Roman catapult crew (WIP) ....

Dug out my stock of Timpo Toyway romans and selected some suitable ones for the crew. Made a appropriate alterations - removed shields, altered head positions and changed a couple of the standing figures arms. The crouching legionary, has had a new torso fitted and some green stuff work. Officer unchanged ...

Gallic warrior conversion ....

I picked up a modern farmer figure with some animals of varying sizes in a local charity shop; the farmer has ben converted to a gaul holding a spear....

with this conversion done, I'm almost at the bottom of my 54mm bits box.

Roman auxiliaries wading - WIP

Made up a couple of trial figures for some wading roman auxiliaries (used up all my spare bits for them). One leaning forward and the other off balance ....

I'll do a bit of green stuff work on them and then see how they paint up.

gallic cavalry additions - WIP

finished the intial conversion work for some extra gallic cavalry; only enough bits and horses for four figures...

need to tidy up some of the green stuff bits ....

Something to tinker with ...

A sort of the remainder of spares box yielded some spare horse and riders, plus a few shields. Enough to make up four more cavalry figures for the Gauls.

I had to hack two riders about a bit to fit on two spare Italeri Fabbri horses, the other should be a simple assembly and detail job.

Need to make good and fill in with green stuff etc ....

Roman Auxiliary Cavalry

An ala of roman auxiliary cavalry has arrived to re-inforce the garrison of Botulinum; they are being reviewed by the garrison commander ...

last bit of work on the roman auxiliary cavalry ...

been working on the roman cavalry - finally got all the green stuff done and the horse furniture finished -

two more roman auxiliary cavalry conversions

finished the last two roman auxiliary cavalry conversions, a bit of an assembly job with bits from many sources (Hat horses, Toyway torsos....)

quite a bit of green stuff work to do on these and then work through the rest of the unit ...

final tweak to the auxiliaries (WIP)

the Italeri Roamns that I am using for my new auxiliary unit have had their heads replaced with some later style helmets (mix of Call-To-Arms and Toyway Heroic ones)

in addition I altered the signifier so that the standard is held on a piece of wire (the plastic being a bit weak) - now they can join the paint queue.

The roman auxiliary cavalry awaits 2 more horses to be obtained and to add the riders before I get them ready for painting.

Roman cavalry - basic conversions done...

The aim was to get the spears, heads and shields better for the figures I had originally made up and to add to these to increase the size of the unit.  I used the best candidate figures from the Italeri plastic cavalry and added 4 more to make the unit up to 10 in total; shields are from the the Italeri roman infantry and the new heads from Timpo Toyway romans

will now have to fix and fill .....out with the green stuff ...

Roman cavalry - collecting bits together ....

decided to sort out the roman cavalry - bought a couple of boxes of plastic roman cavalry. All the bits available out for investigation and decisions on best conversion/modification methods.

one possibility is to sculpt and cast a rider - with only 12 or so figures not a runner; I like to get 30+ figs out of a mould to make it worthwhile in terms of cost and effort

Roman Pack Horses - WIP

I had a couple of Timpo Toyway legionaries left over and while tidying up I found a couple of horses - two more pack horses were made up from these

horse harness made from strips of '3 layered' insulation tape; some spare plastic pilums form part of the load. A little work left to do, then they can be painted

Legionary drummers - WIP - added the drums

The drums are on, made from green stuff around a framework of:  plastic 1/72 bits with a top made from a 28mm viking shield.

Legionary Musicians - WIP

converting some Italeri romans to provide musicians - Cornicians, signifier heads with wolfskin added with green stuff...

and drummers( with Timpo Toyway heads), waiting for their drums ...

Working on Ballistas ...

Modifying a couple of PlayMobil ballistas. 

The PlayMobil ballista 'out of the box'

This is too tall for use with 54mm figures, so I cut it down by 1cm, by taking out a section near the base. Looking good with my existing ballista crew figures

 Also added a bolt ready to be fired using part of a wire spear ..

Making use of a box of Romans ... figure conversions ....

 My easter holiday modelling project, making use of a box of 42 Timpo Toyway Heroic figures I bought of Ebay for £21.

 after removing them from the plastic wrappers, 4 sets of 10 poses plus a couple of extras.

 The aim is to use them for conversions, small additions to units, maybe a camp vignette and maybe to make some casualty markers. The green bases will be used for small scenic items.

The first lot of conversions, a box of Italeri gallic warriors and 10 Timpo Toyway bodies and some other spare parts to provide a commander's retinue and six skirmishers....

 Another conversion, a standing roman officer with cloak made up based on the Timpo Toyway centurion (on left) ...

To cope with the extra gauls, some more legionaries with simple conversions to top-up my 1st Cohort - 4 with my home made pilums, 4 with grounded shield changed to holding shield and a new sword arm.

 

An enjoyable weekends modelling. So far I've used up 20 of the figures in the box I bought; now on to the painting queue they go ......

Mounted legionaries - WIP

Working on a small number of legionary cavalry, shown below are two with the main assembly completed using Timpo Toyway Heroic top halves, Call to Arms bottom halves sitting on HAT horses. They are waiting for swords and shields - the horses still need a bit more work - reins etc

The auxiliary archers are nearly finished and the new auxiliary cohort is ready for painting as well. I'm painting some more civilians as well.

A cornucopia of delights ....

Managed to pick up a job lot of mixed Atlantic 1/32 figures off Ebay; it includes most of a Romans/Christians set, most of an Egyptian chariot set , and some oddments from other sets (Trojans, Egyptian and Roman Infantry).

I've also bought a box of Italeri Gauls as well so I've enough to keep me busy; Oh yes I've got to paint the roman legionaries too !

Roman Auxiliaries - WIP

This time Toyway Heroic roman legionaries in chain mail with oval shields get the treatment; they form the bulk of a new Auxiliary cohort with a aquilifer made from a BMC one with Call-to-Arms legs and face

the front rank have Call-to-Arms roman legionary sword arms as the original swords were all bendy; the rear rank altered to be holding spears; some work to do yet - some spear points would be handy - out with green stuff to finish off ...

Auxiliary Archers- work in progress

I spotted something useable for my romans some time back - Timpo (Toyway) Heroics Roman Foot Soldiers

the pack contains 10 different poses, which includes one archer reaching for an arrow. I managed to obtain a couple of lots of these (unpackaged) from Ebay, they are a bit bigger than 1/32. From these purchases I only had three archers, so I converted three soldiers holding swords in left hands to archers, and did conversions to make two firing. The arms are from some medieval archers,  bows made from florist's wire...

The little unit of archers - work left to with some green stuff...then onto painting...