SAGA - almost over

Today I completed the painting of my 4 point Viking warband. These are terrific figures to paint and I enjoyed them tremendously. As I have mentioned in an earlier post I did use the Little Big Man Transfers for some of the shields but others I hand painted using an article in Wargame Illustrated as my guide.

A couple of more hours to complete the basing and these guys are ready to storm the beaches of my fair England. Watch out Harald!

As always I would appreciate your comments, critique.

Berserker Hearthguard

Love the Wolfskins

The Boss leading the way

The Hearthguard

Continuing SAGA

Only a short post today. I have been continuing to paint my 4 Point Viking War band for the new SAGA game. Pictures below are of the first 6 completed Vikings. the group includes one naked berserker, the Chief with hand painted shield plus a couple of vikings with shield transfers from Little Big man Studios.

These are proving to be a delight to paint. The sculpting is straightforward so no major challenges. I have stuck with a limited color palette using colors I think were available to these guys at the time.

I tried a different paint combo for the spear and axe shafts than I normally do. I went with a Brown Sand base (Vallejo) and used Bestial Brown (GW) highlights to hint at the wood grain. I think I like this more than my usual Scorched Brown/Bestial brown combo.

Clearing the decks part one

Building model plastic construction kits was something I got in to at a very early age, probably like most people. I started out building the Series One Airfix kits in little bags that my dad bought me at the weekends. As I got into my teens I built larger projects (Saturn V Rocket springs to mind) until I discovered other more interesting things to do with my free time.

Fast forward to recent times. The quality of kits available has improved enormously, my skills are a little better now and with the masses of available resources from model making masters out there it is easier to make a real eye catching model to be proud of.

So when I received an Airfix 1/48 scale Sea Vixen kit for Christmas from my very bright sister I had to change my approach to my hobby time.

I usually have two or three projects on the go at any one time and for the past couple of years they have all been miniatures or in a couple of cases some model specifically for the miniatures. But this Sea Vixen will demand a great deal of attention if I am to do the kit justice.

As most people will know the Sea Vixen from Airfix is a part of that companies resurgence. Having been saved  from the scrap heap the company is now reinvigorated as a significant model making company again. Just like the 1/24 scale Mosquito (which I have waiting in the closet) this is a completely new model of an intriguing subject. The quality of the kit is up there with the best of them.

In order to give this kit the attention it deserves I finished up all my projects, totally cleared off my work area, cleaned all the surfaces, repositioned the lights and only brought back in to the work area those tools I know I will need for the project.

The first item to be finished off was two DBA armies I had been working on. After having watched the movie Centurion I determined to fight some Pict versus Roman battles of my own. I bought my miniatures from Essex Miniatures and painted them up using the Osprey Reference Warrior 50 and pictures of similar models I found on the internet.

The Romans benefited from some shield transfers from Little Big Men Studios but I still need a few more so I have some transfers in the mail from Veni Vidi Vici to complete the auxilliaries.

Roman Generals view of the field

Cataphracts

The Legion arriving

Pict army waiting to pounce

The Picts

Pictish hardmen

Roman Legion

The General

Ballista

Not to be messed with.