Meng Middle Eastern Civilians

 I don't normally buy 1/35 scale figures as they are out of scale with most of my 1/32 stuff. They don't look too bad next to an old Britains hollowcast but they look like Hobbits next to my AIP. I consequently used thicker card than usual for the bases, not entirely a satisfactory solution but a partial one.

I have made some exceptions when the figures are sufficiently unusual. For example I picked up WW2 French and German civilians. (I still have to paint the latter).

I think what drew me to the Chinese made Meng set was the burqa clad woman because it is the first I have seen. I have some reservations though; for example, her nose is uncovered which does not seem typical - maybe the cloth slipped down.

                   Notice the burqa covers the nose in the nice illustration although not on the figure.

                                          The burqa woman plainly has an uncovered nose.

   There were not too many parts to assemble but the lower legs on the girl and woman were fiddly to glue and difficult to hold in place.

The small girl is not showing how strong she is but is meant to be holding a sack by the corners. I didn't get the arms in the right position and gave up on attaching the sack which did not have easy contact points for gluing anyway. Now I guess she could be dancing, surrendering or throwing a hissy. The man could be leaning on a vehicle or doing any 'civilian' type thing. Obviously he is wearing military attire minus equipment so he could just as easily be a soldier.

The boy has a face with Nordic features which would easily lead itself to him being converted to another Hitler Youth to go with the other set. The sandals would have to be fleshed out. I found the torso and bottom did not quite align when I glued, leaving a slight gap - probably my error rather than the company.

Obviously, all the figures could be used for non modern Middle Eastern settings. The burqa can be used in any time from the Middle Ages to the present and, thanks to immigration, in almost any country. As I said, I got this as it was unusual but it would not be too hard to make burqa clad figures from just about anything just by adding plenty of putty or PVA soaked tissue. Also, nuns and some Star Wars figures would easily convert. There were some ISIS women with weapons who enforced their dress code and other idiocies on others so you could even use some modern toy soldiers and leave the guns, adding some appropriate lumps here and there as you apply copious amounts of putty.

Ironically, some ISIS leaders were assassinated by Western special forces who wore burqas and ISIS was forced to ban burqas in some high security areas ( probably meaning banning of women given their obsession with women covering up, at least until they rape them). So there is another option for conversions.

I'll post more pics when I paint them. I went for black undercoat due to the burqa and mostly dark clothes although the girl will have a more cheerful colour scheme so I should have undercoated her white. I might decide to cover the woman's nose with the veil as I still don't think the uncovered nose is right (technically that is - the whole thing is an abomination in my eyes). There are also different versions of the burqa which completely cover the eyes in a mesh. There are probably different names for these various versions but I'm not bothered to look them up.