Glue, New Elephants and some nice painting

We have been getting questions as to what glue we use to stick the metals together, it seems that pewter is not that superglue friendly. Adam found that the really cheap thin stuff from the likes of the pound shops works as well as it did on the lead alloy, others found that UHU or Bostok was the way to go. I found the howdahs a real problem before resorting to Adam’s thin cheap stuff, Adam also recommended using Bluetack to hold the howdah side together as the glue dried.

The new Resin Elephants are now in the store, I mention this as we want to let you know we will be adding unit deals for 2 elephants and crews once the crew sets have been remade. They will include the new astride crews and have a small saving over the packs prices.

We get sent photographs of painted figures from time to time but I think this is the first link to a youtube video

I really like them and the horses are some of the best I have seen to date. Thank you Frazier Ketteringham for sharing with us.

I have also been trying out the resin beasts to see how they take paint and washes. This is just Halfords grey primer, washed with Agrax Earthshade then dry brushed with a light beige followed by another quick wash. The small ridge on the upper blanket is the glue from a howdah I had fitted to check fit etc. Might use this for an astride crew. Old on the left new on the right.

Elephants now in Resin

We had been toying with getting the elephants cast in resin for years and finally late last year we did it. Adam re-modelled the 4 bodies and the 6 heads from the Hellenistic section(body 1+2 will go into the Sassanid range) and off they went to Rob at Hysterical Miniatures. We now have them in stock. Adam has adapted 3 howdahs to fit them and has started on new crew sets which will include astride sets(more on that as we progress). So what have we on offer, well it is a bit different in that we listed the bodies and heads separately, you pick a body then a head and then a howdah if that is the way you want to go, they are all priced a bit lower that the metal originals. The howdah tusks and tails will be cast in pewter. The assembly is easy, take the body super glue the head in place, drill the holes for tusks and tail and paint. The ones I have done needed no filler at all and very little in the way of clean up.

Now sporting more skin detail, thinner legs and an ability to use as astride mounts, we are very pleased with how this worked out and will be moving the Africans and the Sassanid King’s elephant to resin asap.

 

We will also add some unit deals with 2 elephants and crews once we have the figures completed. All this has taken time so the list of releases will be pushed back a bit, this needed to be done now so we had no choice. Byzantines will arrive.

Painted Samnite Unit

Samnite Cavalry Unit Deal UD65

We were approached by Ross Broadstock of FigurePainting.co.uk with an offer to paint up some figures for us. We sent him a unit (UD65) of Samnite Cavalry. They returned to us in the agreed stage of unbased and without shields. Steve at LBMS they created transfers for them and Adam completed the unit with some blending in to match the rest of our painted figures. I think you will all agree that Ross and Adam did a great job on them.

New elephants nearing the store

Late last year we decided to move our elephants to resin and contacted Rob to tackle the project. Adam then decided to take the opportunity to update his original sculpts. We also added the option of using them all without howdahs, this will require new astride crew sets which will be added as soon as we receive the initial castings. We are posting this to allow customers the choice of getting the original metals now or putting off buying until the new ones are ready, only fair we think. It will be 6-8 weeks until they are all ready to list in the shop.

So what elephants are we working on this time, ELH001-ELH006 and all the heads that go with them. We intend to list the bodies(now in one piece) and the heads separately so you can build the elephants as you would like. No doubt Adam will refresh the crews as well.

What does this mean for our other projects, well to be fair to all waiting on the start of the Byzantines, it will add some time on to the start date. Rest assured that we want to start as soon as possible but we are committed to adding the seleucid infantry and cavalry listed on our to do list.

I will post the photos of the resin beasts asap( in other words as soon as I get my hands on them)

Price increase, November 2016

We have been moving to Pewter over the last few months but from now on all figures will be in pewter. We needed some time to adjust things here and to lower the stock in Lead/Tin alloy. Now we need to raise the prices to take the price of the more expensive alloy into account.

 

We hope that you all understand, it was a case must do not want to.

Cheers

Keith and Adam

Mark Ottley’s Macedonians

Mark posted his army on TMP and has allowed us to share it here.

 

“All infantry are plastic Victrix figures from their Ancient Macedonian and Ancient Greek range. All mounted including elephants are metal Aventine Miniatures from their Pyrrhic range, with the exception of the horse archers which are Warlord. Both Victrix and Aventine are great figures, lovely to put together and paint. Transfers are Little Big Men Studios range, from Victrix. Lances and spears on the metal figures are wire pikes cut to size, from Aventine/Warlord. “