June 2025 Finished Workbench Projects

I have been having fun, this month, painting a real assortment of figures. Mind you, toy soldier projects have been competing for time with sketching and cartooning (see my connected blog, Joc's Cartoons), but I have managed to do quite a bit of each (which is why any handyman projects, around the house come in a definite third place).

I mentioned, in an early post, some cowboy and Indian figures I received all the way from England. Anyway, I painted most of the HK copies of Jecsan cowboys. The figure, in the foreground has been converted into a sailor. All i did was cut off the holsters and paint the sailor as a Victorian one in straw hat. I forgot to paint a black band around the base of the crown but will add that.

 

  Below is a slight repaint of some British 95th Rifles to make them into the 60th Rifles which had red instead of black facings. Eventually I might paint some more to make full unit. The three figures at left are AIP and the one at right is Italeri.

   I hadn't finished this ElastoWit beast man pereviously but here it is, looking a bit like an orangutan. He is from the Island of Doctor Morreau.

  Here are the two Technolog orc conversions. I think the added shields were a good addition. They will join my exiting unit of 'Big-uns'. I generally follow the Warhammer idea of orcs with green skin.

            Below is a resin copy I made of a Britains Detail Napoleonic French cuirassier. However, I also converted it to have a flintlock pistol. The pistol arm came from an AIP American War of Independence figure. Due to the flash, he blue appears lighter than it is. I kept the paintjob simple to match the unpainted (by me) originals. I have a couple of others I made, one which will be a flag bearer. If I wished this to be a Third Empire figure I would paint the trousers red and give him a revolver.

                                                    Here are more pics of the 60th Rifles.

                        Not that long ago I assembled and painted some Expeditionary Force ancient Egyptians. This time I assembled and painted some Expeditionary Force Zulu War figures. Everyone (well nearly everyone into military history) knows about the 24th Foot but they were only one regiment of many that took part in the war. As well as British units there were locally raised one like this - Natal Hussars. The uniform is dark green with black braid across the chest. If you remove the chest braid (except for officers) you could paint these brownish black for Natal constabulary or dark blue as Natal Carabineers. The uniforms are so similar it is confusing until you realize they are different units.

  Nice touch with the binoculars. There is a patch where the brown paint ovrlaps the white cross belt so I'll fix that.

   This is a resin copy I made of an Airfix 'samurai robot'. I would have preferred this style 'space warrior' with a firearm.

                                              Armchair General officers for 'Funny Little Wars'.

                 AIP American War of Independence cavalry officer, awaiting a horse.

   HK Indian. I deliberately painted bright colors on the feather headdress, untypical for Plains Indians but good for having Amazon Indians or even Aztecs in mind. It is not meant to be historically accurate.

       Crossbowman made from cheapo modern American. He was intended as a Bogovanian.

  Another AWOI cavalryman. I decided he will be an American and not have a different colored tunic for a musician.

  AIP Boxers. I am gradually adding more figures to my 19th century Chinese army. Another ambition is to make an early 20th century one which I'll probably convert from cheapo WW2 Japanese and possibly also from WW2 Germans. What i like about the 19th century Chinese army is it had such an assortment of outmoded and also modern weapons.

  here are some more pics of the Jecsan cowboys. The figure at far left I painted long ago. Ge others are the recent acquisitions painted.

 I like these Jecsan figures. I like the animation and the expressive faces. I don't like how the holsters stick out from the body. The pistols, themselves look weird with the revolver chambers too far forward on the weapon. Tis would make the pistols unbalanced and less accurate however, I vaguely remember seeing some early revolvers that had this poor design. I actually like getting figures with weird designs that might not always be accurate. The reason is, such figures would convert well into retro SF troops. Now that idea is in my head...

PS I have added a post about actual weird revolvers which ties in with the Jecsan cowboys' revolvers.