Painting update - 40mm moderns, 28mm Arthurians and CTs

I've been flitting between all sorts of projects the last couple of weeks - but have managed to get a fairly wide variety of things finished :-)

Assorted 40mm figures from HLBS, Irregular and Battle forge. Seperate weapons from TAG were used on quite a few figures.  Overall,  very pleased how these guys came out, and how well the figures mix together! 

I've almost finished the CTs - I think there are only 5 more after this lot. Only the pistol chap and the Bren gunner are stock, the others are converted Foundry figures and a weapons swap. The shotguns are the Miniature Mojo ones, and they fit in well with the Brittania sculpting style...

Lots of dark age fantasy stuff! Druids, farmers, a werewolf (inspired by the Frost Mark books as well as one who's name escapes me about a werewolf Avatar of Fenrir during the Viking era), possibly a 13th warband member or very lost arab, Black Shield Irish mercenaries (Cornwell has been a big inspiration! ), Romano-British Levy (white washed shields for some attempt at uniformity) and assorted germanic types.  Figures from Black Tree Designs, Foundry, Gripping Beast (including their plastic dark age warriors with West Wind heads), Eureka and West Wind (werewolf)

WiP update - various projects

It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I better put something up before I fell out of the habit again.  :-)

Progress has mainly been focused on 40mm stuff, but the last week or so has seen me dabbling in all sorts of projects.  Between going to a reenactment (as a punter for once) getting me fired up for a dark age stuff, and restarting Sleeping Dogs getting me fired up for afokf I have been hopping between things like crazy.  I am still having issues doing text captions for pictures, so apologies in advance for the block of unlabelled pictures.  I was about to call them figures, which shows I have thesis writing firmly lodged at the back of my mind! 

There is a 40mm Shirvan government soldier who has been converted to hold a TAG RPG-7, some Shirvan army special forces (originally early 90s green berets, updated with snazzy m4 carbines to show the governments western leaning), a couple of mercenaries (originally British royal marine Arctic warfare chaps, with TAG weapons), 28mm Malayan emergency CTs converted from Foundry ww2 Japanese (which will round out my CT platoon), assorted 15mm types (mick yarrow stone age and bronze age warriors, a few stray zulus) to act as 'hidden folk' for my dark ages games (definitely channeling the Brownies from Willow - I see these folks as pretty wild, with bronze and stone weapons and lots of rabbit and squirrel furs. The owl on the shaman's base, the severed head and the fallen tribesman are all an attempt to make them feel like they belong in a 28mm world, whilst  keeping the savage look), a couple of slightly converted early saxons, 3 Latino gangers which will end up joining my afokf triad and an overview of my painting desk (lots of romano British levy, a few saxons, the 40mm vdv from last time and various militia men in mixed camo schemes...)

WiP update: a quick trawl over the desk...

I just thought I'd share some of the WiP stuff and 'things to do' that are currently lurking on my desk. They are mostly 40mms (statues, Russian VDV airborne, milita of shapes and sizes,  government regulars and lots of unstarted stuff) but there are some 28mms (Malayan emergency CTs, security forces, planters and home guard+ ssome deamons for a Fistful of Kung Fu and some near future special forces ) slowly chugging along in between other things.  They'll probably get a boost a bit later this year as John and I were chatting about rules for the Malayan emergency the other week, and he has masses of jungle scenery... I still have lots of 20mm in the pipeline, so there will be more cold war goodness in the future too...

Painting catchup part 1 (or what did I do whilst I wasn't blogging?)

As promised, I'm trying to catch up with posting some of the stuff I have done  before getting back to my blog.  I'll probably go over the figures in more detail another time, with better pictures,  but for now these might give some idea...
(The  28mm Africans in the last picture I painted ages ago, and the 20mm BTR-80's in sand and green were pre-paints. A couple of the Malayan Emergency figures have been redistributed from other projects too)

Painting update (28mm) - Malaya: Planters, Police and CTs..... Hmmm that alliteration was going so well...

These are the Malayan war bits that I've had chance to do so far - Santa bought CTs & some British squaddies, so they should be turning up in the not too distant future... 

'European' (used as a term to distinguish whites) planters and miners - all the figures are conversions/paint conversions. From the left: repaint of a converted Foundry Darkest Africa figure, converted Foundry Chindit, BTD Partizan, Artizan Agent. Very mixed bag of weapons - certainly a few people had  Brens for personal defence, although I'm not sure if any had Thompsons. Mostly it seems to be a mix of 'Sporting' weapons (shotguns, rifles - including a mention of an elephant gun of some sort, and various hand guns) with the government issuing Stens and later M1 (possibly M2?) carbines. The Pacific Tin Mine (? I cant find the reference to it in "The war of the running dogs") also issued shot-barrelled shotguns as part of an 'emergency' arms supply in the early days of the war.

A slightly mix bag: on the left, an (Artizan) Sikh officer of the Malayan Police Jungle squad, a (Tiger/HLBS)  dog for use with a British army dog team and  a Malayan Special  Policeman, of the fort who would have helped guard planters . The uniform colours are both slightly theoretical, as is the colour of the webbing on Special Policeman. I thought it'd be a good way to differentiate him form a CT.

My 'improvised'  (Pulp figures) CTs... I went for a mix of two colours on the uniform to add to the irregular look of the figures.

Malayan Aborigines, Improvised armour and other conversion thoughts

I've been doing some more musings on conversions for Malaya (More they cry? Why don't you stop thinking and start painting?) - specifically regarding the aborigine irregulars that the Brits used, but then they sort of drifted on a bit. For the 'go paint something' readers, I'm getting there - the figures being stripped are getting there, I've just finished painting my sole remaining Malayan Policeman up as the guy in the beret from the 'Minuteman in Malaya' ad (below), painted up a sikh officer as a police jungle squad officer, and a WW2 resistance fighter as a planter (although I'll be doing a few as miners, as I've got a couple of quite American looking pulp figures which I want to use, and a CT attack on a mine will let me use white armed civilians in a reasonable number rather than just a couple at a time) I've started painting a Saladin & a Saracen....

I'll start off my list of conversion ideas and musings with Malayan Aborigines:

Some look quite oriental, whilst others look a lot more Polynesian/Mellanesian. For the purposes of gaming clarity, the non-oriental look will make the figures easier to identify on the table, and give the force a more characterful feel.

 Scheltrum do have a range of Borneo locals (who are the closest to Malaya in terms of ranges available) in the Dyaks in Kyaks range, but the figures look a bit crude and I'm not sure on the comparative size of the figures...

The next  possibilities are the Pulp Figures 'Mellanesian tribesmen'

They are quite 'cartoon savages' in appearance, but compared to some of the pictures from places such as Papua New Guinea, then they don't look so bad. I can see that I'd have to work on the weaponry and shields, plumbing for Blow-pipes and spears, but they are a possibility; especially given the pack of 'Westernised' versions I'll show later.

Brigade do a set of 'Pacific Islanders' which could also be suitable

They all wear loin clothes, and have a similar look to the pulp figures islanders. Again, the weapons might need some work, but are a slightly less hollywood possibility. They also have some 'Westernised' fighters, although I forgot to upload any pictures....

The only other possibility I can think of would be to go for a more 'Dyak'/Indian look

Whilst the Brittania range has a couple of westernised Dyak/Iban scouts, for a more tribal look the closest I've come up with are the Brigade Caribbean head hunter cannibals (Javaro? tribesmen from south america). They've got blow-pipes (although, too short) and a couple of other weapons... but I'm not sure if they are the look I'm really after. 

                            

More thinking required, and I'll carry on looking at the Osprey illustrations and try to draw inspiration. I have a sneaking suspicion it might be a case of converting the Pulp figures; although I'm sure somewhere I've seen some other tribesmen (not pygmies) in loincloths and with blow-pipes. Maybe they were conversions? 

Which brings me to the next subject... Police Aboriginal Guards, a semi-uniform irregular force with a limited uniform, primarily armed with single barrel shotguns (there are pics in the Osprey)

Based of these and the Osprey illustration, I'm currently leaning towards conversions of Foundry Darkest Africa Uniform askari, converting their fezzes into floppy 'boonies' (or removing them altogether), along with doing a bit of work on the muskets to make them look more like shotguns. The negroid faces would also work better with the likes of the Pulp aborigines... speaking of which, the pulp 'provisional fighters' would probably make an appearance as less uniformed members of this force, although I'd be inclined not to bother changing their weapons across. It'll be a case of waiting with an eye on eBay for the Askari I think, as I've sold mine, and don't really want to pay full Foundry prices for something which I may only get a game or two out of...

Along a similar line, although with a more 'civilised' look are Malayan home guard & the Armed workers some rubber planters put together as a crude defence force...

I'm not too sure about figures for these chaps (and chapesses) - I've got the pulp figures students militia in floppy hats to use as rubber tappers, and a stray Kuala Lumpur detective (Based on the 'minute man in Malaya' picture, although I am beginning to think he might actually be a special policeman), but I'm not sure what else to use. Possibly some more assorted Chinese with rifles, and looking at the ladies in the bottom picture maybe some more 'military' types...  

I've still been thinking of adding more variety to my CTs, in addition to the Pulp Chinese I've already got on the model desk. Currently the challenge is getting the uniforms 'about' right (as in the top 2 photos) rather than having some 'suspects' in civvy gear like in the bottom one (who is being treated by a member of a Malayan Police Jungle squad)

I was looking at the Foundry Japanese, and came ot the conclusion that with trouser extensions and a little work on the cap, these guys might also work (the MRLA/CTs used lots of captured Japanese kit, so it isn't too great a step)

My other idea was along similar lines, and involved converting the Warlord SHS Japs with a modified GB/Woodbine Kepi head, but I do wonder if these will be a bit too skinny in comparison.

The Malayan Police are still posing a problem too - I may think about using Askari for them too, but I feel they look a bit too 'neat' for that, and the only other figures in semi suitable attire would be the Foundry Chindits, with heads swops and less webbing...

Western Officers might be easier - I'm hoping that one of the North Africa ranges out there has a chap in officers cap and shorts, to get this sort of feel

And the only other police contingent that I'd really be after would be the 'Jungle squads', who wore a fairly military set of fatigues

As they are quite equipment light, and being predominantly malay will be of slight statrue, I was thinking that some of the commando miniatures Borneo troops, and use the oppertunity presented by seperate weapons to use TAG kit to a) emphasise the diminutive stature of the troops and b) back date them slightly through the use of Stens & SMLEs

The more I look at civillians, the more aware I become of the range of outfits worn by the 3 main 'native' races (Malays, Chinese & Indian Tamils) - so I think a mix of vietnam civillians, Pulp figures chinese and maybe a few Afghan/indians should work well.

The final note is on some of the improvised armoured vehicles which were used - most of this will probably have to be plastic-card conversions of Dinky or Corgi vehicles of about the right scale I think, but no real plans on any of them yet...

Up armoured planters car

Malayan Police armoured car

Armoured train

British army 'armoured' dodge

Bedford Pig

During the early stages of the war, the brits used Brengun carriers, so I was thinking of using the Warlord Brengun carrier, with some of the boonie heads from MoFo/GB. The only problem is that they have cammo netting on, which will be a bit of a faff to cut off, but still, it's probably easier than me trying to sculpt some...!