Neil's Airfix 54mm 95th Rifleman

[Windy]

Hi Neil. Looking forward to seeing this one progress. I remember trying to build it when I was a kid but it was disastrous! What paints will you be using? You can get a good Rifle Green by mixing Humbrol 76 and 33, or Vallejo 970 deep green and black.

[Neil Merryweather]

Welcome George and Hi to Alex - the pressure's on now we have genuine grasshopper watching!

[Neil Merryweather]

Right
Here’s the obligatory Sprue shot


What’s nice about these Airfix kits is they always give you two options. In this case it’s a choice of legs - standing firing or kneeling firing. I’ve chosen kneeling, so I’ve got a nice pair of standing legs for the spares box.


As I said in my introduction, I’m going to convert his position slightly.

Since reading the Sharpe books I realised that skirmishers rarely used these by-the-book positions so I’m going to try to make him look a bit more natural and under pressure, by having him more hunched and steadying his arm on his left knee.

Here goes!

The first thing to do is to cut wedges out from behind his knees so they can fold more


I use a jeweller’s saw for this rather than a razor saw, as it doesn’t clog with the plastic and it’s possible to cut curved lines if I want -it’s not important for these cuts to be straight, anyway.


Here’s his other leg treated in the same way, although I had to bend his ankle as well to compensate for the change of angle of his lower leg





And here’s the before and after


thanks for looking,
Neil

[Guest]

Brave man Neil. Taking a saw to something that small can't be easy, but it's worked very well.

[JR]

Great tip there Neil,:thumb2: so cut and just fold back and fill if required ?

[Neil Merryweather]

Brave man Neil. Taking a saw to something that small can't be easy, but it's worked very well.

This is the fun part, Peter. It's the painting that frightens me!

[Jim R]

Hi Neil
I'm in. That alteration makes the stance look much more natural.
Jim

[Neil Merryweather]

Great tip there Neil,:thumb2: so cut and just fold back and fill if required ?

Absolutely John,although that's with the nice soft Airfix plastic. Dragon or Tamiya plastic is a bit more brittle, so you might need to drill a thin soft wire in.

[Neil Merryweather]

Hi Neil
I'm in. That alteration makes the stance look much more natural.
Jim

cheers, Jim

[Windy]

This is the fun part, Peter. It's the painting that frightens me!

Painting faces frightens me! I always leave them till last in case I screw them up! :smiling5:

[JR]

Absolutely John,although that's with the nice soft Airfix plastic. Dragon or Tamiya plastic is a bit more brittle, so you might need to drill a thin soft wire in.

Might work equally as well with MiniArt then Neil ,that must be like Airfix, as very soft .

[Neil Merryweather]

I drilled holes in his torso, arms and head and inserted soft copper wire to enable me to get the pose right-this is especially helpful when you have two hands holding a rifle or something.

I also cut off his jacket skirts because they would stick out unnaturally once I leaned his torso forward. You’ll notice I have chamfered his waist a bit to enable that to happen. It means he’s lost a row of buttons, but they would be covered by his waist belt anyway.




I left him like this over night and I wasn’t quite happy with the pose, so I took him apart and revised the position slightly




that's all for now
thanks for looking
Neil

[Neil Merryweather]

I set to with the Milliput, left him overnight and when I came back I realised that I as a consequence of pivoting his right leg outwards I had left him rather small behind and rather well endowed in front…..


I doesn’t do to frighten the horses so I took a riffler file to his bits, poor chap. His bottom was too small so at the second pass with the Milliput I sorted that out, and rounded out his thighs a bit , too.

I’m just not one of these people who can get it right first time- I always need a second or third attempt. As far as sculpting with Milliput goes, I envy people who can get a finished article by simply modelling- I find I always have to fettle quite a lot with a file and fine wet and dry, no matter how well I think I have modelled. I have been doing this a long time and I have quite a lot of purpose designed modelling tools at my disposal, but I always seem to use the same two or three……

On checking out re-enactor websites I have decided not to re-attach the tunic skirts from the kit as they are longer and more elaborate than what the well-dressed 95th Rifleman is wearing these days. I guess there has been more detailed research carried out in the 40+ years since this kit was designed.


Also, having a second figure in mind, I would have to replicate them from scratch, and although I have everything else I need in the spares box, I don’t have the skirts.

All this meant that I had to pay more attention to his bum (Matron…….) because more of it would be visible.

Talking of the second figure, when I had to re-organise the spares box a while ago I found a pair of Multipose US Marine legs that inspired me, and I had already decided to make a 95th Rifleman before I went to Cosford and got my bargain.

So here is my first pass at the pose.

The idea is that he is charging his Baker rifle from his powder horn, whilst his oppo takes aim at the Voltigeurs across the battlefield.

Thanks for looking

Neil

[Guest]

Looking good Neil :smiling3:.

[scottie3158]

Neil,
I like the way you go about converting the poses, I have never had a go but I think I need to buy some cheap figures and have a play. Looking forward to the paint.