Green Troops, part 4

17. Added basic sporrans and straps and shoe tongues18. Added dirk and bayonet scabbards and shoe buckles (and a silly highland cow sculpted from leftover greenstuff while sculpting the lads)

19. Added dirks to scabbards and finished off shoe buckles20. Finished sporrans, added belts to 2 of the lads. Added bonus - a little Scottish Terrier I sculpted some time ago - good for a regimental mascot, I think. :-)I think this is about as far as I'll take these before trying to make molds. (apologies for the fuzzy pictures in some cases)

Green Troops, part 3

11. Removed the excess folds from 2 of the figures, clipped the wires from the feet and made bases.

12. Finished backs of coats, with slit.
13. Added buttons to backs of coats and added backs of shoes
14. Added fronts of shoes (still need to add tongue and buckles)
15. Started faces/heads
16. More work on faces, added noses (1 each) and ears (2 each).

I may not do much more with the faces/heads before trying to make molds and cast masters. I'm not fully satisfied with the mouths at this point, but I may just leave them as is (these are for armies, not for high art). I don't think I'll try to make eyes (I don't tend to paint the eyes anyway - I hardly ever dot my eyes - lol). I figure I'll add hair, whiskers, bonnets, etc. as needed.

I may try to refine other parts a bit, such as the lower legs on some. And I think I'll add sporrans, dirks, bayonet scabbards, and shoe buckles. Not sure how much beyond that I'll go on the base figures.

Green Troops, part 2

Further progress on greens. My hope/plan is to make base figures without arms, cast copies and add arms and more details, such as the indispensible bagpiper every Highland regiment needs. Of course, as Robbie Burns said, "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley", so we shall see where this all goes.

Somewhere in here I decided the bodies were looking a bit long and the minis would end up too tall so I snipped a bit off the top.

6. added vests/waistcoats
7. added buttons to vest/waistcoat (using a small diameter brass pipe to "punch" holes in fresh putty - although, the buttons still end up very large, but so what); added the sock garter ends on the far right mini)
8. started adding the jackets and cravats
9. added more jacket details, buttons, buttonholes and such
10. added part of the great kilt's extra material on 2 and brought the coats up to the same level of finish
Hopefully more to follow in the next few weeks.

Green Troops

I haven't been idle, but instead of painting some of the many minis I own I have been lead astray (I mean, inspired) by some other blogs* and I am atempting to sculpt some for myself.
Here are pictures of the first 5 steps, with a Foundry 18th century gentleman for comparison (more pics to follow). Each picture represents 1-1.5 hours of work. This is a big experiment and may come to nothing in the end.
1. Wire armatures (arms to be added later) fleshed out a bit

2. added calves
3. created 2 additional figures and added the base kilts
4. back view of the same
5. musket already in progress; added tops to socks

* inspirational blogs:

• Making Miniatures - http://makingminiatures.blogspot.com/

Covers in detail making miniatures for gaming

• Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog - http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/

You have to go way back close to the beginning to find them, but there are some cool fun minis made by the author of that blog