Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant, secundus...

Bigfig gladiators continue to hold my magpie attention. Here are a couple more of the 54mm Pegasus gladiators which I painted up yesterday. I should have paid a bit more attention to what was in the background when photographing!

Myrmillo

Thraex

(unusual in that he has a large oval shield--I can hear the purists howling!)

fini.

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant...

Not a great deal to say about these. I felt inspired by the '100 Ancients' post over at the Lead Adventure forum and figured I'd break out the brushes. This figure is (these figures are?) included in the Pegasus 3202 set.  These are soft plastic, 1/32 scale figures. I must admit that I like the Pegasus figures much better than the more expensive Italieri.

the sky is as gray as iron today...

Which made me think that I should charge up the camera battery and snap some pictures of ironclads. In the 1980s I devoured everything I could find about American Civil War ironclads and started scratch building my own 1/600 scale models. I even tracked down and purchased my own set of the Official Records, Series 1 and Series 2.

buccaneer bonanza...

The inventory continues...up next: buccaneers and colonial militia. I have two full shelves of books regarding pirates and buccaneers. For a few years it was my favorite period yet I never really gamed it. I picked up some odds and ends over the years but it wasn't until another gaming buddy really got into pirates that I ever bothered to paint any. But I have to confess, my motivation was not the figures themselves. My motivation was to scratch build a 25mm pirate ship. I did, used it and the figures in one game and eventually trashed the ship in a previous move. Been carrying around the figures ever since.

old west, old figures...

I'm on a bit of a photography jag. Mostly inspired by getting all my gaming stuff out of storage after a year. Partly because I'm in a 'documentation mode'. I've been creating databases and spreadsheets to track my toys and books and photographing them seems like a logical next step. And it brings about another opportunity for a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

elephantine memories...

I first became interested in historical miniature gaming in the mid 1970s. However, the first time figures became readily available to me was in 1980 or 1981 when I took a part-time job at Light Brigade Hobbies in Concord, California. I believe that is when and where I acquired these six 25mm elephants. I've been carrying them around ever since.

Over the years they've been sorely neglected. I don't recall ever using any of them in a game and only one bears anything close to a finished paint job.They do, however, show something of the progression of my painting experience. At least up to a point. As I've been inventorying my collection of figures I found these and instantly felt an impulse to repaint and rebase them. Just seems like the right thing to do. Consider these the 'before' pictures.

Hinchcliffe Successor Elephant
circa 1978

I'm sure this elephant was manufactured by Hinchcliffe. In fact, Jeff Jonas has a wonderful picture of this model on his web site.Mine is painted with old Testor's enamal paints telling me that this was one of the very first figures I painted. In fact, I recall using the same deep blue on a 1/48 scale Aurora Albatros C-III model which I built in the mid-1970s.

Mea Familia Gladiatoria - 25mm

Another year, another move, another part of the country. And while the new apartment has fewer square feet, more of those feet are dedicated to closet space so all my toys and books have come home to roost. It's a good feeling. Over the past month I've been unpacking, inventorying, and assessing damage. In the big scheme of things the damage is minimal. I lost no books to Hurricane Sandy--and it was a very real possibility as our storage unit was barely 200 feet from the sea coast. Two moves by...  'professionals' resulted in just a few broken swords, detached shields and debased figures. Of course, I haven't unpacked everything yet so there's still a chance to discover a disaster, but the prognosis is good.

I tried, I really tried, to get into "Spartacus" series on cable TV. I watched the first four episodes and decided it was not worth the effort--especially after watching the original Kirk Douglas movie. Nevertheless, it reawakened my interest and then a number of posts on the 'Lead Adventurers Forum' motivated me to dig out my small scale figures.So, without further ado, here are my 25mm gladiators. Now to see what it takes to tweak my rules for solo play.