Robin Hood - Nottingham Castle

I apologise for the bad quality of the pictures and the lack of a proper background, but I only got to open this package late at night and couldn't resist putting it together with a couple figures for a few quick shots to judge the scale.

The model is the currently unavailable Barzso Nottingham Castle. It is a huge beast made out of lightweight hardfoam for 1/32 figures. While technically speaking underscale, the height of the doors is tall enough for the King and Country 1/30 (or closer to 1/28) figures, so it works well (and you're not likely to find a bigger castle with this kind of detail anywhere.

The castle is only about 90% assembled here, I haven't attached the chains for the working draw bridge and the piece of foam at the bottom right should go inside the castle gates as a floorpiece. Shown here with the mounted Sir Guy, the Sheriff of Nottingham and a man-at-arms for scale.

I'm still debating whether it worth it to repaint it at some point for an even better look. Not sure at this stage as it seems rather daunting to redo such a big model, so perhaps I will just pick out some details like doors and tiled roofs and leave the brickwork alone. I would like to build a base with a moat around it though, to do full justice to the drawbridge and interior. I have a roll of textured wallpaper that should work well for the inner courtyard.

Robin Hood - Richard & The Crusaders - It Starts

With the majority of the Merry Men being armed with bows and most of the Sheriff's men being armed with handweapons and shields, I wondered what could be done to make the forces more balanced. Then I remembered the end of the Adventures of Robin Hood movie, when Richard returns in disguise with a few fellow crusaders.

As King & Country already has an extensive Crusaders range (as wella s a few variants of King Richard), I would add a third faction, that could be combined with the Merry Men. I will aim to collect only the models with matching livery, to maintain a semblance of uniformity. This is the first of those. The fact that it incorporates green is a nice bonus as a tie-in with the Merry Men.

Look at the size of my pointy stick, it's huge!

 As usual, loads of character and lovely detail from K&C:

I thought when I got home, the fighting would be over...

Robin Hood - The Jousting Tournament

While Robin's main intrest is the archery competition, it wouldn't be a proper tournament without a bout of jousting. So here we have the yellow and blue knight doing what knights do on these occasions. These were a bit of an impulse buy, as the set was on clear-out due to the models being retired. But they can be made to fit into this project without too much forcing and they are oh-so-lovely.

The Sheriff and Sir Guy watch the tournament with an appreciative eye...

You could poke out someone's eye with that thing!

Some close-ups of the knights and their gorgeous heraldry. First the yellow knight:

Followed by the blue knight, look at that barding:

The jousting barrier isn't bad either. Six different shields adorn the sides:

Robin Hood - Tournament Trap Figures Overview

In this post I will try to keep a complete list of the figures in the Tournament Trap scenario for the Robin Hood setting. It will be updated with new pictures as and when I add to the collection.

1. Robin Hood in Disguise

Source: King and Country

 2. Archery contest participants

Source: Del Prado (conversion and repaint)

3. Jousting knights

Source: King and Country

Source: King and Country

Robin Hood - Medieval Scenery and Accessories Overview

In this post I will gather in one place the different scenery elements, accessories and wild and domestic animals that are spread out over the blog.

1. Sherwood Forest Wildlife

The (other) fox of Sherwood:

Source: Lemax (repaint)

The King's deer:

Source: Lemax (repaint)

Source: Lemax (repaint)

 The Kings rabbits:

Source: Lemax (repaint)

 Squirrel life:

Source: Lemax (repaint)

 2. Tournament Accessories

The jousting barrier:

Source: King and Country

Robin Hood - Woodland Animals (part 2)

I had a few more woodland animals to finish from those Lemax sets I showed earlier. A set of wild rabbits for the Merry Men to hunt and a couple squirrels (which I suppose could also go in a forest stew at a pinch). Nothing too exciting, but a nice bit of background scenery to add to a board or setup. These aren't my best paintjobs by far, but then they were pretty rough casts and not very inspiring to work on. I think they look the part though.

The rabbit stew, au naturel:

Did you hear something?

Err... what's up, Doc?

 And the squirrels. They may be slightly big for the scale, practically the size of the rabbits, but I'm sure it will work out fine.

Aww... nuts!

My God, giant squirrels!

Robin Hood - The Archery Tournament - Robin in Disguise

An archery contest wouldn't be the same without a Robin competing in a clever disguise, that's ultimately pointless as he intends to win and go up close to the Prince and Sheriff to accept his reward. Aside from the Sherwood Robin with bow and the "final duel" Robin with sword, King & Country also makes a Robin in disguise, and once again echos of Errol Flynn's Robin Hood abound. Another great model. 

Noone will recognise me with this hat tilted in a dashing way.

Now where have we seen this man before...?

The finalists line up for another volley. The chap with the cloak seems to be doing very well indeed.

Can't they move those targets to a distance fit for a proper man to shoot at?

Robin Hood - The Archery Tournament Contestant

We all know and remember the scene from every good Robin Hood tale where Prince John and the Sheriff concoct a plan to lure Robin in the open by organising an archery tournament and counting on his pride to join in. Well, I picked up this banged up Del Prado Hundred Years War longbow archer and while his attire worked for the setting, I didn't quite picture him as one of the merry men, so I decided to make him one of the other hopeful contestants (who, unlike Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham, did not count on facing Robin Hood in the tournament).

Some minor conversions were done to get him ready: the long knife and buckler hanging from his belt were replaced with a leather pouch and a broken arrow point was replaced, but other than that, he was good to go (after stripping what remained of the paint). The original colours made him look too much like a soldier and not enough like a commoner trying his luck, so I had to change it. For a suitable colour scheme I rewatched the scene from the Errol Flynn movie and tried to get something with the same feel. A few details were copied from the Merry Men figures, like the bow colour and arrow fletching.

A comparison of the original figure (mine was a cheap loose copy, with chipped paint), next to the repaint.

Del Prado Crécy archer: original and repainted version

As long as Robin Hood doesn't show his face, that golden arrow will be mine!

The Del Prado figures fit very well with the King & Country figures size and stylewise

Do you have a minute to talk about our Lord and Saviour Robin?

Robin Hood - Woodland animals (part 1)

Newly painted for the Robin Hood collection, some woodland animals, namely some deer and a (cunning?) fox. These are all repaints of Lemax figures again. Painting animals is hard by the way...

Deer family minding it's own business...

Almost too easy...

Father deer/dear...

...and the little ones

Lemax fox repaint

 

You know, I hear Disney is casting a fox to play me on the big screen...

Robin Hood: The Chaperone

Another update, another Lemax conversion and repaint. This one is a chaperone or a lady-in-waiting for Maid Marion. I used a Lemax nun as the base figure. Because classic nun outfits are basically medieval in style anyway. While I wasn't going to change the base figure much initially, I ended up converting her quite a bit. Her height was raised by lengthening her dress and adding a new base, her sleeves were changed, as was her collar and headdress. 

The chaperone and the donor figure

Overall, I think the changes were succesful into hiding her origins and turning her into a proper medieval lady. A radically different choice of colours also helps to make forget her past. I think I finally found a skin recipe for these figures that I'm happy with, though after finishing her, I can't help but feel her face looks a lot like Rowan Atkinson... Once she is varnished, the minor rough spots should hopefully look a bit smoother too. 

That Robin fellow better keep his manners (and his hands to himself)

Tssss... that modern "music" is giving me a headache.

Robin Hood: The Black Canuns

I had picked up this set of OOP "Jolly Friars" from Lemax to add to my Robin Hood project. They were standing on a thick slab of a base that made them tower over the other figures. Lowering that base was not a pleasant endavour but I'm glad I did it. Unfortunately the casting on these was not the best, so painting them was a bit of a chore. This wasn't helped by the fact that I initially started to repaint them in the same colours as the original, which had the side-effect that even when they were almost done, they never stopped looking like the christmas junk that they are to me. Now I tend to have The Adventures of Robin Hood playing in the background for inspiration when working on these and then my attention was drawn to those blackclad monks that follow the Bishop around in the movie and do his bidding. I quickly decided to paint over the robes in black and turn them into black canuns. It seems to have worked as now I can view them as proper figures even though they are still rough in places.

Black canuns vs Lemax Jolly Friars

I'm not too happy with the faces, but they'll do fine for some cheap background figures.

Robbing you blind while looking all pious...

The Bishop of Nottingham and his cronies 

And the original inspiration...

Friar Tuck is not impressed by the black canuns' arguments