American Indian Conversions

I am sprucing up some mounted Indian figures for the next wargame. I wanted figures in a hurry so I haven't completely repainted as I normally would do. But some things just bugged me too much about the figures; these included bendy rifles and heads that looked like they projected too far from bodies.

First up are two of my new Best of the Wild West figures. It is not much of a conversion as all I have done is put them on a Detail Britains and remould from DSG of a Herald horse. They look a little big for the horses, especially the bowman so I might put them on bigger horses. (I decided to keep the old ones to stay with the wagon).

By the way, I overlooked a second cowboy and a cactus that were also in the new set. he is unusual because his shirt is open to show a bare chest.

                                         Next is a DSG Indian who had a bendy spear. I cut the spear head and feather off so now it is a bow!

  Here is a copy of a Detail Indian on an Eyes Right horse with small putty saddle blanket,

      The Indian on the right has a copper wire bow (yet to be painted). The rifle was too bendy so I cut it off and drilled out the hand.

      Here you can see hair extended out the back f the war bonnets although they were probably more likely to be braided. These heads have also been reattached at different angles with some deft drilling and gluing. The back of the war bonnets were also painted as they had been left unpainted in the factory paint job. They are on a variety of horses but the original ones had two belly holes so these were filled in with putty except for the stand stems.

    Below are two Blue Box Indians that should have spears but they now have copper wire bows. Admittedly carrying a bow in one hand and a shield in the other would be pretty silly for combat but I wanted to establish simply that they have bows. Maybe they are just waving warriors on with their bows or showing their intention to shoot arrows into the Palefaces. I still have touch touch up the shiueld on one figure as the original paint is one third gone. I like the Blue Box Wild West figures, agan because they have nice faces but they are also generally fairly well sculpted.

                                             Here are the five mounted new figures together.

  Yes, I got bored painting eagle shields, This brave will always be known in our wargames as the Nazi Indian but, of course, many cultures sported swastikas and that included native American ones. I have seen headdresses that incorporated such emblems although the shield is speculative and just reflected a perverse indulgence on my part. It would be fun to try to sell it on E-bay though; I wonder if they would notice.