Conte Mexican conversions to napoleonics! (1 Viewer)

[fishead19690]

I,ve been working on making some conte mexicans into napoleonic dutch milita. I,ve been wanting to convert some of these into dutch/belgain troops because the uniforms are almost right on but the shakos were not right for the conversion to the troops I wanted to make and the only heads I could find to do the conversion were to small.but then Italeri came out with there 95th riffles figures which had the right type of shako that I was looking for.
The shako needed some work to transform it into a dutch shako. I had to remove the hunting horn and the chords with a razor and then I used 2 part putty to make a new shako plate and make the plume a bit larger also and add the cockcade inbetween the two.

The cuffs had to be trimmed a bit to remove the mexican style cuffs and the shoulder straps had to be trimed also.

I also converted all of the figures poses with the exception of the firing pose.Those of you familar with the stock conte poses should pick up on that.

Here they are first in the ruff unfinnished stages of the conversions and then painted up finnished figures that still need a bit of touching up here and there when I get my eye site back from the long painting session.

 

[fishead19690]

 

[fishead19690]

 

[fishead19690]

 

[modwalls]

Wow Fish, you think you would know what you were doing or something. Nice job, if you did not tell us about the plumes and shoulder things, we would never know. No messing around with you, you even painted them. Great stuff, Mike

 

[Wraith]

Cool conversions and the shako tweaks are brilliant! Very detailed and well done. As Mike said, you wouldn't be able to tell once painted. Great job!

Simon

 

[The Lt.]

Once again Surgeon Fish very nicely done.....The Lt.

 

[kilted vampire]

Timmy Fish, Nice work. Italieri came out with 95th? When was that?

 

[fishead19690]

Timmy Fish, Nice work. Italieri came out with 95th? When was that?

Vamp, they have been out for awhile already! They also released french mameluke cavalry also.

A.I.P. have just released some 95th rifles also. I havn,t gotten any of the A.I.P. yet but there is a picture of them on the steve weston toy soldier site.

Heres a picture of some of the Italeri I started to paint up. I havn,t finnished painting them yet but there getting close.
I did a few head swopes on these guys in the photo, the stock factory figures only have 8 poses and the two kneeling guys are the only ones wearing the tam caps. All the standing poses come with shakos.

 

[Louis A. Cortez]

Great job on the conversions. What did you use to glue the arms back together. I am trying conversions and have not found a glue that works all the time. Help. Great work. Very impressive.

 

[fishead19690]

Great job on the conversions. What did you use to glue the arms back together. I am trying conversions and have not found a glue that works all the time. Help. Great work. Very impressive.

I wouldn,t use glue to do conversion work other then some zap a gap glue here and there on certian things. The glue will not hold good enough and the pieces will most likely just fall back apart again. You need to hollow out the 2 sections to be joined together a bit and get some 2 part putty in there to help hold the pieces together better or add a pin or rod.
I never liked the pin method because its harder to get the parts to line up correctly and look natural so I started the 2-part putty method with the hollowing out of both pieces to be joined method(the deeper the hole and the more putty you can pack in the better the hold).

I don,t know if there are other guys out there using this method or not but it was just something I started doing on my own and seems to work just as good as the pins and rods when do right, or at least it works for me anyway.

I have droped many of my conversion and also packed them away in bulk like any other plastic figures and with only a few exceptions haven,t had any problems.

I did a how to post on how I do my conversions here on the forum here is a link to the thread for you.
http://www.treefrogtreasures.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3183

There are also a lot of posts here on the forum about conversions if you use the search option and type in conversions I,m sure you,ll find most of them.

A few other guys here on the forum also like to convert figures also like Modwalls, binder, wraith just to name a few and do some realy nice work and we all seem to do things a bit different from each other.
It would be a good idea to try all the different methods and see wich way works best for you or even mix a bit of everyones methods or find your own way of doing them.
There are a lot of different dirrections to go in, I know mike uses the gary dutko soldering iron way of doing them but you,d have to ask him about how to do that? Thats not my bag and only seems to work oncertain plastics from what I hear. I may try this in the future but haven,t gotten around to it yet.

Start out easy with a few heads swopes and then get more daring from there but watch your fingers and always cut away from yourself.

Good luck!!! Post some pictures of your work when your done and don,t get discouraged if the first ones don,t come out that great, they,ll get better with each new one you do and you,ll also get more creative as you go and you,ll learn from your mistakes.

Study your figures and use your imagination before you start to chop, or you could also chop all your figures into a couple of hundred pieces and hope that you DON,T remeber how they went together and when you do get them back together they look nothing like what you started with!

 

[modwalls]

Great job on the conversions. What did you use to glue the arms back together. I am trying conversions and have not found a glue that works all the time. Help. Great work. Very impressive.

Louis I'll second everything Fish said. It really all depends on the type of plastic your working with. I use different methods on different plastics. I do use the Fish method quite a bit now, but I still put the pins through the shoulders. I like the two part epoxy for filling in shoulder and large area joints. I only use the soldering method on the Canadian Conte plastic. It bonds the joints perfect, and creates seamless joints. Have fun and give it a try, like Fish said, cut away, take your time.Mike

 

[Louis A. Cortez]

Thanks guys. I have tried some and they did not come out too good. I will try again this weekend. Thanks for all your advice. You have inspired me to try again. I was thinking that perhaps conversions was just not for me. I'll let you know how it goes.
Lou

 

[fishead19690]

Thanks guys. I have tried some and they did not come out too good. I will try again this weekend. Thanks for all your advice. You have inspired me to try again. I was thinking that perhaps conversions was just not for me. I'll let you know how it goes.
Lou

Don,t give up!!! My first efforts were not very good either. Look at what you have done and ask yourself what is it about this figure that dosn,t look right??? What is it you don,t like about this figure??? And then ask yourself what can I do to improve what I don,t like about this figure?

I know this seems ovbious but just keep telling yourself the next ones going to be better. Thats what I do! I love living in denial.

 

[kilted vampire]

Vamp, they have been out for awhile already! They also released french mameluke cavalry also.

A.I.P. have just released some 95th rifles also. I havn,t gotten any of the A.I.P. yet but there is a picture of them on the steve weston toy soldier site.

Heres a picture of some of the Italeri I started to paint up. I havn,t finnished painting them yet but there getting close.
I did a few head swopes on these guys in the photo, the stock factory figures only have 8 poses and the two kneeling guys are the only ones wearing the tam caps. All the standing poses come with shakos.

Thanks Tim. There is a shop that sells AIP around here. It is a hobby shop of all things.