The expedition

Hi again. New month, new year and new post! Happy new year! I start the new year with a little something I call The Expedition. It is not finished yet since I haven't made all the bases I need yet. But I'll show some of the photos here (the colour ones) and some (sepia-like) at Benno's. I play a little with the names on the explorers. First we have Sir Alfred Toby (Sir Toby is one of the absent friends in the old TV-sketch Dinner For One, which is aired in Sweden every New Years Eve), then Mr Benjamin Butterbur (Mr Butterbur is usually called Barliman and lives in Bree in Tolkien's Lord of the Ring), Mr James Winterbottom and Mr William Pommeroy (both from Dinner For One), Dr Napoleon B. Brown (there is an old bluessong called Dr Brown and one blues singer called Nappie Brown, but it was Buster Brown that sang the song with saxophone player J.T. Brown), Admiral Adalbert von Schneider (a little mix. Adalbert is a ghost in one of Johan's and Peewit's adventures and Admiral von Schneider is (again) from Dinner For One). The admiral have two dogs, Nuff and Spud (Nuff is also called Alan Lancaster, bassplayer with Status Quo and Spud is the drummer John Coghlan). Very nerdy, yes I know, but I like it. :-D Some of those pics have been shown here already.

Indians attack! :-)

Another little comparison. This time with an Airfix US Cavalry guy (1/32 I think). And in the meantime I painted the indians a little more.

A little comparison

Hi again!

Pascal raised the question what scale my Prince August Native Americans are. The answer is 40mm, which means they doesn't fit anything modern. I made a little comparison photo. I took Beorn from the Mithril-range, quite big for Mithril, an orc from Prince August's fantasy armies (28mm I think), my strange hobbit from the boardgame The Hobbit, and a celtic wizard from Hat (1/72).

Prince August's Native Americans

When I was a kid we had some rubber moulds from Prince August. Me and my dad cast figures and I painted them (most not very well). Now I have found some of these figures in the cellar and decided I wanted to make a little better paintwork on them. I hope that I will do a better job as a 49-year old than as a 9-year old. :-D

This is how they looked when I found them. Paint is Humbrol Enamel. The skin is pretty good, but all that green is not.

After a little work (there is still very much to do, but this is how they look at the moment):

A little scene

Once I started something I called Stout Man at Bath, but I don't know what's happening with it. I paint figure after figure and it will probably be at least 2 scenes. One can be from a restaurant and one could be from a bedroom (with Stout Man talking to someone and his wife asleep in the bed) or from a bath. Here is a temporary setup of the restaurant-scene, but I'm still paing figures for it so the final version can be different!

Figures are Airfix, Valdemar, Strelets and Emhar. Furniture are Valdemar and Fredericus Rex. Walls and floor are (as usual) Prince August.

Party in the woods - finished!

First (but last since I edit this in after the first comments) welcome Ben and Alfons!

Didn't do much in the hobby during the summer, but I finished my little Party in the woods-dio. Figures are from Valdemar, Airfix, Zvezda, Strelets, Prince August and Hat. Stones are from the local dogwalk and trees are from Heki or Pola or something like that.

Someone at Bennos (Ender Durman, I think) wanted me to add some nappies and at first I thought "Naah, not nappies" but I did add two. :-D

A bit of a problem here, how do I reach the cookies???

And another, more fun, but still a, problem! I got a horse leftover! Not much of a dancer, more jumper (a bit like myself actually, the most serious dancesteps I ever learned was The Pogo). Now I need a rider (already have an idea for a base).

Father Brown

This chap was totally chopped up in a duel at Benno's recently. I had a very nice duel with Pascal http://samsminisworld.blogspot.se/ and lost. Huge thanks for a very fun and nice duel! His woodman is very good work and he really deserved to win this duel. I named my figure Father Brown after G. K. Chesterton's crime novels. Figure is from Valdemar's Life In A Teutonic Monastery-set, walls are from Prince August's Fantasy Build-moulds and the base is ... here comes the SECRET: Susofrick Junction! But without the houses! :-D So I could use the same base in two duels, winning one and losing the other! :-D Here are the un-edited pics of Father Brown:

And here is a link to Susofrick Junction where you can see the base in another setting:

http://gataskog.blogspot.se/2012/02/wild-west-dio.html


And here I also use the same base: :-D

http://gataskog.blogspot.se/2012/04/hobbits-and-more.html

Will use the base for more pics, but I plan to make more bases so I can get a little variety. I don't have that much space for dios or vignettes and this way I can use the same base for many many many dios. :-D If I just edit them a little. Maybe cheating, but I didn't have a chance to win so I can't think anyone will call it cheating. (I hope).

And here is what I wrote about Prince August's Fantasy Build:

http://gataskog.blogspot.se/2011/01/prince-august-fantasy-build-plaster.html

http://gataskog.blogspot.se/2011/01/little-update-on-prince-augusts-fantasy.html

Unfortunately I don't think you can find these moulds anywhere cheap. I bought mine late 80s and I haven't seen them since then in any shop.

Furniture and part of a dancing troup

Managed to do a little work on some of the furniture I bought from Fredericus Rex. Very nice and being made of balsawood they don't weigh anything at all (well, if you are 20-25 mm tall they probably weigh a lot). Very nice furniture, but it easier to work with metal furniture. They are not finsihed yet. Our old friend Galant George shows the furniture and a carpet from Crazy Cavan's Carpets.

Galant George also trains the dancetroup Trolls on Feet. They will probably join up with The SilverSinger in the future.

Stout man at Bath

or Fat man 'n the bathtub. He could afford the Silversinger (who buy the way isn't silvery anymore since I've painted him) so he hired Galant George, one of Lord Lowell's more ordinary trobadours. I show pics with and without water in the tub. It is one ml cold water. The walls and floor are from Prince August's Fantasy Build (have shown them before and I'm going to show them again). galant George is from Strelets' Medieval Britain and Stout Man is from Valdemars Medieval Bathers.

And my little inspiration behind what I've written here is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDp3Grz28mE

Vork In Progress (V.I.P.)

Yes, I know I spell it wrong. But I'm planning to use a VIP in this little work (which will be at least a couple of dios/vignettes). Need more Valdemar sets so it will take a while. And what is the smurf doing there? Well, the first time the smurfs appeared anywhere was in an album about a magic flute and I'm planning to do something about a magic lute (don't have any smurfs in the right size). Haven't the story clear yet, but I hope I will get there in the end. Orc and goblin are from Prince August's fantasy moulds. Still have the moulds and tin but don't have the time to cast new ones so these old will have to do even though you have seen them before. Have to give Paul a base too I think.

In the tub (mild nudity!)

Alex's marvelous bathers! Really like this set and I can understand that people start to collect them!

Other views:

I think they are pretty rich 'cause they even hired the famous "SilverSinger with the Golden Voice"! And he's not cheap!

And now some total nudity!

After...

nine beers it can be like this. Never happened to me, but I've heard about it. This is just playground, more serious pics will appear at Benno's hopefully after this weekend.

Thirsty

Two small test-photos taken very fast yesterday evening. Haven't done anything with the bottom of the tankards, the rest is given a green wash.

A little update on Prince August's Fantasy Build

Been casting and painting this weekend. Soon finished with my little castle-background and soon finished with my entry for the Valentine-competition at Benno's. And I changed the title from .... to .... ! :-D

Prince August Fantasy Build Plaster moulds

They don't sell these anymore and there are better products now, but this was what was available in Sweden back in the mid 80-s. They had plaster-moulds before, but they were for bigger scale and, well, for only one brick/stone. You could as well buy some lego and paint them grey! :-D Thought I had what I needed for what I'm planning, but I'll have to cast (right at last?) new floors and walls and paint them. Found the instructions in the cellar, but I'm just going to do two walls and part of a floor that I can use as a background for different scenes. Scanned the instructions (sorry, in Swedish, but you can look at the pictures).

Blomma on adventure

I have plans for the Dead Flowers guy! He's not going to Gata Forest. He's going to a feast at the court of the king of the mountain! He and his freinds plan to raid the trolls' cave but they are tricky and pretend to be friends to the trolls and feast with them. To-do-list: Paint the trolls in another colour! Give them tails!!! Dig up some troll guards! Try to find that missing plate! Paint the humans! Paint the chairs and tables in different colour? Make a base. Make dancers of a troll and a hobgoblin and three of the humans (among them Blomma). Why not in a competition? Don't want a deadline with this one. Manufacturers? Troll-king and furniture: Prince August Mithril-range, Dancing troll and hobgoblin: Prince August fantasy-range, humans at the table: Emhar Viking Oarsmen, Blomma and human dancers: Airfix Robin Hood, Troll-musicians: Games Workshop. Can't help it, but Blomma sounds very very gay in Swedish. :-D

One more from Prince August

This is one of Prince August's more common figs. A GNW-Swede. And this is ANCIENT! Moulded when I was about 10 or 11 years old, but painted just about 2 years ago. A flat guy and some people have ARMIES of these. Don't have many of these moulds, just this one and a marching grenadier. For a while you could even buy moulds for castles (gypsum/plaster) for these guys. Don't know how many medieval castles they faced though.