Sunday, March 11, 2012

Roman Teddy Bear Chess Set

The Roman Civil Wars with Teddy Bears
Eureka has a line of fantastic Roman Teddy Bears - name "I Cuddlius". Sculpted by the talented Mike Broadbent, this line shows a very subtle sense of humour, from the rubber ducky and rocking chair standards, to the matchstick spears dripping with honey.

Having spotted these at CANCON, my daughter decided it would make a great present for my father's birthday - as a chess set. We quickly found enough different poses to have a Roman Civil War set - Pretorians vs Legionaries. With help from my son, the three of us painted, dipped, flocked and made our way to a very nice result. The board was made with some laser cut 40 x 40mm MDF Bases. These were spray painted red and blue, before being glued down and varnished.

Check out Eureka's other lines - Teddy Bear Zulu's, Cowboys, Pirates, Seven Years Wars all asking to be made into some very cool chess sets.  Also the Pax Limpopo, Frog wars and many other whimsical figures.


Pawns on the Red team

The Blue Pawns with their matchstick spears

The Red Queen riding a hobby horse and blowing her own trumpet

The Red King on his horse leading a charge

The Blue King

The Red Rook with rocking horse standard

The Blue Rook with rubber ducky standard and honey pot emblem

The Blue Knights

The Red Knight, with Bishop behind with the horn

Overview of the board

3 comments:

  1. Thats brilliant - thanks for posting !

    Keen to know how you went with the varnishing. I am doing a batch of seven years picnic bears at the moment for a similar project, and want to make sure that the intended users dont end up scratching them.

    Hope he enjoys the present (of course he will ! - they are awesome)

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  2. LOVE that you're doing this! What a great idea.
    teddy bears

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  3. This set is both very cute and totally rocks at the same time! To know that you pretty much made this set on your own is even more awesome! What are the teddy bear pieces actually made out of? I’m pretty sure you can’t actually play a game of chess on this, but it would definitely make a great display!

    Esmeralda Tabarez

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