Early World War One figure conversions

Next I looked at the BRITISH. Well The highlanders are fine as they are without the Lewis gunner, but the Infantry need a bit of extra work.
The helmet head has to go and the gas mask container on the front, which was a little awkward to remove, but once I decided to re-build on the missing '08 webbing it became less of a chore.
I created a peaked cap head and duplicated it to speed up the process, which is working to some extent with a bit of trimming. I will have to convert the prone Lewis gunner into a rifle man and change out the walking Lewis gunner but these are not too difficult conversions.
Here are the first tests of style and paint.

Now for the GERMANS. Like the Highlanders the Early War German Infantry are ready to go with a decent paint job but what else to do with them, the obvious extra unit is JAEGERS. I liked the idea of these but where to get the shako I converted a head to my satisfaction and made a mould which worked out quite well. Since it is covered it didn't need too much detail and I think it fit pretty well on the neck line.

I painted the JAEGER uniform in a more green shade than the infantry which really isn't too noticeable in these pics.

That's the starting point for my Western Front Infantry, I'm looking at the Cavalry soon and will probably end up with British, German, Belgian and French Lancers and Dragoons which can be produced from AIP WW1 sets already out there. More on these in future posts.

Now lets move to another part of the world, AFRICA, this element of WW1 has always been of interest but figures are few and far between so the only way to fill this part of the collection is to make my own. So these conversion are a little more complicated but not overly so, anyone can do them with a little practice and steady hand

I started with GERMAN ASKARI the basic field force of the GERMAN ARMY. Checking out the uniforms for the various colonies - EAST AFRICA, CAMEROON and TOGO I discovered that it is really only the head that alters in the size/shape of the tarboosh or fez. I identified quite quickly that the Boer War British body is ideal for many troop types in many conflicts in many time zones, so all conversions shown are from that base figure. ALL the poses are useful within the three British Sets - SUDAN, NWF and BOER war as they are all basic rifle armed men so they will be very useful for loads of units.

Other ASKARI units can be produced in a similar manner for different countries - BRITISH, BELGIAN, etc. as can be seen here with the British East African.

I now needed to look at the BRITISH in hot weather dress, these guys always look sweltering hot so I wanted them to look 'steamed'. Where to get a source of baggy shorts was the first issue, took a bit of thought but decided on using a highlander and trimming the kilt down to the British Army baggy style shorts and cut down the tunic to the rolled up sleeved shirt. The helmet gave me some issues in trying to get the brim to come out of a mould, so I initially used a commercial metal casting, don't know the brand as I picked up a load of spare metal heads years ago when attending all those London Toy soldier shows, accumulated quite a few different types.
I'll end up making a new head and mould with a wider brim for that Wolseley helmet shape.

I went a different way with the officers shorts , building them on because their pattern was different from the men and seemed to be more close fitting

Thanks guys for your comments.

I'm adding this one here as it will still fit in with the WW1 theme although I was aiming for 'Back of Beyond' interwar, they still work .

Actually the peaked cap British will also work between the wars for action in NWF, INDIA and CHINA

Here are the Highlanders undercoated and ready to be finished off. I did a couple of conversions to remove the Lewis gunner and have some more 'normal' poses.
As with all the units I plan 10 men , 1 sergeant and an officer, so still to do them for the Scots.

I'm using the coloured spray undercoat from Games Workshop and find the coverage very good and the adhesion to the plastic works well.