Saturday 19 March 2011

Quattor Ballistae Magnae

Here are the rump of my Roman artillery pieces; 4 large scorpions (all pictures are clickable).

The first 2 are my favourites, 20mm scale Zvezda plastics with BTD and Foundry crew.

The bases are coffee stirrers of varied thicknesses, stuck onto thin metal plates, scribed with lines, painted and magnabased.  My concept with the planking is that I can use them in towers, or in siege fortifications.  The yellow shield is the design I've picked for my second legion.


The second pair (below) are from Black Tree Design; rather simpler, but serviceable.

I like their loaders with the long bolts (below).


I have got quite a lot more Ballistae of various sizes (mostly smaller), but I want to press on with my legion command figures, and paint a few Napoleonics.

14 comments:

PaintPig said...

Quite fine looking artillery I must say, from the looks of the last two posts your out to mean business. I particularly like the scorpions very nice models, and paint and base job to match

PP

Paul´s Bods said...

grand looking artillery. I like the idea of using the wooden basing in case they will be used in forts or towers.
Cheers
paul

Ray Rousell said...

Very nice. I totally agree with pp & paul's bod's. You've done a great job.

BigRedBat said...

Thanks chaps, I love the way that coffee stirrers are so... free.

Matt said...

Lovely looking figures Simon. Very good indeed!!

How did you do the brown for (a) the ballistae, and (b) for the bases. It's a great wood colour that really sets the right tone for the models.

Cheers

Matt

BigRedBat said...

Hi Matt, they were dead easy. Everything got sprayed sand. I highlighted the weapons in a lighter sand, then painted with armypainter strong tone.

I thickly painted the bases with strongtone and then successively highlighted with vallejo browns, and finally lightly drybrushed with buff titanium. Then I did the brass and hit with several coats of Testors matt.

I had hoped to end up with a much lighter, freshly cut wood colour, but failed.

What really took up the time on this project was converting the crew and assembly.

Cheers, Simon

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Super!

Cheers
Christopher

BigRedBat said...

Thanks Christopher!

Herrodadog said...

awesome! always have a soft spot for dem romans!!!

legatus hedlius said...

Hmm, definitely need some more artillery! Love these!

Grégory Privat said...

UK is really the holy country of Wargaming where you get free coffee stirrers everywhere !

Poor us only have the ugly plastic ones... I guess that s why I come to Salute every years... taht and seeing you and yours)

Whatever, they 're nice, as usual.

BigRedBat said...

Thanks, Legatus

Looking forward to seeing you and friends, Greg! Remind me to give you coffee stirrers, I have lots.

Paul O'G said...

Excellent stuff, very inspiring for my own Dark Ages projects.

And congrats on 200 followers - I was delighted to be "Mr 200"!

Secundus said...

These look lovely, I love all the little details.