'First Look' Carthaginian pics!

[Bertie]

On the issue of the archers, they were few and far between. But who can say if small bands were not recruited during the course of the war. Anyway they will make an excellent generic addition to the skirmish forces for many nations.
I must admit that the figure with the spear pointing aloft is not one that would grace my battle line. Perhaps a few for a generals bodyguard? But again the other two figures are spot on.

I have to second this opinion. They don't look much like the Carthaginians one would expect from historical and archaeological sources, and my reaction was also that there was a dark ages feel to several.

I am interested as to what you think they should look like. Being influenced by the Greeks a cuirasse seems fair either Bronze or linen same goes with pteryges. Regarding the helmet, a conical or perhpas one with a small crest seems to be most common? The greaveswell the Romans could only afford one for the leading leg, Carthaginians?? Lenght of spear, who really knows. Bertie.

[Techno]

Just to show I'm not just working on Projects 'X' & 'Y'....A wip piccy of something to aid the Carthaginians.....Some tweaks to do yet.....Ears, (too triangular) legs, (finish them off) put the rider on etc etc....But not too far from finishing.





Cheers - Phil

[nikharwood]

That's a funky pachyderm Phil 

[Techno]

Dammit...It's meant to be an elephant 
Thanks Nik.

Cheers - Phil.

[O Dinas Powys]

Just to show I'm not just working on Projects 'X' & 'Y'....A wip piccy of something to aid the Carthaginians.....Some tweaks to do yet.....Ears, (too triangular) legs, (finish them off) put the rider on etc etc....But not too far from finishing.





Cheers - Phil

Very nice - can you do some without blankets/howdahs and then I can buy them to chase with cavemen! 

Yup, ears are very definitely wrong    Need to be at least four times bigger! (Sorry, it's the biologist in me  )

[Techno]

Hi Meirion.

Plan just at the moment is to finish this one off with just a rider and a chap on the back with a spear....Then do some conversions.....Including one with a howdah and crew...another with just a rider......And possibly one that's completely 'plain'.

Could ask that nice Mr Leon if maybe I can make one into a mammoth too  .....But the tusks would be an absolute swine to get out of the mould at this scale, unless they're done as separate pieces.

Cheers - Phil.

[O Dinas Powys]

Hi Meirion.

Plan just at the moment is to finish this one off with just a rider and a chap on the back with a spear....Then do some conversions.....Including one with a howdah and crew...another with just a rider......And possibly one that's completely 'plain'.

Could ask that nice Mr Leon if maybe I can make one into a mammoth too  .....But the tusks would be an absolute swine to get out of the mould at this scale, unless they're done as separate pieces.

Cheers - Phil.

Hi Phil,

Yeah, I can see the tusks could be a pain, although the existing mammoths come with separate ones. 

I'd be happy with a naked elephant - plenty of non-hirsute proboscideans (no longer) out there.  Inter-glacial megafauna hunting is almost as much fun as the wooly variety!   

Cheers,

Meirion

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nice one!

[Techno]

Thanks Lemmy !

The finished article will be betterer (sic)......(Look... look...points mouse at desk like Basil Faulty with the phone when talking to Sybil.)

Cheers - Phil

[Dunnadd]

Really like the elephant - it's meant to be an African forest elephant for Carthaginians so it doesn't matter that it looks different from African Bush elephants and Indian elephants, because it's meant to look different from them.

I don't think the figures look Dark Age at all - their style of dress and equipment is clearly ancient, though i agree with some of the posters that they could be made to look a bit more like a mixture of North Africans and Phoenicians (maybe e.g by putting their beards and hair in ringlets and giving some scale corselets - though hair in ringlets would be tricky work on 10mm)

Painting them with bright coloured fringes or patterns on their tunics and using transfers for their shields plus some designs painted on standards should make them look Carthaginian though.

The Numidian archer standing and firing is my favourite - very nice figure.

My only complaint is that the spears look a bit thick for the size of the figures - i think they'd look better if they were a bit thinner - though obviously if they're made too thin they'll bend, which is less than ideal.

Old Glory solve the problem by using very thin 10mm steel spears that are separate from the figure and glued into it's hand and that works pretty well, though obviously increases the price a bit.

[Leon]

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.  We're hoping to get these all moulded up and sorted for a release in either Jan or Feb, along with the Repub Riomans.

My only complaint is that the spears look a bit thick for the size of the figures - i think they'd look better if they were a bit thinner - though obviously if they're made too thin they'll bend, which is less than ideal.

The spears have to be oversized on the master figures, as the moulding process thins them down.  Too thin on the master, and it won't cast properly by the time it gets to the production mould.  They'll look a lot more proportional by the time they're released.

[O Dinas Powys]

Really like the elephant - it's meant to be an African forest elephant for Carthaginians so it doesn't matter that it looks different from African Bush elephants and Indian elephants, because it's meant to look different from them.

Well, not really.  Since they're regarded as being Loxodonta africana pharaoensis, so a sub-species of the bush elephant Loxodonta africana and given that the Congolese forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis doesn't differ that much in appearance from the bush elephant I think there's a definite blueprint there to work from.

Anyway, I'm sure Phil will do a great job and as long as it has bigger ears than the current version I'm sure the morphologically OCD biologists among us will be happy   

[Techno]

Ooer !

Now I am getting a bit confused !

From the 'tomes' I've been consulting I was under the impression that the elephants used were the now extinct (?) 'forest' elephants and then more commonly the Indian Elephant.. The Indian elephant was the one that I was using as a basis for the model....
If I've got this bit right.....Hannibal rode the last surviving elephant "that may be identified as the Indian elephant Cato called Surus"

I'll post a piccy up later !.....It's almost finished now. ('Fraid the ears are only a tiny bit bigger tho' Meirion.)

Cheers - Phil

[Dunnadd]

On elephants -

I'm not an expert on this but from googling according to the wiki entry for North African forest elephants it's not certain whether the North African Forest elephant was a sub-species of African bush elephant or a separate species.

It was thought until recently that other surviving varieties of African forest elephants in Africa were just sub-species  of Bush elephantsbut recently they found out they're a separate species - their scientific name is Loxodonta cyclotis - though they do look pretty like a smaller version of a Bush elephant.

The differences are that "Forest elephants have straighter tusks and more rounded ears than African savannah elephants. They have five toes on the forefeet and four toes on the hindfeet, as Asian elephants do."

The forest elephants apparently also vary far more genetically than Bush elephants, but another article says there's hybridisation between the two, which would support them being just sub-species (i thought that if two animals could interbreed and have children that could have children themselves that made them the same species and not a different species?).

I think there's a theory that Hannibal might have been given some elephants by one of the successors, but whether it's true and what species they'd be if he was, i'm not sure.

There are also people who claim that African Bush/Savanna elephants could have been used by the Carthaginians as some have been domesticated/trained today - don't know if there's any ancient evidence from written sources or coins to back that up though.
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On spears - ah right - thanks for the info Leon - glad to hear it

[Techno]

Her we are then.



For ease of casting, I'm only going to give the chap on the back a spear/javelin......Nothing over long, or it would be a complete swine for Dave and Leon to cast and/or get out of the mould.
I haven't even tried for toes/toenails at this scale....They'd look too big however fine a skin of putty I put on.

Going back a tad....I think one of the reasons some of the infantry look a bit 'dark ages; is that I tried to give them a very fine putty beard, and those have come out a little bit on the hirsute side..A bit 'Vikingy' perhaps...Perhaps I should have left that off...A fine beard could always be portrayed with just paint perhaps ?
Believe it or not....I did try and give some pf them 'ringlets too....Be interesting to see how those come out in the metals.

I'm keeping right out of the elephant species discussion 

As I've said before....Hopefully at least a couple of conversions to do on this piece once it's finished off.

Spears ?....Think Leon's answered that....My own 'two - pees' worth is that I'd much prefer to use .5mm brass rod rather than the .75(ish)mm that's really necessary for models of this size....Looks much more aesthetically pleasing, as well as 'nearer the mark'.
In another life, I've even made separate 'add ons' using the finer rod.....Didn't really work sadly.....and a lot of people found them too fiddly to attach to the models.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess !

Cheers - Phil.