Viking Housing Development

Q: Along with the Vikings and their Long Ship, what else do ya need? 
A: A village to plunder and pillage, that's what!

Actual Saxon Village replica somewhere in England.

Inspiration from different sources of Dark Age villages and buildings: Man Cave among others has led me to produce in a relatively short period (four days) five generic cottages as the core of any village setting for our Viking campaign / adventures.


A few weeks back before Mag-Con 3 I called Willy (LTL Dad) Monday morning (as an added goad and incentive to myself) to let him know that I was starting on a 'top secret project' and will be completed by that Saturday of Mag-Con 3.  

Standard foam packing generously donated by Uncle Greasy. I knew that I could use these for something one day (my ethnic roots of being Filipino and part Pack Rat comes in handy). Originally Uncle Greasy had these slated for 15mm buildings but they were perfect for what I had in mind.

Gutted out the interior walls using my trusty soldering iron on the base cottage structure.
Roof done separately as a lift off. Interior was finished off with a layer of paint, water, sand and PVA glue mix to add weight and smooth surface for the minis to stand in. Alas, no interior shot to date. 

Again using scrap foam pieces (pink and blue insulation foam and styrene) as my core structure with applied balsa wood for the molding and doors.

 I used Teddy bear fur as my thatching (thank you, Man Cave!). This particular color would've work just fine in a pinch but since I had a bit more time I knew that it needed some work to achieve the look I wanted. 

And here's my obligatory disclaimer regarding Teddy Bears: 

No Teddy Bears were harmed during the completion of this project, some of them just had to go around naked and cold for awhile.

And of course, what Viking village would be complete without these requisite accouterments: rune stones. Again the inspirational credit goes to Man Cave since I saw these on his post and just HAD to get me own.

Viking Rune Stones from none other than Fenris Games!
Mounting them on some left over Flames of War medium bases, they're ready for priming and painting.
I glued a washer on the bottom of the bases for the added weight.

Churro, here, is shown for scale and the fact that he's a camera hog!

Ditto goes for this APE Grunt. 

Recently completed cottages with my Vikings in their Long Ship in the background. The thatching was sprayed liberally with a dark brown spray paint and left out to dry in the sun. Warning, letting it air dry in room temperature will take forever. After a couple hours of solar conditioning dry brushing came next.

A Dark Age subdivision any chief or thegn would be proud of.

The doors are applied on the surface and are not operable. In my earlier and foolish youth I would've made hinges to make the doors swing but since time was of the essence that idea went out the... window (sorry)!

I'll post an exclusive on my Vikings, I promise. Problem is, they're worse than those danged Goblins in terms of scheduling since they're always gone... ahem... a Viking!

I then took these buildings up to Mag-Con 3 the following day for the unveiling and was used for the first time on Willy's Napoleonic skirmish game. My part of the board was a small hamlet and these cottages worked well.

Along with the buildings and runestones, I added my carpet tiles for the plowed fields along with my scratch built haystacks. Also if you click and zoom in you'll notice a couple of anachronistic items that would've caused havoc in this battle.  

The action continues as Willy's Grenadiers advance! 'Vive l'Empereur!'

I also got to run my own Legere unit from Willy's collection.

Mission accomplished. On to the next...

Another project, Señor!

Ah, sigh... yet another distraction has led me to an altogether different path(ology). The good news: I'm done, finito, abgeschlossen, completado. Just like that, badda bing - badda BOOM! Thankfully, it was a small enough project to complete in a few, short days. 

Not to worry, b/c I'm still diligently working on my Vikings and SPOILER ALERT: my Moria Goblins have been done for sometime but I haven't staged them yet for their photo shoot. You know how they are. It's a real cast iron bitch trying to work with these idiots! I haven't gotten a call back or an email from their agent and they're such prima donnas... But I digress. 

The derailment of my train of thought.

Since the completion of my buddy Willy's paper models of a western town in his blog post titled West World: http://tacticalminiaturesgaming.blogspot.com/2010/09/west-world.html I knew that sooner or later I'd have to paint me some bad ass bandidos to slug it out with an assortment of all comers: ornery critters, varmints and bushwhackers! I mean, come on, anybody who grew up in the 60s definitely had a steady diet of Westerns. Be it the Hollywood or the Spaghetti variety. 

Eli Wallach as the archetypal Mexican bandido and definitely one of my favorites aside from Charles Bronson as an Apache (Chato's Land) or Yaqui (Guns for San Sebastian). But that's another story...

And let's not forget the classic black and whites...
"Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges..."

As a kid growing up in California, circa 1969, I was also bombarded with commercials that further reinforced the stereotype (all in fun, IMHO).

Anyone recall the song? I still do...

With that said, I've always been particular about colorful characters and unit types. Introducing Los Hermanos Volandos (The Flying Brothers). This is what happens when a mariachi band has gone bad(ass). After a few setbacks with bad managers and equally bad bookings the Brothers decided that crime does pay, at least, better than their musical gigs ever did. 

Left to right: Indio, El Jefe (mounted) and two gun wielding Churro.

Left to right: Torpe, Panson and Chile Relleno

Some action shots using Willy's Western Town including his collection of Heroscape Cowboys and acquired Mexicans.

Forgive my lack of focus.
(Yes, there's actually a couple references here that I hope you got.)
I'm preemptively mentioning this b/c Willy already whined to me about it.
Willy's boys are in the background (heehee).

Is this better, huh, Willy?!!

Willy's 25mm Mexicans and Cowboys from an unknown manufacture (at least to me).

Here's the Heroscape Cowboys that are pretty cool for pre-painted plastic and are completely compatible to 28mm. Re-basing optional but recommended.

Eventually, I need to find and paint up a Chinese Tong (I've already checked TMP and haven't been satisfied with the results). Please, please, please, let me know if you have any suggestions.

Then, I recently made a *GASP!* discovery thru my never-ending, serendipitous surfing thru the web. The Apache band (not musical!) I'm hankering for is made by Black Scorpion and looks great. It's now added to my Wish List. Coming soon... 

Testing the Waters... More fun with my Long Ship

While i feverishly work on my Vikings, here's a few test shots of my Long Ship.

I realized that colored sand made a good water simulation for photo purposes. I also have to berm the sand up to cover the sides of my pan. 

Adding some white for the white caps helps. A valuable technique I got from Uncle Greasy.

Don't forget the backdrop to complete the illusion.

My badass Bandidos from Black Scorpion taking her out for a spin...