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

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

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

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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