Wooden Flats - Part 2

In the previous post I shared with you my discovery of wooden flats from Russia.  Now we can look at cavalry and artillery as well as further evolution of the designs to include outlining.

These lancers are quite nicely animated.  However, the targeted scale of 45mm to the eyes was overshot as the calculation for the cavalry didn't take into account that a charging rider wouldn't be standing straight in the saddle.  The figures are closer to 1/35 and wouldn't look out of place in a 54mm army.  So I just test painted a figure as the 17th Lancers.

As with the French infantry, the figures are blanks and thus also where and how to paint the details is up to the painter.  In this case I chose to rotate the rider's torso somewhat.

For the next order, I asked Yevgeny if he could add plumes to the lancers for a bit more of a Napoleonic look. He obliged by not only doing that but adding outlines to the figures as well as posing them differently.  And we downsized everything to 42mm in order to match up better with the Nowikoff home casts.

  

The rider has been reduced in size but to my eyes the horse came out a bit elongated. Or perhaps it's the shabraque, or both ?   Regardless, it's still a vigorously posed and pleasing figure.  The outlines definitely simplified the painting (or would have had I not chosen the gaudy Red Lancers) although how much or little detail to give the horse is still up to the painter.

And lastly, Russian styled artillery for the Kingdom of Novgorod.

I quite like the design of this cannon as the three part assembly of gun barrel and wheels adds a surprisingly good illusion of depth relative to a completely flat gun.

Hope you enjoyed viewing these.  The painting has been challenging but quite rewarding.

War of the Spanish Imaginations - 45mm Wooden Flats

No doubt some of you are familiar with Wooden Wars toy soldiers made by the very talented Thomas Foss. as seen on his blog Skull and Crown.  Lots of good reading about them, but suffice it to say they're larger scale and beautifully done Napoleonic flat toy soldiers used to introduce children to wargaming.  And no doubt bowling them over is fun for adults too.. 

When Thomas unveiled a WSS era figure as a part of 54mm commision project, and showed a "45mm" figure alongside it, he really got my attention.  Particulary since I have the 45mm Schmittdiel flat infantry in frontal poses, so possibilities for actually getting some use out of them in conjunction with the wood figures came to mind. I contacted him about it, resulting in what you see here.

Please bear in mind that these are still prototypes, and the figure on the left below is the only good one.  The other three are rejects from the laser tuning process which Thomas sent along as practice figures.  That's why they look rather blurry because indeed they are, and the laser scribed detail is rather deeper than on the good one.  But it does serve to give a small preview of how they'll look in formations.

 

 

The bayonet scabbard is also something I painted on, if it's not good that's on the painter and not the designer.

I'll delve into some of the challenges involved with scaling these down from the kid's toy soldier size in a subsequent post, and as Thomas and I work through continued development.  Besides pushing the laser process at the lower limits, another issue is this:  although they're "flat", they are also multi-part figures glued together in layers. So what works quite well visually at 54-60mm doesn't necessarily work as well at 45mm when the thickness remains the same and the ratio of height:width:thickness now altered.

More to follow. I also got reinforcements for the Toy Town soldiers, and am still working on those.

March of the Wooden Soldiers

I've always liked the appearance of the Playmobil figures and have seen some truly amazing armies and displays people have assembled with these. But wow, the cost must be staggering.  I wondered how it would turn out if I tried my hand a making some figures of my own in roughly that style and scale.

Here's the first attempt:

The head and upper body is made from gaming pawns which are some type of wood composite.  The bottom of the coat is an "angel" pawn cut in half, all the rest save for the tricorne and pigtail are various wood bits. I made the brim of the tricorne by cutting a circle of cardstock.  Here is the first figure as painted.

And this is as far as I got with the project:

I'm satisfied with the toy soldier look but the way I have built them is quite labor intensive.  After the novelty of building the first few, the construction becomes a rather laborious means to the end to arrive at the fun part, the painting. If I could buy figures like this "as is" or simplify the construction somehow, I can see painting some nice formations of them.  And of course, if no suitable toy horses could be obtained, making the cavalry would present a whole new set of challenges.

Still, haven't entirely given up on the idea yet and it could be something to do during my retirement years - that is if I ever make it to retirement, it feels like a constantly receding mirage at this point.