Arabian Knights: Camelry Command

With my last minute rush at the end of the year, I managed to render my Arabian Knights army to a playable level, around 1250pts. In my new year's resolutions last year, I had pledged to complete an army at the end of every year from then on. Even though I wouldn't say that this army is entirely finished, I'd still consider that pledge fulfilled, considering all the distractions in my personal life and the turmoil in my country. I'll write about all those "excuses" in another post though.

So, what I have here is yet another batch of camelry. I was lacking command options for the second knight "bus", so I had to make myself some banners. Guys are from Black Tree's Warriors of Islam product line again. Like the previous camelry figures, High Elves bits came very handy here too.

With this batch, the second knight unit is completed. Before moving forward with that project, I have some extremely late birthday gift for Mr.Lee to take care of. It will prove an awesome opportunity to try my new airbrush, a Badger Sotar 20/20, for detail work, yay...

Enjoy...

Arabian Knights: Oasis Knights

The slow-grow league in our club is still going on. The current points level is 1250pts and I've been trying hard to keep up with increased points. This time, I managed to finish five more camel riders.

I used Black Tree's models again, with the bits from Wargames Factory and Games Workshop's High Elves. I must say I've found the High Elf bits to be extremely useful in this project.

In hopes to add a bit of flavor to the standard bearer, I decided to do some freehand on the banner; but I'm afraid the quality of the freehand turned out to be no better than a seven year old's :( But then again, a freehand is a freehand...


More to follow in my Arabian Knights project. Meanwhile, I just hope that GW do not decide to kill the Bretonnian army as some rumors predict.

Too much at stake for Fremen

There's a slow-grow league going in our club nowadays. Starting from 750pts games, the aim of this league is to motivate people to build their armies, with the final games are to be played 2500pts-a-side. I found this league to be the best chance for my Arabian Knights and painted some more Fremen (peasant bowmen) for my still-fledgling army.

The miniatures are from Black Tree's Warriors of Islam line as usual. My compressor has died while I was working on them so I had to revert to my brushes from halfway on. For the defensive stakes, I chopped up some cheap plastic palm tree trunks to get the effect I needed. I would also make a brazier; but I ran out of time :)

After finishing these, I got my hands on some camel riders, in hopes to escalate my army to 1250pts level; but I don't think that it will be possible now unfortunately, oh well...

Enjoy.

Arabian Knights: A Few Good Men, and a Palm

Before I start, I'd like to inform you that the resistance in Turkey, my home country, is in 13th day. If you don't have an idea about what I'm talking about, you can read this article about the protests in Turkey. Please spread the word for support.

Since the protests started, I've rarely been able to go to my workbench. I and my gf are either out on streets or spending our hours on facebook and twitter, trying to convey information to the fellow protesters. Finally yesterday I found some time to spare and right after I finishedwatching the last couple of episodes of Game of Thrones (which drove me crazy), I managed to finish these.

These are Black Tree's Warriors of Islam Camel Cavalry. I tried to find these on their website; but I couldn't find it. Maybe they went OOP since I bought them. There are no conversions on them; but you will notice the palm tree. Ah, the smell of cheap plastics from lands afar... :)

Even though the Arabian Knights project doesn't motivate me as much as I'd like these day, I'm somewhat keen to finish this army to a playable level within this year. Who knows, maybe someday the Bretons might have their army book updated...

Arabian Knights: Fremen

Warhammer Skirmish event in our club is this sunday and I managed to get all my Arabian Knights force painted with these bow dudes.  I plan to field four camel rider guys plus one of these bowmen and that's about it for a 100pts force.

The bowmen are from Black Tree Design's Warriors of Islam line. I have a total of 20 of these guys at home, waiting for me to some paint on them so expect more of those soon. I did all the paint job on the cloth with airbrush with occasional highlights with brush strokes in the end. They look like they are in uniform; but I am going to paint the remaining batches with different color schemes to differentiate one from another. They are lowly peasants after all...

Enjoy...

Arabian Knights: Stubborn Camel

Back again for a quick update for my Arabian Knights army. Due to the local convention and game days, my progress has been rather slow lately; but I managed to put some paint on this one.

This miniature is from Black Tree Design again. Spread over two cavalry bases, I am planning to use it in a unit filler like role.

Not a tenday ago, I found a PDF for a Games Workshop event that will take place in June. It's called Regiments of Renown and defines the rules for 100pts skirmish battles between two opposing forces. We are planning to run that in our club and it is very likely that I will be joining with my Arabian Knights. I just need to paint a single archer to complete my force for that event and that's what I'll paint next... hopefully...

Enjoy.

Arabian Knights: Vulture Knights

Arabian Knights project is up to speed and here I present you the Vulture Knights. Obviously pegasus knight substitutes, these guys were waiting on my desk for forever. Well, the vultures at least. After I posted about the vultures earlier, I got so many comments. Apparently, cactii don't grow in Arabian deserts (go figure...), so I had to remove them from the bases.

So, vulture bases fixed and riders done. The riders are from Black Tree Design again. I believe they are horse rider guys though, not camel riders. there are minor conversions on each of the riders. The musician guy's horn is from some old High Elf set (it was metal), the spear of the yellow dude is a Wargames Foundry pike, and finally, the lance with streamer is a bit from Reaper Miniatures, decorated with a streamer from High Elf plastic kit. I must say I am very glad that i didn't throw my gf's high elf bits. They have proven themselves invaluable until now and I think I can use more  of those bits.

When I was painting the riders, I wanted them to be different then each other but also I tried to achieve brighter colors on them. That's something I am not used to and need to learn. The result is not the best; but I can't say I'm unhappy to be honest. And of course, there is a minor freehand on the streamer again.

I kinda like how the army is coming together. Stay tuned for more and enjoy the photos...

Arabian Knights: Camelry

Project Arabian Knights is going on with four more riders. Since I want each knight to have a distinct look as much as possible, painting these guys seemed to take forever for me; but in the end, I am happy with how they look.

The riders and the camels are from Black Tree Design, where the bulk of my army is from. To my surprise, I found out that the riders have bows and quivers on their back. Of course that's unacceptable for such noble-borns to shoot arrows, so i had to trim the bow and arrows and hide the quivers by gluing shields on their back: Problem solved :) There are minor conversions on a couple of guys: One is the banner and the other is a simple weapon swap. The banner bit is from Reaper, and the weapon was from GW's High Elf spearmen kit. Oh, and the shields were from Mantic's Dwarf sets.

As I wrote in Damsels post, I am fairly comfortable with camels recipe right now. Applying different color schemes on each rider however, prevented me from going chinese on them. Moreover, I painted freehand desings on shields and the banner. Unless I find a better banner, he will be my BSB.

Here are some photos, hope you like them.

Arab Girls Riding

Experiment time... Most probably you have already noticed the kinky title of today's post, right? Last year, my good friend Mr. Lee posted about his dark elf commission work. Funny that 2 days from now it will be exactly one year since it was posted. Anyways, the name of the post was "Naked Girl Kneeling?!?!" and it was a huge success for his blog. As far as I know, it is still the post with the most hits. Makes you rethink about the wargaming community, huh? :) So, I wonder if this dirty road will help my blog gain hits too...

These gals are the wizards of my fledgling Arabian Knights army. Damsels and Prophetesses if you please. Let me first say that, it is very hard to find an Arabian female miniature riding a beast. The only one I could find was from Reaper Miniatures. It was Atifa from Nefsokar product line. This one, I could use with no conversion. The other however, I built it with parts form a couple of models: The lower body was from Jehanna and the upper part was from another sorceress, both from Reaper again. The camels are from Black Tree Design as usual.

The camels were mostly done by airbrush, working my way up from Leather Brown to Yellow Ochre. For the riders, since they are heroes, I wanted them to be easily distinguishable among the unit, so I painted them way brighter than I normally do. And also, I had some Ice Blue paint lying there and I thought, why not...? :)

Ok, I think that's all. I'll keep you updated about how the hits for this post will do from time to time ;) Enjoy...

Arabian Knights: Manjaniq

Project Arabian Knights is still on the table and today it's a manjaniq figure (obviously a trebuchet) what I'm presenting. I was planning to built the trebuchet models from scratch. There were many schematics online on how to build a -working- treb. But when I saw this figure on Round Table of Bretonnia forums, I changed my mind. Albeit considerable bigger than the original (reaching a towering 6" at the highest point), it looked decent enough, had no bret decorations and crew members so it was a good deal for me.

What a nice load of flash!

WRONG! The reason I went on and bought this one was saving time. You know, basic tradeoff between monies and time. Normally, I consider myself to have a knack for finding alternative models for my armies; but this time I botched... big time. The bits I received from the Lazy Forger did not make my life easier. Basically I received a bag of flash and carved my way into the actual bits. To add insult to the injury, some of the bits were cast badly, with many hollow points and cracks...

Oh well, you cannot just order something and don't build and paint it. For the crew guys, I used civilians from Perry Miniatures. Like my chaos dwarf army, I spent considerable amount of time making the bases. For the base, i use cork board over balsa. Using cork on top greatly helped when cutting the spots for the crew members. As always, I laid down magnetic paper inside the crew spots.

Another thing to mention here, this was the first time I used tufts. I must say they are a win. Although they stick to the surface themselves, I didn't want to take my chances and used some superglue in the process. 

I think my next update will be troopers, as I just learned that the package I've been waiting from Black Tree has been cleared from the customs. Yay...?

Arabian Knights: Vultures Update

Recently, I managed to find time to finish all three of the vultures. Their riders are yet to arrive; but with the airbrush, I made short work of them. Actually, making the bases took more time than painting the miniatures, go figure :) As with the mounted musicians, I used a variety of basing materials from tufts to lichen and I think the way I'll do the bases for this army is pretty much decided now.

Enjoy...

Arabian Knights: Mounted Musicians

Today I have some mounted figures for you: Mounted musicians from Perry Miniatures from the Muslims Musicians set. While I still wait for the bulk of my army to arrive from Black Tree Design, I thought I can get them done in the meantime.

First things first: I am more of a Warhammer Fantasy player rather than a wargamer. I expected the scale of these miniatures would be smaller (being true 28mm that is); but man, they are small :) Not complaining though, just wanted to give you a heads up should you consider using Perry's miniatures in any of your projects.

This was my very first purchase from Perry Miniatures and I must say that I am very happy with my decision. The minis look cool and are priced decently, they ship quickly and their -international- postage rates are affordable. What more would you possibly want, right? WRONG! Some of you might remember me ranting about casting quality in my review-ish posts. Quick confession: It turned out that I had no idea what I was talking about before, coz these minis rock! The horse guy is cast in one piece, same for the camel guy, except for the drums. In spite of this fact, they are still very detailed. However, the thing that amazed me most was the strength of the miniatures. While I was cleaning some of the flash, I was fairly certain that I would make the delicate parts snap off, like the scabbards and similar parts. Guess what, I didn't. I think it should be the quality of the material they use. It just didn't break... Awesome! Did I say I like Perry Miniatures...?

Since I've never painted desert themed stuff before, I had to do a considerable amount of paint shopping. I'm going with Vallejo as it's the only paint line I can find locally. My current palette contains many shades of browns, yellows and bone-like colors. I had to do some shopping for the bases too. I found an interesting basing material called Reindeer Moss Lichen. It helped me greatly to respresent dead vegetation on the bases, don't you think? Other than that, i used Vallejo Red Oxid Paste for texture and some green tufts here and there. I also have some yellow straws at home and will be using it on bases too.

Enough rant already. Enjoy the photos. I also included some comparison shots to give you ideas.