Messing around...

Wocha,

Now I've been trying to cobble together some form of coherent narrative but the days have all been blurring a bit lately and thoughts are occouring randomly, so that's how i'll be writing them down! Enjoy, and do try to keep up...

Well as usual there is plenty to do so I have been doing something else. The first distraction came in the form of a couple of sniper bases for our Games Day table. We wanted to playtest some sniper rules with an eye to the forthcoming WHW Great War in the East suppliment (I can't wait until they decide on a name cos that takes ages to type...) and Darren was too busy e-mailing all his chums and generally Lording it up in the Eveish country seat whilst Lord S was in London being under the weather and considering the benefits of castration (for his cat you understand not himself).

As an aside do you remember Robin of Sherwood, the 80's TV show? Remember how Guy of Guisbourne used to be all La-de-da and high and mighty when the boss wasn't around and then fall into place as soon as D'renou turned up? Yeah, it's like that down at the Beast...;>)

Anyhow, so Darren is 'busy' and he askes me to paint up 3 snipers for the game at Games Day so long story short (or apparently not as the case may be) I did. Here you go.
Turk riflemen with the bayonets snipped off. If nothing else it gave me a use for those old Dryad bits I had lying around.

Apart from the fact that I had cracked a tooth and so was on some marvelous painkillers and antibiotics, Games Day went well. As ever, when you are running a demo, Games Day became 12' square with a baked potato in the middle but was enjoyable none the less. Although my demands made to the Black Library staff to the effect that Dan Abnett come over to the table and sign my books fell on deaf ears the day went well. Plenty of Historical games were on show and details (well, pictures) can be found here and here and I'm sure there were lots of other things going on but I didn't really get a chance to look. I took a few photos but they were mostly of the Gallipoli game and some of the old Battle Honours WW1 stuff I did as my first ever sculpting job way back when. With a decent paint job they didn't look half bad either.

Gallipoli from the ANZAC side
Man down!
Turk High command converted by Musketeer BillThe Turkish defences.The Turkish trench line.Mons. Battle Honours figures. Yes there was a whole game to look at but I tunnel visioned...
So home from Games Day and I settle down to do some proper work. Then the Beasty boys send me a parcel containing all the castings of my new 'bits' and the test spins of the master mould for the first batch of Brits in Wolesley Helmets and Turks on full kit. Woo Hoo! I lost no time in breaking out all of the goodies I had received and having a little play, despite the fact that there are a couple of artillery crews that want finishing...

First off I had a play with the castings. I wanted to see if GW ogre flesh spray would work for the Brits. The conclusion was, not really, but they didn't turn out too bad.
Next I got out my saw and had a silly five minutes. Now I should explain a few things first. When I make a range of figures that will be uniformed I tend to make up a number of standard parts and get them cast. It saves trying to make the same hat, torso, weapon, whatever over and over again and keeps things consistant. Now this is hardly a revolutionary technique and will be common to almost all comercial sculptors out there but I wanted to clue you in, if for no other reason than when I start talking about these bits you all know that they are a mid stage production tool rather than something comercially available. Right so that's that out of the way, so...

I grabbed my new sprue of British and Empire heads and decided to try some simple conversions with the new Brits. I present to you a taste of thing possibly to come from the WDC:
Royal Naval DivisionMid war Brit in Tin 'at.

I also couldn't resist having a play with some bits for my personal favourite selection from the up coming ranges:
Those baggy panted loons the French Zouaves and Tirralieurs! I can't wait to crack on with these fellas.

I've got loads of bits to play with now including, but not limited to:
Seikh heads
Gurkah heads
Indian heads
Cavalry torsos

French Adrien helmets
French kepi
French colonial troops heads
French tropical helmet
French uniform torso

German pickelhaub
German and Turk stormtrooper helmets

And all sorts of other goodies. Now just because a bit appears on that list don't expect to neccessarily see packs added to the range. Some of those bit (but I'm not telling which) were added to fill up the mould and so that I had a bunch of stuff ready if I want to do any quick conversions.

Well, those artillerymen won't sculpt themselves so I'll be getting back to work now.

Stay lucky,
Soaps.