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.
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14 comments:

  1. PaintPig19 March 2011 at 15:17

    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

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  2. Paul´s Bods19 March 2011 at 15:29

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

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  3. Ray Rousell19 March 2011 at 16:08

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

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  4. BigRedBat19 March 2011 at 16:34

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

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  5. Matt19 March 2011 at 20:02

    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

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  6. BigRedBat19 March 2011 at 20:18

    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

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  7. Christopher(aka Axebreaker)20 March 2011 at 20:52

    Super!

    Cheers
    Christopher

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  8. BigRedBat20 March 2011 at 21:53

    Thanks Christopher!

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  9. Herrodadog21 March 2011 at 17:52

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

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  10. legatus hedlius22 March 2011 at 09:19

    Hmm, definitely need some more artillery! Love these!

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  11. Grégory Privat22 March 2011 at 17:56

    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.

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  12. BigRedBat22 March 2011 at 18:17

    Thanks, Legatus

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

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  13. Paul O'G22 March 2011 at 19:57

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

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

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  14. Secundus23 March 2011 at 00:46

    These look lovely, I love all the little details.

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Thanks for commenting. I will post this as soon as I am able to review it.