"WSS WiP Wargames Factory Plastics" Topic

This project sort of grew over the last 3 weeks. It was suggested to me by a very well respected member of this forum.I may have gone a little beyond the original suggestion but when you get up steam with these things it becomes a bit addictive for me. Below is a selecttion , there are 32 pictures on my new blog..I will post a link below the pictures. Liquid green stuff and my beloved pyrograuve, a good sharp scalpel and… a bit of imagination and the perusal of art works representing the time are a great set of aids. I have some firm ideas now on the meaning of military artworks.

all may be seen at
link

Fantastic work! I am chugging away at an Imagination army of my own using them – these are great inspirations

Awesome, great work!

thanks chaps I haven't exactly decided their fate as yet..
next I may do some dismounted officers in boots..

A goodish effort, however the saying "you cant polish a t#$d" immediately springs to mind when looking at the rather average horses. Still, considering the price of WF box set, you get what you pay for (the joins at the neck are simply terrible), good value for dabblers and beginners I guess.

I am chugging away at an Imagination army of my own using them

Very keen to see how you are progressing with yours Frederick, any pics or a link?

regards
dave

Very, very nice work.

Your encouraging observations Paint Pig are exactly what I expect from one as perceptive as you . I, for one , would so much like to see some more of your "polished s" as you so quaintly put it…

Your encouraging observations Paint Pig are exactly what I expect from one as perceptive as you

Thank you, kind of you to say so.

I'm simply pointing out that even a man of your "talents" will struggle to improve those horses, and maintain the rest is a good effort. I fail to see how this has offended , but if it has I grovel forgiveness!

I, for one , would so much like to see some more of your "polished Bleeped texts" as you so quaintly put it…

Be my guest

you have a peculiarly oblique and elliptical manner in stating a simple and straight forward proposition.

I just bought three boxes of each recently and I thought of using a spare "infantry" drummer's drum/arm on a mounted figure too. I'm glad to see it fits alright.

Great work.
I gotta agree with Paint Pig though, no matter how good a painter / modeller you are, (and you are very good with the brush) those bloody WF horses are horrible.
Not much you can do with them I suspect. I'm struggling with them myself at present. I'm even considering binning all the horses and replacing them with some EUREKA horses. I'll need to see how well a rider will fit however,…
I've got 3 boxes of them and the horses are a real dissapointment 'sigh'
Happy to sel them to anyone who wants the at half price :o)

Great work all the same. I particularly like the Officers.

I would gladly take two or three horses off of your hands Trailape, interested to see where they went astray in the flesh (polymer).

I could use them as disruption and possibly objective markers for Maurice? Lying wounded or riderless at the gallop?

Minden sell horse separately and Ebor too I believe.

regards
dave

ps hows my mate Mikey travelling?

that's not the standard drum as it comes Andy , it is a conversion I don't much like the drummer in the box so I don't use it..I take the two hhalves of the drum and trim the lugs and glue it together.then I fiddle with the arms..that dragoon drummer has the Perry ACW drummer's right hand and drum with part of it shaved off so as to adhere to the body..I don't seem to have a pic of the drummer from the right
found one!

as for the horses, paint on a crupper, or liquid green stuff one.. same for some other straps . and paint them , in the end they are no worse than some of the crappy metal horse around.You will have major problems replacing them unless you are into scratch building saddle cloths and pistol housings..which most people aren't. I will take some picture of finished horses, like all things when in context many grievances will most probably be soothed..

Cardinal Hawkwood, your stuff looks good to me. I actually bought some WSS WGF on sale this weekend due to your influence. I am going to do the Great Northern War with mine.I have seen lots of lead that is of far worse quality than these. Yes, there are better but for the price these minis are just fine and will look great painted.

thanks I have a very bad cold, almost pneumonia , and one of the weird things about it is you feel awful all day and sudden;y at 2 in the morning you are wide awake.. this happened last night so I got up, made a pot of tea and planned some more figure conversions..I need a clerk /offcer holding an ink well and a goose feather plume pen , another officer writing a message with a goose quill and I am fretting about all the senior officers in shoes and stockings..but on inspection this morning a little bit of work and painting them black should work

Yes there are many metal horse that aren't up to the mark, I don't buy them either if I can find an alternative. There are plenty that are "good" and some that are excellent.

My original reply stated the horses are rather average (I was being generous) and continued by pointing out just one flaw ie the neck joins. This I suspect can be fixed with a bit of putty, file and emery paper.

How you fix the rump of a horse from being smaller than the girth of the neck or no hind quarter is beyond me and as for the ears and…meh

Again, as I mentioned, for the price these are no doubt very good value for money particularly if you want to dabble in a period or your on a budget. Your bound to have just as much fun with them as any other figure when the "game is on" and that is a good thing no matter which way you look at it, however the horses are not "show and tell pieces" by any stretch of the imagination. This is a pity because the officer models above look to be far better.

regards
dave

thanks for sharing with us your thoughts yet again.We all, no dounbt look forward to you thoughts after you have assembled a set or two Tthe rumps look ok to me.. and painted they look better than a Cusader metal horse.

having spent som time worrying about the fact that the dismounted staff should be wearing riding boots rather than stockings and buckled shoes I finally tackled the problem. I shaved off the buckle and using several layers of liquid green stuff applied with a brush built up what I think to be convincing bucket topped style riding boots.This opens up the possibility of making dismounted dragoons so that may be my next project.
The trick with the liquid green stuff is to charge the tip of your brush( I use mini liners so this isn't difficult) with a blob of green stuff, then carefully paint it on.Wait till it dries and repeat..you can build the boot top up over the breeches bottom /stocking top,using the gaiter/breeches join as a defintion and leaving a gap at the rear so you can paint in the boot stocking..you need to build the calf up somewhat as well to give it a bit of boot mass..but it looks convincing and hopefully more so when painted..I toyed with adding spurs..too much for a person with a mighty bad cold..

see
TMP link
and spare hangers would be helpful as well

CH – I thought PP was being nice, but maybe I missed something. I did not read that he was critical of YOUR efforts, but only the actual WF horses as produced. of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I do not think PP was trying to be offensive to you.

As to what you are doing with the WF stuff – looks ok to me, and painted will sit on the table just fine, so I look forward to seeing them finished.

And hope the cold gets better :-)

Thank you Mark that was my point from the very beginning.

regards
dave

PP is a bit of a cloudy issue..

I'd never heard of Liquid Green Stuff before; just checked it out on the GW website.

Gonna have to get some of that!!

it is handy, if you take some time to build it up in layers. hte stockings and shoes to boots worked well, a bit time consuming but necessary

I did not read that he was critical of YOUR efforts, but only the actual WF horses as produced.

Same here. I think CH does great work but I think the WF horses are 'dogs'.
;o)
The idea of using spare bits from the PERRY ACW range is gold. I've got 6 boxes of WF WSS Infantry, (which are quite good) that I will now look at 'tinkering' with some spare bits from my PERRY and VICTRIX plastics.
Thanks for the tip.
Cheers

Has anyone managed to convert existing plastic kits from other periods to use with SYW? For instance the French hussars from Perry with 1792 heads might pass for generic SYW hussars perhaps?

dolmen way too short

I guess that is what is meant by converting CH….

Try starting a new thread cae5ar and provide some links to the Perry's you have in mind and we can discuss the if's. Make sure you cross post to the plastic figures group ol'boy, sculpting too prolly wouldn't hurt.

regards
dave

pm if your having trouble just noticed your a nooboy tmp-er

Hi Guys
Dan Dunbar of "Gunner Dunbar" fame is probably the best "converter" I know. He's currently converting some 18mm Wurtemberg Lights and French grenadiers into Wurtemberg 'Guard' for me. He also did some great work in turning some VICTRIX 'Waterloo' Higlanders into some Peninsular campaign 'tatty' Highlanders for me.
I'm sure he'd be able to offer some good advice, (in addition to the chaps here on this thread of course).
Cheers

SYW is a difficult call conversion wise..

Revisiting this thread after quite some time, I remembered a possible solution to the "narrow rump" on the horses.

Historex horses were thought by some to be a little narrow across the rump. The approach used there was to insert a narrow wedge of plastic card between the two halves of the body. This had the effect of broadening the rump whilst keeping the shoulders the original width. Once the glue was set, the plastic card was sanded down to blend in to the body contours.

A nice technique if you're doing one or two horses, but a bit of a drag if you are looking at several dozen.

Thank you DH – a helpful suggestion for some generals' mounts, though less so, as you say, for a few regiments of Horse…

Still, I think the WGF horses are workable enough. Capturing horses in motion is notoriously difficult (3D studio are doing a great job of it, if slightly over the top on manes), and then there's the difference between period horses and our modern idea of the beast…

Great work, but darn I hate those bloody horses.
You've done well with them however.
I'm inspired to attack the 8 boxes I have sitting in my shed.