Monday, April 04, 2011

More on Marine Conversions from Victrix

Turning out to be quite a Victrix week at the moment isn't it, blame it on Salute, no doubt we will be hearing from other companies in the days ahead.

Anyway the March Victrix newsletter is out which as mentioned previously covers the conversion work need to make a box of Center Company Brit's into Marines.

Modelling Victrix British Marines
When gluing plastics it is advised to use liquid plastic cement. However, when gluing metal to plastic it is best to use something like super glue. To get an even better result and bond parts quickly, try placing a small blob of modelling putty in the neck socket, add super glue and then position the head in the neck socket.

Marines on extended duty on shore would have used a backpack just like their line Regiment counterparts. However, for the figures illustrated in these photos we converted the plastic Centre Company figures by removing the backpack straps from the shoulders, back and the strap that goes across the chest.

Simply cut off the straps and anything you don’t want on the back of the figure (canteens, haversack etc) with a sharp modelling knife and file down the areas with a fine modelling file. Then you can make some straps to define the cross-belts on the back of the figure. We have used “Greenstuff” but another technique is to use thin strips of paper. Cut these to length and superglue to the figure (be careful not to stick your fingers to the paper!) Use a cocktail stick and apply some superglue to the paper and coat it. This causes the paper to stiffen and makes it easier to paint. This method is quite good if you are not confident with modelling putty.

I remembered the source for the nice resin boat, pictured below, it was Brittania Miniatures and was going for 50 Euro's however I believe the owner (creator/designer??) passed away very recently and I can't find any current source, so maybe keep your eyes out on EBay for a second hand model.


The pic is from a great review of this model by Roly Herman here.


Now a bit of a moan, I really would like to buy a boat and a few Marines for Sharp but I am not going to pay GBP32 and still have to mess around with green stuff just to get a dozen or so Marines, yet again you feel this a project from Victrix that wasn't exactly fully thought through, it should have been complete metal bodies and just maybe a resin boat, a bit more variety and better proportioned than Foundry would have been enough. Anyway further metals are promised or at least hinted at so lets see what turns up in the future.

If you want to know more about the Royal Marines in the Napoleonic wars there is a good article here at the Napoleon Series.

Another brief outline can be found here


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