Future Plans

I've mentioned a few things of late, so just an update on my future plans.

I've moved out of my York workshop now and I'm going to spend a few months clearing some model work out of the way and then making some for sale, so as to fund my art work and move down to London.

Its taken me a lifetime thus far to focus in on what the hell I should be doing with myself creatively, so its great to have finally done so.

I'm going to produce big and giant sized sculptures which will have large buildings and matching large and small figures all mixed in together.

These could have a historical theme such as Ancient Rome and Greece, or political and social, so as to tap into current trends. This means I can use my model making skills and also have the creative flexibility to position and blend in very large figure busts and smaller wargames figs etc amongst the buildings and structures.

As to why there is a picture of a large Spanish Naps city with Bill Gaskin and the Perries standing over it, well I'm going to make several more of this type of city, one for Chris Sinclair and 1 or 2 for sale by around mid August. The one shown was made for Bill Gaskin.

Many thanks for all the encouragement to get well and will keep this blog going with a few posts of models including the new Spanish cities. 

Castle Keep

Stand alone large 28mm Castle keep, suitable for historical and fantasy.

Its made from styrofoam and the etching in of the stone work takes an age to do and its then covered with a wall plaster wash, so its a nice sturdy model. I've made one for Steve Lum and Nigel Finch.

Terrain Layout for Sale

This is the last layout I will be making for a good long while and I just have to add the grass scatter and do some light dry brushing over the exposed earth areas I've left without grass.

The missing section is to have a river curving around one part of it and a ford across it, along with a sunken lane up from the river.

Sorry the pic is a little naff as its late evening when I took it, but it will look much like the Dacian War layout seen in a previous post and all the others.

The six - 4ft x 2ft sections can be changed around in a good number of ways as the roads meet in the middle on all of them.

You can have a 12ft x 4ft,  6ft x 4ft, 8ft x 4ft and if you leave out one section so as to be able to reach across all the table, you could game on it as seen above laid out as 12ft x 6ft

As you can see see there is a ridge on two of the sections, some ploughed fields and a hill. The other flatter areas all have a slight raised area on them so that all the sections have a little character.

All the sections are light to carry and all the edges are protected by wood, so their virtually wargame proof.

Price - £495. - email - Artblagg@aol.com

Sudan Style Anglo British forts

Although in the heading it says Sudan style, they could be used for a whole host of periods, including down Mexico way and WW1 & WW2 in Africa and the Middle East.

I had a few of these, but they have all now gone, with each having a large gateway, firing steps over the walls and a number of buildings where figs can be positioned above. Everything was made separatly so you can use them in a number of variations.

Dacian Layout - Outstanding Models 8

The above is a 6ft x 3ft Dacian layout for Steven Pepa.

Now if you don't know your Dacian & Roman history you might be forgiven for thinking the Walls are Roman and the wicker fencing is the Dacian fortifications.

Well its the other way around, as those Dacian fellows were canny operators. After Dacia, which is in modern Romania had wiped out a whole Roman legion in around 80 AD and Rome had then failed to successfully suppress them, a peace treaty was agreed which favoured Dacia.

Part of that agreement was that Dacia would benefit from Roman engineering skills and they then started to build walls, roads, piped water etc in some of their larger towns and as Trajan's column shows, they also acquired some military equipment such as ballista.

Also having a lot of Roman prisoners from the war must also increased their awareness of how to build in stone and Roman tactics.

This knowledge was used to fortify 6 major sites centred in and around their capital. with the remaining towns and villages looking much like any other tribal ones at this time.

If you take a look at Trajan's Column in Rome which the emperor Trajan had built, you can see carved in stone all around it, a blow by blow account of his later successful conquest of Dacia, and which shows Roman style stone walled Dacian towns.

look on the Internet for their capital Sarmisegetusa and you will see that it was a major religious site and was then later fortified prior to Trajan's invasion, with some impressive looking stone fortifications, internal stone roads and clay piped running water.

The Romans besieged the town and successfully stormed it and then true to form, they promptly levelled it, although as you will see from pictures, its remains are still quite substantial and you can see a lot of stone work associated with the numerous temples and its defences.

As for the layout, its made with a little gaming in mind, rather than an exact replica of Sarmisegetusa. Behind the Roman siege works will be a large Roman camp, with tents and waggons etc, overlooked by the tree lined mountain.

The actual town had several stone towers and a mix of approx - 10ft wide x 15ft high walls and wooden palisade and so I've kept to this mix and also added a tower over the gateway, over what was quite a small entrance into the actual town.

As you can see the two tower tops need finishing, or to be more precise changing, as I started them with a slight overhang, but was not happy with the look of them. When made they will match those seen on Trajan's column.

The defencive walling was only built in two sections on the flat approaches to the town and no doubt wooden palisades were used on the higher parts as I've shown, with the steeper mountain sides not requiring any protection.

Inside the town will be some houses and livestock pens etc, which along with the Roman camp and a few hundred figs, should make the whole layout come alive.

The layout has gone to have a display cabinet built around it, but I'm hooking up with it again in August when I'll take some more pics of it once I've added all the odds and ends mentioned above.

Getting Back in Touch

Just to let everyone know that I'm now back out of hospital last week and many thanks for the support and well wishes of those that knew about my situation.

I'm moving down to London in July, so between now and then I'm clearing all outstanding model work and I'm now back in contact with the handful of people who I'm still making models for.

I'll be posting pics of the above models and layouts over the next week or so, as well as a few models for sale.

If you need to get in touch, please use the artblagg@aol.com email and all emails will be answered promptly.

All the best.

Paul