CONVERSIONS BACK FROM THE PAINTER

I wanted to make this my last post of the year, but life got in the way, so it is now becoming my first post of the NEW YEAR.

First off, I'll wish anyone and everyone reading this blog a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Next are some pics of various conversions back from the talented Igwargminis, AKA: Ig, AKA: Igor Olshansky. Included are a couple of conversions I have yet to put up a post about -- a WOODBINE DESIGN "WWI In the East" BRITISH CASUALTY SET (available from Gripping Beast: LINK). I swapped the peaked-cap head of the kneeling chaplain offering the wounded solider some cigarettes out for a Glengarry-wearing head from the Empress Miniatures Zulu War ACCESSORIES RANGE. I also converted an additional kneeling figure offering a sip from his water-bottle, putting one of Woodbine's WOUNDED HEADS (available here: LINK) onto the body of a kneeling Wargames Foundry Indian mountain gunner, whose own head had already been donated to create the Sikh orderly for General Roberts! I removed the ramrod from his hand and replaced it with a spare WATER-BOTTLE from the same Empress Miniatures Accessories range.

The other thing in these pics that I have yet to blog about is converting the turbans of Perry Sudan Bombay/Bengal Infantry into 1880 Bombay Grenadiers, wearing uncovered turbans with visible folds, kullahs sticking up in the middle and one end of their wrapped lungis poking out in front. It's a simple conversion process, all focused on the figure's headgear. Doing it twice for my pair of standard bearers was no problem at all, but doing it for an entire unit -- which I'm still in the midst of -- has been more of a challenge. When the entire unit is done I'll put up a post about how I did it, in case anyone wants the details. I took a few pics with the converted Bombay Grenadier NCO side-by-side with the version that came straight-out-of-the-box. The British officer has a puggaree inspired by a waist-sash worn by a member of the regiment in this illustration from a decade or two later:

I found it on the British Battles Maiwand page. If interested, you can find it about halfway down the page, on the right-hand side: LINK.

The pics below are the first I've ever taken OUTSIDE, rather inside my garage. I lugged one of the terrain boards out to the driveway and set up the figures, while the sun was still out. I think the natural light looks good. On the other hand, I wish I had a camera with true "selective" focus, since no matter how hard I tried to use the touch-screen select, my iPhone camera kept wanting to focus on the ground cover as much as the figures, but I think the ones below turned out okay.

Here's some pics of the figures...

British Cavalry in the Second Afghan War

I've had a request to post some pics of British Cavalry in the Second Afghan War. As far as I know, 6 regiments of British Cavalry saw active duty in the war -- 6th Dragoon Guardss, 8th Hussars, 9th Lancers, 10th Hussars, 13th Hussars, and 15th Hussars.  Of these, only the 9th Lancers and 10th Hussars earned Battle Honors. Below is a somewhat scattershot collection of visual reference. I'm in a bit of a rush right now but I plan to expand this post with some more shots in the future!

Great photo of a group of Officers of the 10th Hussars:

Shot from the PERRY-MINIATURES web-site of miniature 10th Hussars accurately painted for their 1882 service in the Sudan and also their previous 1878-1880 service in Afghanistan:

The shot below gives a view of the 2 narrow yellow stripes down the center of the trouser leg:

Accurately sculpted and painted miniature of 9th Lancer, Afghanistan, 1880, wearing a quilted khaki jacket over blue home service tunic and khaki puttees (the regiment has been recorded wearing these but also wearing black knee boots):

Lancers are pictured dressed as above but also wearing only the blue tunic. The quilted jacket came in very handy during the cold Winter months in Afghanistan.

Contemporary newspaper illustration of the Sixth Dragoons, 1880:

6th Dragoons are recorded as having worn blue home service pants with blue puttees or black knee boots. Although the Dragoons in the above illustration are pictured wearing their scarlet home service tunics, most often in Afghanistan they would worn khaki tunics like those worn above by Troopers of the 10th Hussars.

CONVERSIONS VIII - HATS OFF!

I've been MIA from this blog, due to a crazed deadline at work, but you can't keep a crazed Maiwand Day enthusiast down for too long, so I'm back for a moment or two, with some pics of another very simple but IMHO quite nice little conversion, using:

(1) a Wargames Foundry Colonial British Officer in poshteen...

(2) the mustacheoed BARE HEAD from the Empress Miniatures Anglo-Zulu War Accessories Range...

...and finally:

(3) a spare FOREIGN SERVICE HELMET from the equipment pack in the same Empress Minis range...

I took a couple of reference shots of myself holding my own repro. helmet, to get a better idea of exactly how the helmet would fit in the hand and lay against the leg...

Sadly I don't have any step-by-step conversion process picks but it was very straight forward: X-acto the original head off, adjust the neck stump with blade and file until the join with the neck is as close to perfect as you can get and then super-glue together. Then I cut away the binoculars in the officer's left hand and cleared a tiny slot in the hand for it to grip the helmet with...

Next up are 3 even simpler conversions, all confined solely to changes of heads and their hats:

(1) an Afghan regular artillery crewman, swapping out his head for one of the Empress spares, and ending with a British Army Hospital Corpsman, or, depending on paint job, a British soldier of any branch, useful in a wide variety of roles...

(2) yet another Foundry British officer in poshteen, with his helmeted head replaced with the Empress Miniatures Glengarry-wearing bearded head...

(3) and a Perry Miniatures British officer from the Sikh command pack, holding a water-bottle in his hand, with his head swapped out for an Empress Glengarry-wearing head with a mustache...