Wednesday 27 May 2015

Saturday 23 May 2015

Horse-Powered Ferryboat

Paddle boats powered by animals  have been around for a long time..the ancient Romans had them, powered by Oxen and they were highly popular in 19th century America. Apparently, at least eight different horseboat ferry routes operated from docks in southern Manhattan in the years between 1814 and 1819. One in New York, was powered by eight horses and could carry more than 200 passengers across the East River in 8 to 18 minutes.. as fast as a steam paddle boat.

The earlier ones had circular walkways in the middle of the deck for the horses which took up a lot of deck space or, to avoid this boxes were built on the sides, catamaran style,  to house the horses.

My Version is based on an innovation by Barnabas Langdon in 1819 -- the treadwheel-propelled horseboat whereby the drive wheel is placed horizontally under the deck and is similar to the design of a  "horse boat" wreck, the "superior horse boat EAGLE",  which was discovered in 1983/4 in Burlington Bay, Vermont.

I haven´t worked out how the nags can be Held in place (what type of harnesses etc I can use) but seeing as horses are treated well in Bodstonia they do their Job happily so no restraints are needed

The Basic structure - pre-painting.
Foam core with Card cladding scored to represent planking. The Roof Frame is made from toothpicks and the Roof canvas (on the painted version) some old material
 Obviously this will end up crossing the waterways of Bodstonia and can be seen with Crew and passengers in situ HERE ( along with my solution to steering)

Monday 18 May 2015

Airfix Waterloo Highland Infantry (Mk2)

Still carrying on with the Napoleonic theme and as part of the Airfix Tribute Forum Waterloo GB I´ve added another stand of infantry, another centre Company but this time a centre company of the 42 Regiment,  Royal Highland - Black Watch.
As with the Airfix Waterloo British Infantry they are  100% Airfix, but this time I used bits from the British infantry set.
I´ve painted the set before (HERE) using the Airfix Boxart as a reference. Back then (2 years ago) I used more  "false" blacklining than nowadays...but I still like the look of the Blacklined ones.

There´s 23 bods on the stand, only 2 less than the Waterloo British Infantry stand with 25 but it still Looks a  bit empty in comparison.



The conversions (I didn´t take pics before painting)
This Waterloo Diorama from the 1970´s  is worth a look..virtually all 1/72nd Airfix !!

Saturday 9 May 2015

Airfix Waterloo British Infantry

As part of the Airfix 2015 Waterloo 1815 GB (Group Build) over at the  Airfix Tribute Forum
Rules;
"Any and all Airfix Napoleonic, no matter what scale, 1/76, 54mm or 1/12. They can be displayed as vignette, diorama or singly. In diorama; a depiction of Quatre Bras is permitted too. Conversions are welcome too, as long as the result is still at least 51% Airfix plastic."

My part of the GB with all the stages, from removing the paint to the final stand can be found HERE

Without going over the top and creating buildings or an exact historic Scene from the battle, I  decided to make a line of british infantry in Action and Keep  to using 100% Airfix  and using parts from within the set itself for conversions.

Instead of a set up of strict lines, firing, loading etc I´ve gone for a more fluid look, no strictly defined firing , reloading  lines.  They were going to be based as part of a small dio but I eventually based them as a unit for  wargaming. It was a Change painting napoleonic bods, so maybe I´ll add one or two stands when I get the urge to paint something different from my usual themes...
The set is pretty generous with the number of poses but I don´t really like painting the same pose over and over to get enough bods to create a decent enough grouping and, as it´s said, Variety is the spice of life,  so some knife work was called for.

Conversions.




After painting and basing I came up with another 4 conversions but adding them would have overloaded the base, making it too crowded for my liking. 

The Flags. They  Come from the Nap Flag site, a site set up by Alan Pendlebury who very generously has made loads of napoleonic flags he´s created available for free download. Please observe his conditions of use.

The flags (as does thier uniforms as far as possible) represent those carried by the centre Company from the 1st Battalion 1st Foot Guards Regiment, but as Alan notes on his site;
"I have been unable to discover which of the 24 possible Regimental colours was carried by the 1st Battalion 1st Guards at Waterloo. I have opted for that of the 2nd company which had the red and white Tudor rose as a central device."

If anyone is looking for a decent resource site for uniform plates for the 1815 campaign;
Les uniformes pendant la Campagne des Cent Jours - Belgique 1815
In French but it has (as far as I can see) every Regiment represented with line, Grenadier etc companies

Friday 1 May 2015

Goblin slavers (2)

Follow-on and additions to the Goblin slavers.
The raids in the borderlands  have  increased in number and now, having made a deal of Money from  sales of recent aquisitions, the goblins have bought some Transport for their prisoners.
Another village Comes under attack!
The prison wagon from the strelets Roman Transport 3 the wargs from one of the dark Alliance sets. Goblin from Linear-b´s Roman Transport.
Goblin on the left with captive from the Linear-b Spartacus uprising set, Goblin with the Flail from the Linear-b Roman peasantry set.
Woman from the Linear-b Slave Market set, the man from the Roman peasantry set.