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Tuesday, 14 November 2023

Scratch built 3mm Greek (ish) temple and more for Old John.

 I have been looking about for something suitable for a DBA camp for my 3mm Greeks but found nothing in the scale so decided to build my own temple! It is less than 20mm tall, based around two old dice with then built up with cut down MDF and card. It occupied much of Sunday and involved a fair bit of cursing, superglued fingers and crawling about on the carpet for bits of cut down cocktail sticks that went flying, at one point the entire structure was stuck to fingers and had to be very carefully prized off to avoid damaging it and having to write off several hours work :( Having managed to glue tiny columns to the front and rear of the structure I cold tell something was not right! It looked too Roman and required columns on all four sides. My wife told me not to do it, it looked fine she said but no, it needed more columns. I took a break played around filing and cutting more cocktail sticks and then carefully added them along both sides using tweezers. Everything then got a thin coat of tile  grout before painting.

OK, it's not perfect, but after the time spent it was going on the base and that was that. The hope was that some Hoplites gathered around it would help to draw the eye and with the addition of a few Cyprus trees called it a day. Here it is in all it's glory and it is now magnetised and sitting in it's box alongside the Greek army.






As said previously I'm now slowing down on the commission painting front but still painting for Old John, Mark, Graham and JohnR plus Geoff's 2mm tiddlers! These are more 1/72nd scale Streltsi and 20mm MInarion figures for Old John, the latter being Bourbon Infantry attired in rather fetching Purple coats and breeches with red cuffs and stockings.

Back to 60 more mounted Indian warriors next for Mark, being the November batch. There remains a lot more in the box for John including another 17 (I think) metal Winged Hussars and John tells me that he already has 176 of them painted in his collection!









12 comments:

  1. I admire your perseverance with the Greek temple which looks just the part. It reminds me of the days before glasses when I made an ACW 6mm signal tower out of cut down sewing pins!!!

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    1. Thanks Ian. It's been a while since we have seen your 6mm ACW's in action? They were great.

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  2. “There’s nowt wrong wi’ that temple, lad” - as we say in Yorkshire.
    It was a smart move to have the 6’s on the dice. Hopefully they will bring good luck to your Greeks.
    Those Streltsi look a fearsome bunch. Well done 👏👏
    Cheers,
    Geoff

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    1. Thanks Geoff, and I realised I had missed you off my list of regulars!

      I am now looking at how best to represent a camp for my Indians, been looking at Hindu temples etc but my history of the period is somewhat lacking. 4th Century BC Alexander invades India and is met by the forces of King Porus..... that's about it and I need to learn a lot more.

      Cheers,

      Lee.

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    2. No help Lee, but the “old” DBA Fanaticus site had a page with lots and lots of images of people’s DBA camps. Sadly the old Fanaticus site has now gone… 😉

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    3. Cheers Geoff. I have found lots of temple images, they look a bit difficult to replicate but I may give it a shot! Also found a nice 15mm classical Indian camp based a round a small 'charm' that looks very effective too.

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  3. The temple looks great as do all the other figures. Lovin those purple coats.

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  4. Temple is bang on and what a great opportunity to get purple onto figures, they look splendid.

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    1. Cheers Norm, Trust Old John to find a unit that wore Purple!

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  5. Lads in purple are Bourbon Spanish, from a Spanish firm, Miniarion Miniatures, they do a very nice small range of WSS figures, can supply flags too as well as free painting guides, the Strelsi figures are Strelets bonus figures from various sets, there are 94 poses in total and i'm only short of about 6/8 poses of them, got a load more to be done in future , Lee you have been warned!!
    cheers Old John

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  6. Today, the BBC announced that a museum, the North Hertfordshire Museum, officially renamed the Roman Emperor Elagabalus as using the pronouns she/her/hers. She is one of the earliest people to be named as a transgender woman by a museum. You can read more by blogging www.emilysvirtualrocket.blogspot.com. Thank you very much. -- Emily Shorette

    ReplyDelete

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