Those 1970s 'epic figure conversions'

Some of the comments on my blog in response to the Hun conversions from the old Airfix Hussar figures lead me down memory lane this morning, reminiscing on some of the conversions we did 'back in the day' as they say, and the uses to which we put several versatile figure sets. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. Here are some more:

The archer figures from the Robin Hood set. IIRC the Hun list for that WRG edition called for a horde of levy archers, or something similar. This was mine.

In close up

And could we ever forget the versatility of the American Civil war cavalry? These were conversions to Gothic cavalry, drawing pin shields and pins for javelins.

The Airfix Romans were also put to a multitude of uses. These were conversions into Roman Auxilia (Light Heavy infantry in that specific WRG edition).

Airfix Romans

The auxilia again. The shields were made from plasticard

And this was a combination: the horse, and rider's lower torso/legs, from the ACW cavalry, with a roman legionary torso and head pinned to it, to give Roman light cavalry of the 1st centuryAD.

Roman light cavalry, with shields hand made from plasticard

Are we 'ad it tuff in our day - you try tellin' the young people o'today that. They won;'t believe you!!
That said, I think these will all be repurposed and re-used. They were a love affair at the time, and continue to be so despite the beautiful miniatures available on the market today.

If you re of that age, why not share some of your own epic conversions. I'll bet there are some astounding pieces of work out there.

What do tea leaves and camo nets have in common?

Spotted on Paul Foster's blog was reference to creating cam nets for 1/72 & 1/76 vehicles and models using dried tea leaves. A quick Google search and I found reference on the blog of another NZ gamer I follow (Craig) on how to create cam nets for models using dried tea leaves.

Craig's end result!!

Genius .. I enjoy the occasional piece of 1/72nd and 1/76th modelling these days. I'll store this one away for reference.

HMS Discovery.. my Dad's memorial???

I posted some time ago about 'good old fashioned model making'. Well, how's this? My father was an exceptionally talented fitter and turner, and at the time of his early death he was part the way into the construction of what was to be a working steam model of HMS Discovery. The model was being built 'plank on frame', and he was so focussed on getting the detail correct that he had even acquired a large selection of timbers of the varieties that had been used in the original construction with a view to making the frames, and the planking, from the correct timbers. Here are some photos of the model as it has sat since his death in 1984.

As we prepare for house demolition, we have to get rid of things. This is a hard one.. and I type this with a small tear in my eye. However I've just sent these photos off to the Canterbury Society of Model and Experimental Engineers in the hope that they have a member somewhere who might like to take the model, plans and timber, and maybe ..  just maybe ..  think about finishing it.

The connection goes back quite a way.. my great grandfather AJ Cuddy painted this painting of the Discovery locked in the ice during Scott's expedition.

The painting now resides with Canterbury Museum

I gave away several pieces of Dad's machinery from his workshop a few months ago. That was hard. This is harder....

I know I didn't NEED them...

 ... but I WANTED them. The 20mm Spearhead Russian forces for mid war eastern front are pretty much complete. But... I've always liked the look of the Russian T26 (despite it's less than stellar performance on the battlefield) and when I saw the S-Model boxes (theoretically 'quick build') how could I resist.

I applied perhaps slightly too much black wash (they both got two coats) but the look is suitably 'dirty' and used rather than fresh from the kitset box'ish. Many of the parts are beautifully finely cast, but I felt that this was a disadvantage. The suspension units were easily broken if care wasn't taken removing them from the sprue (I manage to break only one), and the antennae are so fine that they too are difficult to remove from the sprue. One of the two actually had two breaks in it 'in the box'. I may still go back and remove the antennae from around the turret as they are not essential, and perhaps mis-represent the Russian tank forces early war at least, when radios were few and far between.

The kits also came with brass etched parts, most of which I didn't use. . there was no way that they would survive wargames handling.

However when all is said and done, they are a nice model, and they will create some nice visual variety on the table alongside the BT7s and T34s.

Big 'thumbs up' to S-Models, it's just that these are possibly not as robust for my gammy fingers and thumbs as I'd prefer.

Dwarf gyrocopter revisited.

I'm currently undertaking my third (and hopefully final) attempt at assembling the GW Dwarf gyrocopter. My previous two attempts, using two different types of superglue, were to no avail, the complete assembly falling apart on me. The kit was therefore put aside for quite some time (well, over 12 months actually) and I've finally decided to take it out and try again.

So.. a little research on the web first, and I find comment that this may well be rated as the most difficult assembly in the entire GW range.. fantastic!!

The consensus was however pretty clear: you need to pin the model, especially the rotor assembly. So pin it I did. The holes were drilled with a long unused motorised drill of French manufacture, and pins were inserted down the length of each blade, and throiugh the hub itself. It was glued with two part epoxy. I also picked up another very cool tip: glue the rotor hub to a washer - inspired!!

So here is a photo of the rotor assembly from the underside at that stage.

I then went on to strengthen the hub further with a band of green stuff, creating what now looks like an elegantly enlarged hub, perfectly in keeping with the concept of dwarf engineering.

The landing skids also required pinning, and the assembly is now being painted - photos to follow.
I haven't been this challenged with any model since I used to scratch build models of ships and aircraft as a teenager - those were the days!

One of those mad ideas .....

OK, so this may be one of those crazy ideas. We have a proliferation of those 'cheap as' shops here in Christchurch, and for some months I've been eyeing up these small mock tudor buildings that they have been selling for $3.90 each. They are garish, but I wondered whether, with a few coats of the Citadel washes (Badab Black and Devlan Mud) I might be able to tone the colours down and make some useful scenery for the ECY boys to battle around.

I thought that for $3.90 it was worth trying just one to see how they look. Here is the result. If there's anyone out there reading this, I'd appreciate some feedback. I'm still not sure.. maybe the buildings are a little too much of a toy caricature for serious historical 'gaming.

Cadian 198th...Hoorah!!

When I bought the Imperial Guard figures that have formed the basis of my Inquisitorial forces (until the next Codex changes things.. soon??) the big attractions were a reasonable price, and the fact that almost all of them were painted. However there were a few that weren't. So, as the Cadian 198th recruits, I have had to paint these figures. Fine, no big deal, except that I really needed to match the existing paint scheme and technique as closely as possible so that these new figures would fit with the remainder of the figures. Only issue for me was that Elliot (the painter of the original figures) had used washes whereas I use layering. So the challenge was on: replicate the existing colour scheme using washes.

Here is the result, and my first attempts at using washes on this scale. Not quite an exact match, but close.... (close enough for a cigar, anyone??)

Avast there me 'earties...

There I was trying to assemble my Dwarf Gyrocopter, and not succeeding.. top quality superglue isn't all it's cracked up to be, damn it!! So away it went into its box, and I case my eye around for something quick and easy to complete to sate the painting appetite. My eye fell upon a small plastic galleon that I'd bought several years ago, thinking "arrr Jim lad, there be a great airboat for a Pirate 'otT army". It has sat upon a shelf resplendent in its black undercoat for at least a couple of years.

And with a couple of evenings of sporadic painting, washing and highlighting, this is what came out.

I was tempted to rig it too, but my need for instant gratification blew that idea of of the water (oopppsss.. no pun  intended).

Only problem is, I don't have the pirates to go with it. No matter.. Stan.. Stan.. STAN .. get me some of them thar pirates, quick laaad!!!

Good old fashioned model making...

A couple of weeks ago I blogged on the fantastic model galleon that my Father had built (the Golden Hind). Here are a few more of my Father's models, all constructed from plans that came with his magazine subscription 'Hobbies Weekly'.

The first is a lighthouse table lamp stand. The bulb sits in the top (exactly where you'd expect the light to be in a light house I guess). The ocean waves were formed using modeling putty, then hand painted.

This next model is of a small church.

 The roof lifted up to reveal a spray on velvet coated box for storing trinkets of various kinds, the opening of which would start a music box hidden beneath the box. This was very much a 'style of the day'. I recall as a child being enthralled by the plastic bottle 'puffer' used to apply the fine velvet over a surface of wet glue. Fascinating what captures our imaginations and cements into our memory from our childhood.

The detailing was interesting, the stained glass windows were hand painted on heavy 'cellophane', while the climbing plants were shaped using modeling putty (it was called DAP as I recall), and then painted.

Finally is this 'Swiss Chalet', again a music box activated when the roof is lifted back. The music boxes are clockwork mechanical movements, wound up to play.

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Failing eyesight...and hope!!

Hmmm... for the past 6 months or so I have been unable to do any painting of note at all. Why? Failing eyesight. Age catches up with us all, and for me the onset of presbyopia a couple of years ago has meant that seeing  anything close up has become more and more of a trial. I finally succumbed to the need for progressive lenses in my glasses in order to cope with daily life, but still found painting to be difficult. I considered getting special magnifying lenses for painting, and then.. a revelation: try painting in daylight!!!

I managed to move my painting table into a position next to a window, and.. fantastic. I have just been able to get back to painting some long suffering figures (some sample HaT WW1 German infantry.. sorry for the delay, HaT.. but at least I'm back!). That's a far cheaper solution than the dollar cost of magnifying lenses. 

The only down-side is that I used to paint in the evenings, after completing work for the next day etc. Now, painting time will be limited, but.. at least I can get back to completing armies.. oh, yes.. and starting new ones.

There's the British VSF army, the Semi-Historical Chinese HotT army (and the equivalent Chinese historical DBA army), the WW1 Russians, and Austro-Hungarians, the French League of Augsberg (they've only been waiting 7 years).. and then there's the...

Oh dear!!! But at least I can paint again.

Morphing DBA into HotT

Good friends Nick and Stan gave me a simple piece of inspiration on morphing my recently completed DBA Early German army into a HotT army.. and a 'gamer from Temuka (a town south of Christchurch here in New Zealand) kindly offered me a GW Dryad figure for a tree man hero (saving me the purchase of an entire box of 12 Dryads).

And so the initial morphing is completed:
9 x Warband
2 x Lurkers
1 x Hero

I think the army might need a little more mobility though (as does the DBA army) so some riders might well find their way onto the painting board sometime soon. The warband composition makes this quite different to any of the other four HotT armies completed so far, and brings with it its share of playing challenges. I think some war dog "beasts" might be suitably barbarian, but finding dogs in 20m is quite a challenge. Still, I'm not one to give up easily..... morphing is fun....

DBA EIR II/56

I added this little lot to my DBA collection a month or two ago, drawn from a larger DBM army (which frankly I don't use that often any more - well not at all, and yes I could use it for FOG, but haven't really taken too well to that either).

So I took the necessary stands from that larger DBM collection, and tidied them up a little. Here they are. Mostly foundry figures (so 25mm rather than 20mm), while the ballista is 20mm Irregular.

They make a nice opponent to the Early Germans I completed a few months ago. The scale difference is ok for us.

Chaos Hordes...

I guess painting Hordes is kind of addictive. Painting my Chaos army, I thought that, in addition to the Chaos knights and blades, there ought to be some of those shambling human (ish!) hordes. After all no self respecting forces of Chaos would be trying to take over the world without enlisting the help of some humans somewhere along the way, even if they were dead before the powers of chaos got there.

So these are my first attempt at some shambling humans, or Hordes. The first photo shows the two bases in front of the Chaos Stronghold: a plastic skull that came with the dragon, actually.. then attached to a suitable looking stone wall (a piece of polystyrene packing coated in sand, then painted).

I liked the barbarian 'tart'.. dressed in Chaos blue (having sold her soul to the forces of Chaos); so strong is her power that you can see the forces of chaos rippling blue in the ground beneath her feet, emanating from her.... wow, wouldn't want to mess with her in a dark alley!!.

The HotT obsession

The HotT obsession (Hordes of the Things, that is) has bitten. I have found myself planning and scheming the creation of HotT armies. In particular I have become obsessed with the creation of great looking and highly fanciful HotT armies using some of the huge array of cheap plastic toys that we can buy in stores locally.

I started to plan a 'Lost Worlds' army, with dinosaurs (nice behemoths, flyers and beasts) supporting some ancient looking humans (warbands and hordes). I was browsing in a local K-Mart amongst the dinosaurs, when I stumbled upon this wonderful looking beast. Now here was King Kong if ever I saw him. 

But of course I wasn't seeing a large ape, but a God (in HotT terms, you understand!!). I had flashbacks to tribes worshipping the great ape, and battling amongst and with ancient dinosaurs. Of course they would have large fanciful 'idols' in their stronghold in the jungles, so a small aquarium piece, along with some aquarium plastic plants looked  be just the thing.

A tyrannosaurus (well this actually a velociraptor) for a behemoth .....

A couple of small dinosaurs for an element of 'beasts', and a couple of flyers and .....

Then there will just be a couple of bases of primeval humans and, with a Shaman to complete this tasty family, there's a 'King Kong' lost worlds army.

I am hoping some of the boys that I take in the Saturday 'gaming group at Christ's College will read this, and be inspired to try to create their own HotT fantasy armies. In the meantime, I'll post some more pictures when these fellows have been based and are ready to go!!

Of course right now I really should get back to the 6mm WW1 Armies for The Guns of August'.....so many projects, so little time!!! This HotT obsession ..........