Long Spears, Lances and Flagpoles

In the smaller scales I play I often want to replace the long spear, lance or flagpole. At that scale the metal can be too thin and can easily bend and eventually break when bent once to often.

Flag Staffs replaced

I recently bought some Dark age Arabs from Pendraken and wanted to have a standard bearer in the heavy cavalry. I also wanted my own flag rather than the supplied one for the foot. 

Not because there was anything wrong with it, I just wanted a bigger banner and will use both in my units as shown. I'd imagined small regimental flags and large National/Army Flags rippling in the wind above them.

Heavy Cavalry with spears replaced with Flag Staffs

Flagstaff created by replacing the spear

So I carefully cut away the provided flag, try to brace the pole so it won't bend or indeed break. Cut away and file down. As you can see I don't always win but have a back up plan. 

Pendraken sell the perfect wire. Just remember to use a larger bit in this case I used a 0.8mm drill bit. I find the 0.1mm difference is essential as you'll never push the rod through

The rod can be cut to length and has a degree of flexibility, enough to bend it if you're not careful..

I then user a Superglue 'gel' on the end of the rod, push it through to rest the base of the spear/pole on the ground or foot of rider. If done swiftly it will pass through and leave glue in the fist.
On occasion the fist breaks looking like pincers instead of a hole through the fist, in that case I just rest the rod, glue and paint as if being held.

Pro tip, get quality bits and replace as soon as you feel it's becoming a struggle.

I also did this with my Polish Hussars the lance in Pendraken's P1 model and they sell the 2 winged Hussar with no lance just a fist, you can tuck the lance behind the fist or try like I did to drill through the fist and more times than not it work, as you can see the hand was damaged in this example, but it won't mater when painted. Option a was a shorter length, but I think with Winged Hussars size does matter. 

In the image below the Winged Hussars lance is 30mm long and rests on the boot. I defy any white metal lance to remain as straight and true as these.

Jungle ruins and buildings for the Lizardmen army.

Having produced the Lizard army I felt I needed some jungle terrain for them, so I bought some buildings from Rok Minis who kindly reduced the 28mm scale to 10mm for me. This company also produces 10mm armies I have the painted and based Lizard Men Army and some Ratmen waiting for the painting brush.

The buildings I purchased are shown here, the bottom left corner looks so much like Amon Hen it got diverted to the LoTR project.

I sprayed them all with army builder Fur Brown and then resprayed with Desert Yellow I felt the yellow needed to be sprayed on to brown to get the shade I wanted.

Agrax Earthshade was liberally applied to get the shading in the crevices and then dry brushed with VJ Desert Yellow, as I still wasn't happy I used GW contrast Skeleton Horde, then another heavy drybrush of VJ Desert yellow. 

Then a nice solid dry brush of Bleached bone (yup I have some old paint), Iraqi Sand is the same.

Picked out some areas and glyphs to paint red or green and job done. Easy if we ignore my usual agonising over colours etc.

The yellow bits here were painted with elven grey and then Bad Moon Yellow Contrast.

Some of the scenery was trees, I didn't spray them desert yellow. instead I covered the trees with Cygor Brown contrast, slightly reduced with technical  medium and a degree of patting with tissue to remove excess and a wet brush to move the colour around until I was happy. Various brown dry brushing to get the desired effect, steel legion drab & a little XV-88.

The ruins with the trees I gave an initial base paint of Desert Yellow to the stone then treated them as i did the buildings.

All the ruins, with trees or the bits of wall were all given an extra brush of Iraqi Sand in order to fade the colour.

All trees need a canopy right?

Before final light green scatter

The Canopy was rubberised horsehair, teased out to the shape I wanted, saying that is a lot easier than doing it.
It was my first attempt, I'd bought the stuff years ago but was never at a point where I had to use it.

Having fixed it to the top of the tree I wrapped the rest of the tree in masking tape.
[With hindsight really make sure they are secure, you won't see the fixings once the flock is on.]

I then sprayed the canopy brown.
Sprayed it with an adhesive, don't forget to spray the underneath.
Covered it in dark green foliage, cover top and underneath, [might use a large clump next time]

When dry another adhesive spray and a less complete scattering of a lighter green, to achieve two tones.
When that was dry I sealed it all with cheap hairspray.

After light green scatter

Now I thought I was done and removed the masking tape and based them up, but they didn't look right.

Apparently sunlight is different at the top of a tree and the leaves are lighter, the photosynthesis differs.
So after the hairspray while it was still wet I sprinkled a conventional sawdust scatter at the very top.
- it also hit the grass, but it all adds to it.

More hairspray a little scatter where appropriate and Yes more hairspray. The hairspray is a cheap less solid finish than varnish and dries a little quicker before you apply the next coat.

I've got into the habit of basing my scenery on 100mm hexes, I buy these from Kalistra I buy the brown unflocked ones. I put plastic filler on top paint them 88-XV and dry brush with Iraqi Sand before fixing the buildings & then flocking with an applicator.

My finished results.

From the front

From the rear

Side view 1

Side view 2

A couple of closeups