Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Wednesday 22 June 2011

The Noble Art of Conversion

Some recent acquisitions. Two of the brigade commanders in my Allied army are mounted Rifles officers - a rarity in 20mm. After many years of failing to find suitable figures, and a couple of rather so-so attempts to produce suitable conversions, I have finally commissioned some professional work. I am pleased with them – worthy additions, I think - the donor figures are Hinton Hunt, which will offend some as butchery, though it is an old and distinguished tradition. If Marcus had produced such a figure in the first place, this would not be necessary – and one of the reasons he didn’t is probably because he assumed this sort of DIY effort would fiill the gap!


It is interesting to try to spot the original figures - my initial guess is Stapleton Cotton and (possibly) Junot, with new heads and new horses, but you may have alternative ideas. Anyway, it wasn't me, so I don't know for sure. I also received a nicely finished DN31 (Dutch-Belgian general), who will be surprised to find himself leading a Portuguese cavalry brigade in the near future.

6 comments:

  1. All three very nice-looking additions to your collection. Especially the mounted Rifles officers. I wrestled with the same issue years ago with 15mm Napoleonics, but was never able to produce anything satisfactory. Well done!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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  2. Those Rifles chaps look splendid. I have a couple of spare Officers - now, what did I do with my hacksaw...

    Ian

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  3. Ian - steady, the Buffs! I didn't have a hand in these two, but I do a fair amount of beheading and transplanting and I have 2 different sizes of razor saw which I've had for an awful long time. They must be pretty blunt, I guess, but I wouldn't know where to replace them. The traditional, old local model shop run by a madman was a fine institution - they had everything from Cascamite to pin vices to mini brass tubing for your hoime-built steam engines, and every type of specialist hand tool you would ever need.

    I don't spend a lot of time looking, these days, but the model shops I am aware of locally never seem to understand what I'm talking about - if Games Workshop don't produce a boxed item the it doesn't exist. Come to think of it, a lot of people don't know what I'm talking about these days.

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  4. Well that's where blogs come in, isn't it?

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  5. Get thaself a jewellers saw - i got a good quality one with dozens of blades for a tenner on ebay last year - much better for precision work than any razor saw i've owned.

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  6. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

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