Zulu sprue:

And when the post(wo)man arrived, I got my first box of Unmarried Zulus with my Wayland order:

As the box contains a metal Induna (although a bit diminutive), I can now make a full Impi for In Her Majesty's Name without making further purchases (although I would prefer having an Inyanga right away, but he can be added later).

I think I am going to mix and match parts from married and Unmarried sprues to have a wider range of variation (and to heck with historical accuracy - some of my Unmarried Zulus will be in full regalia, anyway, so...).

Now, I have to get outside and continue working on my cobblestone lawn edges. I expect to finish building the last two Married Zulus from the first sprue tomorrow, and then get some filler on the bases, so they are ready for spray primer.