HELMET Soldiers

Well, as they say, rumours of my death have been exaggerated. I know that it has been a long time since we published a blog, but I do have excuses, of a sort anyway. Firstly having re-entered the world of full time employment has meant that running the soldier business has had to take a back seat, so even more annoyingly has actually converting and painting, but here are the latest efforts, more details below...... Secondly we were burgled, they got into the house whilst we were asleep, got wallets, keys and other small items including the takings from one of the shows we attended and also stole our cars from the front drive, so we have had a lot of replacing activities of a security and vehicular nature, bastards!

Also I'd like to thank those who commented favourably on HELMET in the Littlewars chat room group especially Mike Blake and Gary, thanks guys I'll reply to you off-blog personally, it meant a lot. OK emotional stuff to one side, for those that have stayed with me so far, here's the chat about the pics. First up, three Brits from the War of 1812, the privates are HELMET and the officer is a Barzo figure with a Historex head., I chose him because he has the long coat-tails of the pre 1812 regulations. The private taking a cartridge from his pouch was something of an experiment, I wanted to see if I could change the pose through re-positioning his legs, so when I was gluing him to the metal washer in the usual way (with superglue) I held his legs together until the glue set, you can see the difference by comparing the result with the guy next to him biting the cartridge, not bad when considering these started as the same figure.

Next photo shows some of the 4th Foot, all have HELMET heads replacing the originals, the first if the old Airfix officer who famously has the cross-belt that disappears when it reaches his back, I solved this omission with greenstuff. The next two are ACTA Belgians with trouser extensions (?) and enlarged backpacks, lastly two Replicant British Royal Marines with extra equipment added.

Pic 3 shows some US Riflemen, all have converted HELMET heads. The first from the left is an Accurate AWI Militiaman with legs from an ACTA Napoleonic British Guardsman's legs pinned and glued. The officer is that strange and useless Confederate by Accurate again, who has his left arm and sniper rifle carved away and replaced by the lower fart of the arm from the officer in the Timpo Highlander set, one of our swords and a greenstuff sash - job done! Next up is the torso and upper legs of a CTS chap in hunting shirt firing from horseback, I pinned and glued more legs from ACTA Brit Guards and added a haversack and waterbottle. The last figure is a quick conversion of a Marx remoulded pioneer, picked up from a rummage box at a recent show.

The final two pictures show the first colour party that I've done for the War of 1812. All are sergeants with slightly altered HELMET heads .The man with the buff regimental colour is a BMC Mexican, the musket carrying colour guard started his career as a Timpo Prussian and the fellow with the National colours is HELMET. items such as back packs, sashes epaulets, and on the Prussian, belts, are all from greenstuff. The flags are hand-painted and nearly drove me mad, I have a rule that no unit can field flags until they have a minimum of 40 musket carrying troops, so I don't have to paint that many! The National colour is very heavy once glued to the brass rod pole, so the bearer stand on a small stack of metal washers.

That's it for now, I promise that the next issue will not be as delayed as this one has been. In the meantime all feedback gratefully received, keep painting, enjoy the hobby and be kind to small animals

Take care,

Eric www.helmetsoldiers.co.uk
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