54mm Charge of the Scots Greys

[Steve Jones]

Glad to see you are up and running with this one Neil. Looking forward to seeing all your adjustments and additions.

[Neil Merryweather]

Glad to see you are up and running with this one Neil. Looking forward to seeing all your adjustments and additions.

I'm sure I can find some rivets somewhere for you............

[Neil Merryweather]

Sorry chaps it's been a whole month since my last post on here.
I haven't been entirely idle on this build but I preferred to spend the few stolen moments building rather than posting.
Anyway here come a few updates.



The pose of the rearing horse is actually quite good when laid on the ground, but I need to curve the neck a bit and retract the left foreleg.
The neck first- I cut v sections out of it (not quite all the way through) bent it into shape
and glued it back together



I cut the leg at the knee and inserted a piece of copper wire to help with the positioning. While it was separate I dremelled out the frog of the hoof and added a Historex horse shoe (Richard's fault....).


More to follow tomorrow
cheers
Neil

[scottie3158]

Neil,
The conversions look good. I have tried to modify figures in the past but they always come out looking like they got caught in a threshing machine lol.

[Peter Gillson]

Nice update, look forward to tomorrow's installment

Peter

[Neil Merryweather]

Here is a pic of the altered leg.

the next challenge is to arch the horse's back over the rider's leg, and also to give it a little twist

With the razor saw I cut another set of wedges out of its trunk

clamped it together with loads of glue





Next up is the Scots Grey Horse
thanks for looking
Neil

[rtfoe]

Neil, the modifications look really drastic...lots of surgery but necessary for the pose needed. :thumb2:

Cheers,
Richard

[Jason Crausby]

Great work Neil...got to admire your willingness to get stuck in to get the right results!
Jason

[Guest]

That poor horse! Bold and brave modelling Neil.

[Neil Merryweather]

Paul, Peter,Richard ,Jason and Peter - many thanks for your interest.
Yes it's drastic but strangely it's not this part that worries me- it's the painting where I fear I could let it down.I know if I just painted it bronze it would look fine(now there's a thought!).
So, on to the Scots Grey horse. I decided to get stuck into this quite soon as all the horses and figures interact with one another so it's important to treat them simultaneously rather than one at a time.
The kit horse is also quite close in feel to what we need for the painting.

but it still needs a bit of surgery




Not a great pic,sorry, but it shows how I cut the right foreleg and inserted wire to straighten it.
the left side needed a bit more work.

The extension of the hind leg can remain but it needs to be pivoted forward. The foreleg needs to be pivoted upwards and the hoof extended and straightened.

Next is to move the neck backwards, which requires more razor saw work

I turned the wedge of neck around to fill the space left by the tilting

But it left a funny lump so that will be filed off before the filling stage. I will be using milliput as it will give me some headway on the resculpting required.

So here he is from something like the same angle as the painting

That’s it for now , I’ve got a lot of filling and filing and sanding to do now.

Thanks for looking

Neil

[rtfoe]

OOh, very nice Neil. From this angle it looks just right.

Cheers,
Richard

[Steve Jones]

Quite the hatchet job Neil. Looks like you know what you are doing. Looking good so far

[Neil Merryweather]

Thank you chaps!
The consequence of bending the cuirassier horse's back is that the Sheepskin and blanket don't fit properly

So I separated it into 3 parts and trimmed a wedged out of the joint at the girth strap.This will be underneath so not seen. I trimmed some of the bulk from the underside of the sheepskin too.

I've lost most of the triangular tabs so they will have to be remade from something or other ,yet to be decided.
The fact that the horse is lying on its side mans we can see under the sheepskin, so I had to do a bit of internet searching to find out what is there. Turns out it's the pistol holster, so I found one in the 50 year-old spares box .

I think it's from the Airfix George Washington.
Then I attacked the sheepskin with the pyrogravure, which I will probably tone down a bit with some liquid cement.
I sharpened up the strap edge and added a Historex buckle.


That's all for now folks,thanks for watching.
Neil

[Guest]

Brilliant chopping and modelling Neil.

[rtfoe]

Surgeon at work. :thumb2:

Cheers,
Richard