A Return to Home Sculpting

 

I continue expanding my 28mm 17th century Eastern European collection. I just placed a hefty order with Warlord Games for that purpose. While they do not specifically carry much besides their Winged Hussars (of which I bought a box), their generic pike&shotte troopers are easy to convert or be used as dollies for more unconventional types.

However, that order has left my wallet a little bit bare, so instead of investing in another heap of lead, I turned to more economic solutions. I still have a lot of Green Stuff and Magic Sculpt, and also a bunch of Oyumaru/Blue Stuff for making press moulds.

I'm in awe of Master Tidmarsh's homecast figure collection, and started thinking along the same lines. However, I don't have a shed or other secluded place where I can tuck casting equipment safely away from pets, so I shall remain with my tried and tested method.

I made a previous post about experimenting with the thing, and learned a few things since:

1) The figure shall be cast without the arms attached.

2) The best end result occurs when you add a bit more resin to the mould than the volume of the casting, but just a little bit more to avoid excessive flash and/or distortion.

3) Applying constant, but not very strong pressure to the mould while curing makes a better result (as the oyumaru itself is a bit flexible).

4) Static poses where the figure can be easily 'cut in half' vertically generally work better.

With that in mind, I made a master sculpt from a Perry HYW archer's body and a Frostgrave crewman's head. All it needed was some filling, sanding, classic Cossack hairdo and a few buttons on the coat.

Now if you look at images of Cossacks, be it art or reenactors, you can see that their dress varies from the plain to the very garish, and I thought it's easier to have a very plain master and dress the figures up later once the basic one is cast.

So that's what I did, I made a pair of moulds and started producing clones of Oleg Basikovich. Fortunately I've got an abundance of spare arms and weapons, so the first four troopers and a sergeant are already complete and await their first lick of paint. As you can see it's rather easy to vary their headgear, add a longer overcoat or lacing etc.

My final goal is to build 2x8 pike-armed Cossacks and 2x8 with muskets, for the latter I'll use spare arms from the Warlord firelocks set. With the two moulds I can produce two to six figures a day, so it's not a far fetched goal at all. I also have some artillery crew and rabble foot in the making.

Later on I'll of course expand the collection with commercially produced figures, but these shall serve well as a core for my army.