Lone Star Royal Marines & Conversions To Match

 Lone Star plastic Royal Marines were chunky figures with some strange but fairly static poses. Like so many other ceremonial figures such as modern British redcoat  guardsmen they assume combat positions. They have WW2 or post WW2 weapons and minimum equipment.
  
Royal Marines were figures I did not have as a child. However, I did encounter them through my friend Stewart Middlemiss or 'Stewy'. Stewy was entertaining. He liked to smash bottles on the road and tried to feed earthworms to his unfortunate collection of tadpoles. In grade three we sat together at out double ink well desk. We were next to the window and spent considerable time shooting blow flies with elastic bands fired from the ends of rulers. We also drew tanks, planes, soldiers and creatures on our blotting  paper and flicked blobs of ink at them from our fountain pens.

But one of the best things was going to Stewy's house and playing with his toy soldiers on his front concrete veranda. Generally it was cowboys against the Lone Star marines. We thought the latter were police and I wondered about there being no cops fighting cowboys in the movies but they looked good in our battles. The weapon of choice was the elastic powered toy gun or other projectile pistols. We took turns shooting at each other's troops until one side was eradicated.

Years later and Stewy had met an unfortunate early death through some misadventure. Our games stuck in my head so that I had some nostalgia for those marines. I collected a few battered marines and restored them with original colours and finish.

Today I had the bright idea of making some more from modern infantry. This is really a fantasy enterprise as these are modern ceremonial uniformed soldiers engaged in combat. The occasion I previously employed these figures in a wargame involved a naval force on a ship rescuing dinosaur hunters from island X! What I would have liked though, would be some kneeling shooting figures.

Below: restored marines in  case

 Recently produced cheapo modern infantry from China with metal home cast later model British tropical helmets.

The figure at left with simple looking rifle is a good basis for many conversions to later 19th century or various earlier twentieth century conflicts. The plastic is a bit hard to cut but I got there eventually. I may do some other conversions from this figure.