Sunday 9 January 2011

Champagne Charlies

These chaps are the rank and file of the cavalry for my Praetorian guard cavalry elements; champagne corks seem an appropriate temporary base for these.  I'll eventually have 2 units of 6, as the cavalry detachments of the two 24-man cohorts I have planned.  I may eventually end up with 3.

I've just taken advantage of a clear and sunny London day to gloss lacquer them.  It'll be a while before the unit gets finished, because the command figures I ordered from Black Tree Designs (in September, grrr) still haven't arrived.  I've chased and ordered some more.

I know, somewhere, I have another 3-4 dozen Black Tree cavalry, but can I find the blighters?  I've been scouring the lead mountain, but so far to no avail...

10 comments:

Scullmeister said...

They're coming along very nicely.

Guidowg said...

Looking good BRBC. I'll be watching with interest to see how your project comes along.

I've tried painting horse & rider separate but find I have less problems if I glue them together first.

DeanM said...

They're looking good. I really like the helmet sculpting and the scorpion shield design. Dean

Der Tsstler said...

the decals are VVV, aren't they ?

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Very nice and really like the shade of blue.

Cheers
Christopher

BigRedBat said...

Thanks chaps! Another year or two and I'll have the unit completed. ;-) The riders are nicely sculpted, I think.

Yes DT they are VVV transfers. I had to cut them up to fit them around the shield bosses, so it was a bit fiddly. The blue is to match the colour of the LBMS Praetorian shields I expect to use.

Gabriele Campbell said...

Heh, you won't want to meet the originals of those in a dark alley. ;)

Do you know what materials the Romans used to get such a pretty blue? (It's another item on my research list: Roman dyes.)

BigRedBat said...

Hi Gabrielle, I rather fear that the Romans never achieved that blue. Just possibly they could have imported ludicrously expensively imported Lapis Lazuli, maybe, from Afghanistan? I have a few units in blue shields, probably a few too many.

But it is a very pretty blue!

Simon

Larry said...

What do you have the figures attached to?

BigRedBat said...

Hi Larry,

The figures are drilled and mounted on brass rod, which is pushed into the cork. The champagne corks have a 2p coin stuck to the flat underside, to gice them a little weight, and the coin has magnetic sheet stuck on it which holds them upright on my tray.

Wehn they are finished, I snip the brass rod off at 2mm length from the minis bums, and this fits into a hole drilled into the horses' saddles.

Cheers, Simon