Nap Bri Inf 2

Putty is added to the legs.

Churchill 2

I added more bulk to his head, imagining that he was wearing an aviator's helmet and padded this down.  The rest of the figure is being smoothed out.

JB2

I added putty to the underside of the legs and pressed this against the saddle. This creates a good seat for the figure. The tunic was sculpted with Historex coattails. The face is being reworked.

Portuguese Drummer 2

These are the rest of the pictures showing this colourful unit.

I worked more on this figure, slightly altering the stance and then adding more detail. The drum was pressed into the left side of the figure while the putty was still malleable.

Portuguese Drummer

I got this picture of a Portuguese drummer in Mozambique, about 1788. As I like exotic musicians, I decided to model this figure.

Head from Shenandoah Miniatures, legs from Preiser, drum from Historex, this is the figure as of now.

Figure was trimmed by about 5mm in height, and the shako is being modelled.

Airfix 1/12 Bengal Lancer

I dusted off the cobwebs on this large kit, an attempted conversion about 5 years back. As I am getting more info on the saddlery, I may revive this project.

Barton Mongol 90mm

I have stripped off the paint from this figure. The figure was soaked in a 1:2 solution of Dettol O/N and the resulting gunk was wiped/washed off with a second dipping in thinner.

I am still deciding on whether to convert this to a standing or mounted figure, depending on whether I can locate a spare 90mm horse. As can be seen, the proportions are too lanky for a typical Mongol, and the accessories lack details.

Napoleonic British Infantry 1

I decided to substitute the head, using a Historex resin head. The torso has been turned and filled in.
I am still adjusting the leg positions.

Scottish Piper 71st Highlander

I started this piece about a year ago. It is a conversion using Airfix Historex parts. This was stalled then because of some ambiguity in sculpting the lacing details. I have determined that there are 10 rows of lacing down the front and am adjusting the tunic edge. The left side of the body has been carved away to accommodate the pipe. The mouth piece has been slightly bent to fit into the mouth.

Churchill 1

I readjusted the height down by about 2mm and trimmed down the fat. I removed the hat and have started to sculpt him bareheaded. I am also adjusting the size of the head, trying to avoid a caricature.Wwhat I am trying to do is to capture the "hunched shouldered" image of a pugnacious leader, who led Britain magnificently during WWII.

JB 1

I've decided to use Historex spares to create this piece. Once the horse was assembled from the various components, I had to cut away the top part of the horse to accomodate the saddle. This was because the girth of the horse has now been thickened by 1-2mm with a plastic shim.

The figure was adjusted on the saddle to resemble the desired pose.

Resin cast camel 1

Here is some progress on a camel. I decided to add my own homecast metal legs from another source to create some movement. I haven't yet decided what to use this camel for but keeping this piece at hand allows excess mixed putty for other projects to be used here to minimise wastage.

Royal Navy, Boxer Rebellion

I had scratchbuilt this piece many years ago when I wanted to build a series of vignettes depicting the Boxer Rebellion. This figure represent a Captain Poole of the Royal Navy, beleaguered in the Foreign Legations Quarter.

Resin cast camels

I found these two Bactrian camels. I had sculpted a master which  I had cut up into four parts for casting.  Home resin casting is generally a hit-and-miss affair if one does not have a vacuum setup to remove the gas bubbles. This one-off casting came out very satisfactorily and I now have two camels for my conversions.

Joseph Bonaparte

I started off on this personage figure with a proposed Tradition metal kit.

A similar Tradition kit was converted into his brother Louis Bonaparte.

However, Joseph looks far slimmer in his official portraits than this casting will allow. In addition, I would like to make a mounted figure. Hence I am now toying with the idea of building the figure from Historex spares. I found a stash of bodies and horses.

The print from Rigo would serve as a reference for this piece.

QOOH 6

I saw a picture on a yeomanry website of a nice-looking crupper and decided to model that instead of the present one. The crupper is mostly made of thin sheet metal. The excess strap length is usually rolled up and tucked into a securing strap for neatness.

I also epoxied the kettledrums to the horse.

I then test-fitted the rider and the banners. It is looking very promising at this stage.

QOOH 5

The roughness of the saddle flaps was sanded down. The new saddle was further lowered and reshaped. 

The figure was tested for fit on the new saddle again and its final seat was determined by more sanding on the underside of the legs. This is a critical moment. Having worked on this figure for such a long time, I have developed an attachment to it. But I now decided to lengthen the legs as it seems a little too short. Both legs were snipped off, wires drilled and inserted for support, and the legs lengthened. Putty was used to fill in the gaps.

The saddle was further detailed. I used modified Historex bits to create buckles for the saddle and the crupper. Since most of the eye-catching details would be upfront in the kettledrum insignia, the crupper would draw interest back to the rear of the bare horse, thus balancing the composition.

The mane was further sculpted.

The kettledrum pads were reshaped.

I painted the saddlery at this stage. Although I had already painted a coat of dappling on the horse, I added a wash of Paynes Grey to tone down the whiteness. I will redo the dappling later.

After such a long and protracted delay on this piece, I am rather pleased with the progress made so far and am waiting for the paint to dry before I move on to add the other straps.

Converted tiger 2

Almost a year later, I rediscovered this discarded tiger on which I had practised sculpting animal anatomy (see my blog entry dated 29 Oct 2013). The head was taken from a Phoenix casting. As it looked rather decent, I further refined the piece and gave it an undercoat of yellow paint.

Manchu scene 2

Focusing on the Dowager figure, I worked on the pose. Both arms were discarded. The dog was gently prised off the figure, sanded down and readjusted to fit on the left side of the figure. When I was satisfied with the pose, I glued the dog in place and made new arms to hold and pat the dog.

Manchu Scene

I finally rediscovered my singular Dowager Empress figure after a long search. This was a piece that I had completed more than ten years ago, than decided to remake it a few years ago and had then placed it aside in pursuit of other projects.

After studying this piece, I have come to the conclusion that the pose is uninteresting. Her right hand holding the dog leaning further out to the right is unbalanced and the left hand is not doing anything. I have decided to alter the pose to make the Dowager interact more with her dog. I intend to have her left hand hold the dog with her right hand patting the dog. This will be the anchor piece for the proposed Manchu scene.

The other key figure which I had also discovered separately (!) was this servile Manchu figure carrying another dog on a pillow. So with a bit of work, this piece will add to the scene.

The Dowager Empress was photographed generally surrounded by many women courtiers and servants. I located several failed metal torso castings and resin boots castings and decided to create some generic standing figures.

The picture shows the first stage of this project.

Two Napoleonic musicians

I found these two figures in my spares box. Both are primarily Airfix/Historex conversions. I intend to make some colourful musicians from this pair.

Update on the collection

For the past few months, I've been refurbishing earlier pieces in my display collection to sharpen my skill sets and upgrade the collection at the same time at minimal costs. Some figures that aren't worth keeping have been culled. At the same time, I've been re-discovering many earlier abandoned pieces that could be improved with further work. Generally, I don't throw any figure away as they get relegated to a spares box. Then, if I come across them again a later time frame, I am able to look at these pieces with fresh perspectives.

Over the years, I have really amassed a huge collection of unmade figures and spares. These are now being sorted out into various boxes in an attempt to organise the inventory. This is a really therapeutic exercise as I please the spouse (foremost consideration), rediscover many old treasures and start to plan new pieces.

The sculpting has improved greatly too. I now use only A&B putty which dries rock hard. I remove most of the older green kneadatite putty if I encounter them in my earlier pieces. The green putty dries rubbery and should only be used for producing masters for casting. Along the way, I have discovered a new confidence in slapping on putty without concern and then using hard sculpting to achieve the end result. It is always good to have a stable framework and I pin and fix all underlying structure together before further refinement.

Working with both metal and plastic figures allows a mixed media approach to sculpting. Instead of sculpting from scratch, conversions of commercial pieces allow for a faster output whilst retaining a certain homogeneity to the output in terms of consistency of scale and style.

Depending on what I found recently, I have many ideas currently swirling for attention in my head, some of which are:

A Manchu diorama
Knights at tournament
Elephant piece
Camel piece

Hopefully, these and other ideas will take physical form soon and I can post these WIP blogs.

Churchill

This was an abandoned Churchill conversion of the old 1/35 Roco set some years ago.

On re-examining the figure, I decided that the pose wasn't too bad and perhaps the height of the figure was the problem. I have since extended the legs by about 4 mm and will work on it further.

Just read that Churchill was about 5'7" so i will adjust this figure accordingly.

QOOH 4

The saddle seat was converted from a 1/35 scale Dragon kit saddle. I carefully fitted the saddle seat to the saddle, by means of drilled holes.

The figure was test-fitted to this saddle. The fixed saddle made this process very easy.

The fit looked generally very good but I decided to lower the height of the saddle a little and also added more putty to the saddle flaps. This will be sanded smooth later. The tail was a modified Historex tail, detailed with the pyrogravure.

Addition of the tail helps in the overall proportions and visual presentation of this figure. The figure was later sanded down to seat lower in the saddle. On rechecking my visual references and notes, the seat is still too high. I will also have to sculpt it to reveal the arch and spoon. Also, my notes suggest that the crupper was not always used.