1/72 - Converting Colonial War Indian Troops to WWI
Dated: January 27, 2009.
By
Mr. Nuno M. Cabeçadas
Portugal
I started to publish today the conversion process in my blog for the WW1 Midle East Indian Infantry. These figures, except the officer, have the original rifles, Martini-Henri, I guess, replaced with Lee Enfields. The pics show the sequence of this small conversion. Now they may start shooting the Turks and supporting the ALH.
There is a special method to replace weapons, I cut the hands and, if necessary, the whole arm. This ensures that the original hands are holding correctly the weapon and the cuts are easier and cleaner. Usually, a straight cut is enough to detach a hand or a complete arm without damaging the model and the wider surface makes gluing much easier. Only after a conversion work I consider I'm able to talk about the plastic and I liked this soft plastic because it is very easy to work. Its very easy to cut, takes glue and paint easily and conversions are really very easy, I found it very pleasent to work with.
As any nice model allowing for conversions and made with a soft plastic, easy to paint and to glue, I liked the Indians and consider them as having a fabuous potential. I can use them as riders, as gun crews, as infantry, like the one you saw, and much more.
The sequence:
1. The figures with hands and one arm already cut and the replacement parts cut from the Canadian Infantry set. My option is to never cut just the guns, but also the hands and arms, if required. This allow the hands to grab better the weapon and the cuts are much easier to make and cleaner.
2. The replacements are already glued and some small adjustments made. The method I use allows for a larger gluing surface and become much easier to adjust and glue the parts correctly. Trying to replace just the weapons may easly end here when the correct adjustment become near impossible or the gluing area is too small to ensure that the parts stay in place.
3. The primer allows for an easier paint job, but also to disguise small imperfections. Sometimes its needed to fill or cut and to repaint the figures as some small errors are only seen in this step. However, its essential that the whole figure is painted with black and dry before proceeding to te next step.
4. The first dry brush paint is already done. This is in fact composed of several thin layers, each one with the brush dryer and with more white added to the paint. The result is a highlighted figure and at some distance may look almost finish.
5.6. The final result, with four Indians, three of them converted to use the Lee Enfield rifle instead of the original gun.
Many thanks to Mr. Cabeçadas.