The Flying Carpet

 Introduction

Not so long ago, I showed my Saracen force for SAGA.  In that article, I added a few extra elements suitable for fantasy games (a sorcerer, a djinn and a roc).  However, no Arabian-style medieval fantasy army would be complete without a flying carpet.  At the time, I didn't have such a model - but I do now and here it is!

The Flying Carpet

After realising that I had made this grave omission, I looked around for suitable models of a flying carpet.

There are quite a few such miniatures around, but most were not much to my taste.  At one end of the spectrum, many such models are much too highly animated & detailed for me, whilst at the other end are some very "decadent" pieces with lounging slave girls and the like.  They look more like an exotic picnic, rather than an adventure in progress!

In the end I chose a middle-of-the-road model from Midlam Miniatures.  It's a fairly old-school figure, but it works for me.

As cast, the carpet did have mounting points for the rider, but I felt this was too far to the back of the "vehicle".  I filled these and drilled new holes towards the centre of gravity.  I also added a sturdy piece of brass rod as a "flying" support, rather than trying to use a transparent plastic post.  The weight of a metal model would have made any plastic into a weak point, I think.

The carpet itself is an image found on the internet..  I did distort it a little bit to fit the shape of the metal model, but my skills in this area are fairly rudimentary.

Once I was reasonably happy with the shape of the image, I printed it onto paper, trimmed it and glued it to the metal model.  Fortunately the metal has only a few gentle undulations in it (no complex curves or folds!) and it wasn't hard to ensure that the paper followed these contours.

Once the paper insert was dry, I painted the fringes of the carpet in a complimentary colour.  The figure was also straightforward to paint; he's a fairly regular 28mm man.  Mind you, I did have a little difficulty in figuring out his clothing; he wears a lot of different layers; some are trimmed with fur and others are not.

Conclusion

I'm happy with this model.  It's a little crude in detail, but paints up nicely into a very colourful and exotic piece.  And of course there's nothing to stop me from adding further flying carpets to my collection in the future, should I choose!

More Painting...

Introduction

It's been a long time since I put up a post listing recently-painted models.  Here's some that I completed in the last month or so.

The Models

Who doesn't need a skull gateway in their terrain collection?  This one has been in my "undercoated and waiting for paint" pile for many years - but now it's done!  It's part of Scotia Grendel's "Boat of the River Styx" set

Another shot of the gateway.  I'm experimenting with a backdrop; here's the piece with a printout of a picture found by searching the internet for "gates of hell".

Next up: a monocycle from 1st Corps.  The kit comes with a Vickers K gun (light machine gun); I decided not to use that as I didn't want my monowheel to look like a military experiment.

Another view of the monowheel.  I'm sure I'll find a use for it in some 1920's pulp game...

This is the warlord for my SAGA Saracens.  As you can see, he's not especially militant, though I'm sure he'll fight just as well as any other warlord in the game when pressed!
The mounted figure is from Perry Miniatures, whilst the bodyguard/parasol holder/standard bearer is from Eureka Miniatures.

I'm mildly concerned about the weight of the parasol (it's a metal piece!) putting stress on the composition.  Still, I used a steel wire to hold it up - so everything ought to be fairly robust.

Last summer, I took a bunch of plastic sprues on holiday and assembled all of them.  These are the last of that batch to be painted: some Gripping Beast Arab heavy cavalry, intended for my SAGA Saracens.  I'm a bit annoyed that I positioned the shield arm so awkwardly on the front model.

I've had flushes of enthusiasm for SAGA: Age of Magic for some time now.  The simplest way (for me) to create an AoM warband is to add some extra elements to an existing, historical army.  Here's a magician who can be used with my Saracens... 

A back view; I've named this figure "Jafar".  It seemed appropriate...
.  The model is "Araves Sorcerer B" from Shieldwolf Miniatures, though the basing is entirely mine.

Here's something a bit bigger - that's a 50mm base and the model is perhaps 3 times the height of a 28mm man!  This is Talos, from Crooked Dice.  Although sold officially as the masterpiece creation of a (modern) mad scientist, I intend to use him/it for anything from ancient Greek myth through to Lost Civilisation pulp (and perhaps even for 1970s spy-fi as well?). 

Another shot of the big boy.  Is that a mainframe computer with lots of blinking lights in his abdomen?  Perhaps he can be "hacked" or switched off?  Or do you have to use the traditional method of defeating him - by unscrewing a plug in his ankle?

I'd originally intended to finish my witch ducking stool in time for last Halloween's game, but I didn't manage.  At least it will be ready for next Halloween, right?  Model is from Colonel Bills.

Here's a very simple objective marker: a couple of pizza boxes on a base.  The boxes are free printables for a 1/4 scale dollhouse.  They're slightly fiddly to build at this scale, but not too bad if you are used to card modelling.
So, who comes to mind first: turtles, or Shaggy & Scooby?

A while back, I mentioned that our regular group of Pulp Alley players were upgrading their experienced leagues with more skills and/or figures.  Here's a rifleman for Al Masudi's Snake Cult.

Finally, my local club (Helensburgh Alternative Hobby Association, HAHA) is running a SAGA escalation league over the first few months of this year.  I've decided to build a Skraeling force - it's something I've wanted to do for a long time and this is as good a time to get started as any.  Here's the Skraeling war chief from Footsore Miniatures...

I like to give names to my SAGA figures.  In this case it's virtually impossible to find authentic names for Thule culture "indians" (and I suspect that much modern knowledge of their clothing, equipment, warpaint and behaviour is inferred - or made up - as well).
I've chosen instead to give my models "Algonquin" native names.  These are mostly made up by modern Americans as well, but at least such names are widely available; they will suffice for my purposes.  I'm still wondering whether it's OK to call one of my figures "Hiawatha"...

Conclusion

This may seem like a lot of output but before you despair remember this: these models are from at least 1 month of painting (possibly 2 or more, my memory is hazy).  Also, that time period covered a long Christmas/New Year break and many long, dark winter nights when other activities weren't very appealing.  Besides, I've so much more to paint; I'd better crack on with it!