Conversions Are Underway. . .

Just spent about two hours chopping the heads from eight Revell 1/72 Austrian fusiliers in the kneeling position and attaching them to the bodies of eight Zvezda Saxon Napoleonic Cuirassiers. I used my pin vise to drill holes into the necks and heads followed by bits of staples to pin each head to its new body. Once I was sure everything would fit, I finished by cementing the joints with Plastic CA, a thin cyanoacrylate glue made for gluing soft plastics together.

The joints look pretty good and the glue seems to fill in any small gaps. I ended up using Austrian heads because they are somewhat bigger than the Prussian musketeer heads that I originally planned on. The Zvezda figures are BIG heavy cavalry figures, and they needed heads that would not look out of place on their bodies. I'm pleased with my first ever attempts at figure conversions. Just call me "Victor"!

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I've never worked with plastic figures (although you've made me wish that I had some); but the very few conversions that I've done with metal have always made me feel good when they turn out.

I hope that you also get that great feeling when they turn out as planned.

-- Jeff

1:41 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Hi Jeff,

Good to hear from you! YES -- The feeling of accomplishment -- when things work out as hoped -- is always huge! Now I've only made a few attempts at metal conversinos, and those, unfortunately, have always left a bit to be desired. So, you can imagine how I felt yesterday when things went as planned.

Hope your household issues are sorting themselves out. It's a bad time of year (is it ever good?) for that to happen.

Enjoy the evening,

Stokes

2:42 PM

Anonymous said…

Now the real test comes...

can you make then look ALIVE!

Cheers

5:41 PM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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