Minifigs - 18th Century

 Here's a few of the 18th Century "Lego" minifigs which I've done.  I put Lego in quotation marks because a true Lego Pirate range Imperial faction soldier for the period looks like this:

A tricorne, stock torso with lapels & crossbelts, add a musket or sword and call it a day.  My approach is different.  And a lot more time consuming, I must admit.  In fact, the prep work takes darned near as long as the paint job. The figures start with these materials:

To my eyes, a stock Lego minifig comes up lacking in 18th Century style.  The bulky coats and cuffs of the early 1700's are more the look that I wanted.  The cones are used to create the cuffs.  Drilled these out with a Dremel tool and bisected.  The Indiana Jones messenger pouch when cut down works quite nicely for the cartridge box.  Waist belt front and back is styrene.  From the waist down the coat is made of cardstock.

The stock Lego musket is toylike but scales out better than the more realistic BrickWarriors or BrickArms replicas. Also, the curve of the stock allows it be grasped by a minifig's inflexible hands.  Added a bayonet, cut the sword length down and re-attached to the hilt.  There you have it.

And several as completed, above and below.

Having run short of the messenger pouches, I used the downtime to create an officer.  Lego has a lot of women's hair accessories, this curly one makes a serviceable periwig. For the rank & file, I used ponytail parts combined with green stuff.

Coming soon, flats !

Going Medieval

Here's more Lego minifigs I've worked on of late.  The Middle Ages is one of the best periods for these with plenty of equipment, stock Lego minifigs and affordable Chinese clones, and of course castle sets for the builders.  

I'm still working on this and that, the longer term idea is two warring armies, one high Middle Ages and the other Renaissance.  Naturally firearms and artillery say advantage Renaissance but a wizard or two helping out the knights should balance things nicely.

Unless otherwise indicated, these are my own painted MOC's.  First up, some archers.  The initial impulse was to go with BrickWarrior longbows but the stock Lego bows (frowning figure in the green tunic) are about as good and a lot cheaper.  Spotting with a Sharpie pen for the chainmail look was tedious but worth it.

And some traditional knights at the top and below, sporting Brickwarriors arms and bascinets. I modded the horse with some barding.  Doing things like this probably doesn't endear me to Lego purists but where's the fun in just buying stock figures ?   Well, to each his own.  One nod to tradition here is the yellow skin although my preference is for "fleshies" which I use for everything else.  

Moving on to the Renaissance guys, here's a hand painted officer, reviewing the Imperial crossbowmen at the bottom. The crossbow figures are a good example of the stock minifigs, in this case the Chinese Enlighten brand.   The small buckler held by the formation leader is from BrickWarriors.

And a man at arms. He also sports BrickWarriors arms and armor. I was shooting for the look of the knights in the Triumph of Maximilian engravings.  I'm not sure adding the legs was worth the effort but he did turn out fairly well I think.

I've also completed some 18th Century figures, photographed and ready to post but saving for the next one.  And I'm cleaning up some unfinished business with the flats as well, more about that before long.

Confessions of a Lego Convert

I have to open this very belated post with an admission, I've neglected this blog most shamefully.  No doubt readers (if there are any left) have written Castles of Tin off as just another blog abandoned without a clue why, consigned to the dustbin of the internet.

Suffice to say that I'm still alive and kicking but went through months of a deep funk where I couldn't summon the motivation to work on any of my numerous half baked projects.  Yes, I dabbled with this and that but accomplished little worthy of actually putting together a blog post.  I also dropped out of the blogosphere - a tactical error in denying myself the inspirational effect of viewing other's work.

Personally I've been doing well enough.  Although an unwelcome occurrence this year was the onset of a slight tremor in my left hand.  I had it checked out, the neurologist said it didn't herald the onset of some degenerative disease like Parkinson's and for that I'm grateful.  That said, it's impacted the painting a bit.  Although I'm right handed, holding the object in my left hand can make for a shaky target.  It seems to wax and wane, perhaps I don't have the precision of old but I can still paint !

Oddly, what got me back on track was the gift of a Lego Speed Champions kit from my stepson.  The car is an Audi Prototype racer, in truth not a great replica (not to mention to mention the P1 cars are Batmobile ugly these days anyway).  But I did readily see the appeal of Lego.  That is something American kids growing up in the 50's missed out on. We had to make do with Lincoln Logs or Erector Sets.

 Naturally, I got interested in the military side of things.  Lego themselves are a peaceable sort of toy company, but plenty of others have stepped in to fill the void. And I discovered a whole new world of Lego military groups on Flickr.  Certainly a most vibrant community although you're inclined to encounter a few of the same sort of button-counting pendants who frequent wargaming forums, in this case laughably critiquing toy figurines for small inaccuracies in their kit.

A pink baby awaits the whims of his master

Yes, your basic minifig has the proportions of a toddler, a cartoon face, stud holes in the back of his legs and arms totally unsuited for wielding a rifle in any realistic manner.  What they do have is (aside from a few outlier companies like Cobi and Sluban) a shared common scale and design, thus the multitude of available weapons and accoutrements fit any figure.  Genius !

Capped only by the size of your budget, you can build an army from ancient times up to the modern era.  At present, there's a lot of gaps in what you can get off the shelf, but the Ancient, Medieval, World Wars and Modern eras are well enough represented. Particularly the modern era, perhaps in part due to the popularity of Call of Duty/Battlefield online video games with young people these days.  As you can see below, I've taken a stab at a few different things.  And unlike many collectors, I do really enjoy painting the figures.

At present, the modern era is really where it's at with these things.  And particularly so given the relatively cheap and plentiful figures and armor kits on Aliexpress and elsewhere on the web. You can buy sets of modern infantry with all their accessories for around $1 per soldier.  Turning back the clock to something like Ancient Rome is going to be costlier as once you purchase separate armor, shields and weapons, a single figure will run ~ $5.

My overall objective here is to build up some squads with a few vehicles per side for some toy figure gaming.  My project is a variant on Green vs. Tan, with the Aquilonians (almost NATO) vs. the Hyrkanian Empire (almost Russian).  Let's look at a few of the Hyrkanians, I've done so far. First up is the basic conversion, out of the box guy on the right, my own version on the left.

Here's the first squad, posed with the Winner anti-tank vehicle, pretty much a BRDM and the T-90 tank.

Now for some Aquilonians, Sluban APC and tank in the background:

Painted  the vehicle, a Lego sacrilege of the first order !

I haven't picked the rule set yet, but I have a number which could fill the bill.  Little Cold Wars may well work as well, although these figures look a bit more contemporary.

To sum up, it feels good to revive the blog at long last, and a Happy New Year to all !