SIR BRUTUS BUCK'S REGIMENT

After the excitement of castle building, it's back to churning out 54mm ECW figures for the Lansdown campaign. Here we have the splendidly named  Cornish royalist regiment, Sir Brutus Buck's.

All A Call to Arms figures except the officer. I'm not sure what make he is, but he looks very much like the seargeant on the cover of the Airfix English Civil War book.

LAST BRICK LAID

The castle is pretty much finished,  it just needs labeling as specified in the homework,  to show all the different forms of defence. The boy added the finishing touches of paintwork yesterday

Hopefully the history teacher will approve. Now I can get back to painting soldiers....yipeee!!

ONE DAY SON, ALL THIS WILL BE YOURS

Another evenings work has produced this result. We have coated the entire model so far in a wash of Polyfilla/PVA/Brown paint to seal as may gaps as possible and create a stony texture.

Some cart tracks added to the wet coating

When this was dry we add straight PVA to the areas that will be grassy, and then poured sand on which will be painted to look like grass (I wanted to use flock, but the patron of the castle preferred the idea of painted sand)

The Polyfilla mix has dried quite pale (it looks almost white in this picture but is in fact darker)

 The drawbridges were then added using balsa and brass chain

Ready for painting now!

On a different note, does anybody know how to delete blogs of one's reading list on the blogger dashboard. There are a couple among the many I follow that I would like to ditch for one reason or another and I'm not sure how......any advice would be most welcome.

MORE BRICKS AND MORTAR

Another evenings work on the castle, we have added the square Norman keep, the rest of the curtain walls and made up the barbican defences. Doors have been added to the towers and trapdoors to the roofs. 

(Oldhammer regiments in the background gathering dust)

Sir Prancelot examines the barbican.

The approach slope, exposed to arrow fire from the battlements.

"Prithee, thys gateway is a trifle small for my scale, but no matter"

A BRIEF FLURRY OF CASTLE BUILDING

Painting has been put on hold at Atticus Towers as the oldest son and heir came home from school last week with homework.......a mission to build castle. I can remember my Dad helping me build a Motte and Bailey but my lad had grander ideas.

Here we are after 2 evenings work

Loosely based on Goodrich castle which we visited last year. A bewildered early Roman demonstrates scale on the battlements.

Some of these tubes have been in my bits box for a decade or more....I knew it was worth squirelling them away.

So the basic 2 tier mound has been cut using the trusty hot wire cutter, along with the barbican and approach slope. The spec was to build a castle that demonstrated different forms of defence, so we have a partial curtain wall, barbican and dry moat so far. The keep and remainder of the walls will be added tomorrow. Jolly good fun, and nice there is a time limit so we are not being too fussy about detail and accuracy. Afterwards, assuming we get it back from the clutches of the history master, it can be used with 15mm or 1/72 figures.

BREAD IS THE STAFF OF LIFE.....

and what is the life of the staff? One long loaf.

A couple more sundry staff officers, this time definitely Parliamentarians. Perhaps the chap on the left is John Hayne, Waller's Commissary General, while the chap on the right bears an uncanny resemblance to Noll Cromwell, but will probably be an random officer for my Lansdown project.

Both figures by Replicants

STAFF OFFICER (SWEDISH KING?)

Another officer, could be used as either Parliamentarian or Royalist as I have given him a blue sash. I think this is a figure from George Kearton's range of personalities sculpted by Vince Mattocks. I posted a picture of one here (the officer figure) and Brian Carrick of Collecting Toy Soldiers kindly commented and told me what the make was. What do you think about this fellow Brian? It's from the same ebay batch as the last fellow and I suspect it's meant to be Gustavus Adolphus.