Converting Plastics - WW1, Africa Corps and Fantasy Imagi-nation Figures or Why Hand-grenade figures Make Good Swordsmen..

 First up is another picture of my WW1 German Pioneer. Should I give him standard equipment or has he taken it off to dig? What was done in reality, I wonder? I suppose it depended on how close was the enemy.

As a small boy my dad gave me the lone Star Desert set. As I usually got dragooned by my friend, Pete Smith, into playing the Germans, a good portion of which were surrendering and running away, I would like to stiffen up the German side! So I have taken the Aussie with bazooka (did they actually get any in real life?) and I have given him an Airfix German head and equipment, putty ammo pouches and Airfix hard plastic Multipose bayonet scabbard. These figures, incidentally are repro Toyway ones that came out in the 80s, I think, They are made of a more long lasting polyvinyl. I still have my original figures but they are more brittle than they were in the 196os and 70s fighting in my sandpit.

I trimmed the shorts down a little. Originally I was going to make them into trousers and convert this bloke to a steam punk fellow with brass weapon and breast plate! Then my mind went down another rabbit burrow. The Germans were a bit more formal than the Brits and Commonwealth soldiers. The latter would sometimes not even wear shirts! The Germans usually always wore their lightweight tropical jackets complete with insignia. However, I decided to leave the converted figure in shirtsleeves. 

  There was one aspect which looked a bit more casual with the Jerries. They were not issued shorts whilst the British forces were. These were often nicknamed Bombay Bloomers'. They reached to just above the knees and were rather baggy. The German individual soldiers in the Middle East, often cut down their trousers (and also their long tropical lace up boots). There was no uniformity in length here and often they were cut down to PT length. They were closer fitting than the Bombay Bloomers. I haven't attempted to reduce the length but have made the shorts a little less baggy. In retrospect I am guessing soldiers did not have sunscreen so there might have been some bad sunburn or at least very deep tans to exposed skin!

                     The head was a bit tricky to add because it was leaning on the barrel. The slung hat on the back was trimmed off. Most likely I'll paint the straps on rather than add paper tape ones. As for the anti-tank one German ones were a bit more powerful than Allied ones. There was a one use one and a repeat use one which this is intended as. There was a little shield with viewer slot in front of the face. I  might make this from a square bread tie. The ties used to be plastic but now they are card.

  Just on an aside, researching this stuff often leads me in all kinds of directions. For example did the Brits really have bad teeth and were they worse than the Jerries? Yes and yes! The Germans put more resources into making sure their servicemen had good dental work. In any case the German rations were much healthier with British ones including higher sugar items, less fibre and so on.

                      Now for something else different - WW1 Tank crewmen in the Middle East! The figure at left is another Lone Star repro. The officer's cap was cut down and a Wolseley Green Stuff helmet made. I didn't look for a spare one as these figures are quite chunky and to suit the figure I had to make one big enough. The nearest in size would be from the Lone Star Royal Marines and I did not want to cut mine up. I also added a respirator pouch and decided to leave the pistol holster on the 'wrong' side. The figure at right was cut down from a cowboy. The vest was trimmed off. I trimmed and re-sculpted the odd revolvers as the revolving chambers were too far towards the end of the pistols. There were once some experimental revolvers made like this but they were replaced by the more iconic ones like Colt Peacemakers, Remingtons and so on. The British officers and tank crews had Webley revolvers. 

  The trimmed down hat is now a tank crewman's close fitting brown leather cap. I also added the Green Stuff gas face mask with glass eyes imprinted from a paintbrush cover. (The shape is flatter than the German hognose ones). I added the respirator case and hose as well as holster and canteen.  Both figures are both intended as tank crews for my tanks in the Middle East (the difference being mine will be fighting ancient Egyptians!) As mentioned in an earlier post, the tankmen could be wearing overalls or basic infantry uniforms. In the Middle East they had shorts as an option. It was risky to have much skin exposed inside the tank as there were hot metal parts in close confines. But they could certainly don shorts when leaving the vehicle. I expect that in weighing up pros and cons they  might sometimes have still worn shorts inside the tank because the weather wasn't half hot. Headgear for the Middle East included pith helmets. They might not have worn the bulky helmets inside the tank.

  The converted cowboy is meant to be wearing overalls. Puttees were the official lower leg item but regulations were not always followed. Such items would have been very hot and sweaty in a tropical climate. Why two pistols? Well. I am assuming he started with one but picked up a second one from a fallen comrade - I'll have to make up a story about that!

  Now, a figure for a small episode in the Ruritanian colonial expedition to Zoohoo! This was a spare Conte Zulu War missing his arm and depicting injured Ferdinand Schiess, of the Natal Native contingent and a Swiss national who had lost his arm. Despite being incapacitated he killed three Zulus on the wall. He has a new metal rifle arm with cut down matchstick bayonet. The tropical Ruritanian slouch hat is made from Green Stuff. So now he is a different hero but very much in the same spirit.

Below, you can see I have really 'lost it'. WW2 German grenade throwers make great swordsmen! The new sword and scabbards on both figures are made from spit pins; they are flat on one side and curved on the other. The need a little sanding on the ends to make more sword shaped. If they are scabbard the flat side is Super Glued to the leg. If a sword then, ideally, the curved side is ground down. I cut corners a bit as the points on the swords are not made very pointy - probably safer that way but not as bad as pikes!

  So, the figure at left is Airfix (or copy) German with spike added to helmet. Both righthand figure is a Timmee space figure Darth Vader lookalike. His new head is a spare lead home-cast Prussian one. The figures also have putty pistol holsters. The shields are spare Games Workshop Age of Sigmar ones. (N I never played that game). As they shields were originally intended for figures about half the size of these they must have been of Mycenean dimensions. I like them better on my 54mm figures rathe than the 30 or so mm Simar ones.

  So what on Earth do they represent? They are Beersteiner Heroes! Yes, my invented world is currently early to mid 19th century technology so why hold on to shields? I am getting to that. You see, even though musketry has significantly improved and is still advancing Beerstein, not so many years ago, did face an invasion from Necrolia. Zombies and skeleton warriors don't stop coming, no matter how many of them are shot to pieces so human warriors may face grappling close and personal-like with stinky spluttering deaduns. Some heroes chose to use the archaic shields to keep the blighters at arms reach, or at least elbow's reach. Others continued wearing full suits of plate armor (notably the crusader orders).

  By the way, the comet symbol was borrowed from the Patrans. Beerstein has good relations with Patra despite it being pagan and idolatrous. That is partly because one's enemy's (Fezia's) enemy becomes one's friend and partially because King James had the hots for Cleopatra. (Incidentally that is not THE Cleopatra, but her descendant some generations removed who maintains the illustrious name and also the source of the land's name).

  Next, this old Lone Star British guardsman had his rifle broken away so now he has a brass telescope to aid the Gerolsteiner artillery sighting targets (probably Ruritanian ones).

Below is an assortment of other figures that have been undercoated with plastic spray car undercoat. Included here are repro Aussies. Charbens ACW bugler, Beton rider, DSG Napoleonic lancer, very old  Australian made sailor and Airfix or copies of, horses.