Fairy-tale: 'The Seven Ravens' (Semi flats)

These are so called 'Semi Flats' (thicker than flats, 'halbrund'), made by Heinrichsen. The original forms from 1899 were used. The engravings are not as fine as for most of the Flats, but the figures are more robust. Like most of the Heinrichsen products from this period they were meant to be children's toys (they were sold painted). They are somewhat larger than typical flats (about 40mm compared to the typical 28mm - 30mm size).

I tried out new paints for this project - Turner Acryl Gouache. The paint behaves like Acryl paint (it does use acryl resin) and is fast drying, but like Gouache it is very opaque. Shading and highlighting with this colour is a bit more difficult, but in my opinion a somewhat coarser style works well with these figures. Most of the Turner Acryl Gouache Colours are quite bright, which again works well in this case. There are also quite a few paints called 'Japonesque' in the product line (supposedly representing ancient Japanese paints) - the pigment for these paints is coarser, but there are some very interesting shades in the 'Japonesque' line-up. The paint dries flat (like gouache), but I used satin varnish to give the figures a more toy-like shine.

The figures illustrate 'The Seven Ravens', a fairy tale written collected by the Brothers Grimm. An 'enhanced' version may have been used, or only some forms survived and then scenes from two fairy tales were combined for one package. For example the picture above clearly shows a scene from another fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm ('The Six Swans'). [Brueder Grimm: Kinder- und Hausmaerchen, 1819 edition, re-print (and possibly some editing, not sure) by Artemis & Winkler 1993].

As can be seen above (look at the woman's face), some of the castings have minor imperfections. probably long use wore out some molds, or they were slightly damaged during the passing of the years.

The final scene - again probably from 'The Six Swans'. Despite the gruesome scene the story actually ends well - the heroine had to keep silent for six years, and these are up now, so she can speak and defend herself (and her brothers, the six swans, are redeemed - they become human again).


Will I use Turner Acryl gouache again - yes, if I need a very opaque yellow or similar. For a whole project? Depends, I prefer delayed-drying Acryls (I use Golden Open) when shading and Vallejo or similar for '3D' figures (I like the more muted colours they provide), but if I again paint flats or semi-flats that require little shading, I will probably use them.

Berber Command

These are 18mm Legio Heroica. The flags are from Little Big Men Studios. The sheet includes shield decals, but these don't fit on the shields due to the protruding center. Painting is mainly Golden Open Acrylic, Vallejo Primer, and some Foundry paint. The wash was done with thinned Sepia, Golden Highflow Acrylics.

These 'Berbers' are really meant to be Sudanese Infantry for the Muslim Armies of the Crusades (see http://www.legio-heroica.com/Musulmani-en.html), but I think they are a good fit for the Berber mercenaries widely employed by the Caliphate in Spain.

A School for Bunnies

The engraver of these flats used a German children's book as a template, called 'Die Haeschenschule'. the book was written and drawn in 1924, was very popular and is still in print. I assume that the engravings are from the 50's or 60's, but could not find relevant information. the figures are sold by Berliner Zinnfiguren. The figures are considered to be '40mm' (whatever that means in this context), and were painted with Golden Open acrylics.

Berber Bowmen, 18 mmm (Legio Heroica)

Ok, these are actually Sudanese archers for a Fatimid Army (from Legio Heroica's 'Holy Land - The Muslim Armies' range) - http://www.legio-heroica.com/Musulmani-en.html. the figures are a bit chunky, but well sculpted and quite pleasant to paint. They will be a part of my Andalusian army (a very slowly progressing project - the idea is to create an army as it could have been used between 800 and 1000 by the Califate). I am not sure how the Berber mercenaries in these armies looked like (my sneaky suspicion is that they were dressed like the locals in tunic and trousers), but in my imagination the Berber mercenaries roughly looked like these figures.

British Infantry, AWI, (Fife & Drum, 28mm)

 

I finally managed to paint a few British Infantry. The figures are from Fife & Drum (http://fifedrumminis.blogspot.ca/), very clean castings, easy to paint, and seem to be sturdy enough to withstand some knocks. The figures are nicely sculpted, only the muskets seem a bit too large (but sturdy - and I prefer large and sturdy to 'in scale but breaks / bends easily'). These figures are in campaign uniform, but definitely at the beginning of the campaign (no torn trousers or similar).

The range is reasonably complete, but of limited scope and variation, although it is slowly getting expanded. service was very good. By the way, strictly speaking the range is 1/56, or 30mm high, but as far as I know the figures can be mixed with other 'slender' 28mm, for example Perry (but don't take my word for it - I didn't do a comparison).

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but I don't have a good set-up for taking photographs right now.

 

Armed and Unarmed Civilians

Just finished some armed and unarmed civilians, all from Minden Miniatures, 28mm. Quite nice figures, I just have some problems with the photos, the colours don't come out very well. I guess I'll have to improve my set-up, but currently have little time and space for it.

In the Old West

The Old West (or, in this context, better Wild West, German: Wilder Westen) played and to a certain extent still plays an important role in the German imagination - and one important source for this imagination were the novels of Karl May (1842 - 1912), which until around 1970 were widely read, especially by boys (according to Google Karl May is still considered one of the most widely read German authors). His most popular figures - the noble apache Chief Winnetou and the German traveler-hero Old Shatterhand, are still well known names and during the summer you can find more than one open air theatre show about them.

Of course his heroes were also re-created as flat tin figures. The forms for the figures below were created by Heinrichsen in 1906 and for copyright reasons the figures were (and still are) sold as 'Im Wilden Westen'. Unfortunately the satin varnish reflects the light a bit too much (and my photo-setup is not the greatest anyway).

Old Shatterhand and Winnetou meet