20mm (1/72) Vietnam Commission

A customer contacted us about a 1/72 scale (about 20mm sized) Vietnam commission. The commission would use figures made by both Italeri and Pegasus. He wanted both sides done at the same time to he could start gaming immediately.

The PAVN (North Vietnamese) were manufactured by Italeri. :

  Close up view of the PAVN:

Next up are the US Marines. These figures were manufactured by Pegasus:

Both kits were made from a softer plastic, with the Pegasus kits the softer of the two. I washed the sprues and then set about finding the right glue. I took a trip to the hardware store and picked up a few packs of glues made for softer plastics. Then I cut off a few pieces of sprue and tested the glues.The best that I found is the one pictured below:

This glue formed a nice solid bond. The packaging is easy to use with a fine dropper hole making it very easy to control the amount of glue placed at the bonding site.

We used our usual cheap Walmart flat black paint for a primer. I did a test spray first to make sure it would bond to the softer plastic and it worked like a charm. Next both sides received an airbrushed base coat is an appropriate color, then the brush painting began. Despite the horror stories one hears of the difficulties of working with soft plastics the job went pretty smoothly. The figures took paint well and I used a bit more of a washing technique on these than normal to pick out the details better. I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out.

15mm American Indians and AmericanCivil War

Here's another commission for a customer. This order included 15mm American Indians for the French and Indian War (FIW) period and 15mm Confederate artillery and crew for the American Civil War (ACW). The Indians were made by Khurasan Miniatures and the ACW figures are Old Glory 15's.

I can't lay entire claim to the skin tones on the Indians. The customer had started these and ran out of steam so the skin was partially completed. I added a touch of shading and highlighting and finished the details. Allison then did the tattoos and warpaint.

The artillery and crews are part of an on-going project. This batch of CSA artillery will complete that portion of the project. Next up is to expand on the previously done infantry, following up with markers, limbers, and so forth. The figures are individually based and the guns are un-based to allow the customer to use them with a variety of rule sets.

28mm Napoleonic Prussians Start Off the New Year

The first order getting sent out this year is a commission of 28mm Napoleonic Prussians manufactured by Calpe. Calpe makes a great figure with fine detail and good character. There are two units for the customer: the I and II battalions of the 3rd Silesian Landwehr from 1815. Since the customer will be doing his own basing the figures are still on the painting sticks.

Landwehr uniforms were all over the place. Since supply was spotty units could appear varied not only from their uniforms but also from their equipment. We chose to go with grey trousers for one battalion and white for the other. Since the time period is rather late we didn't vary things up so much figuring supply might have been better toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars. I had sources that placed both black coats and blue coats on the Silesian Landwehr but went with the blue.

Old Citadel & Ral Partha RuneQuest and D&D Figures

Here are images from a recent order Allison painted up of some old school Ral Partha and Citadel miniatures for D&D and RuneQuest. The RuneQuest miniatures were from the box they put out far too many years ago. We have several of these in our collection and I recall painting them many years ago. Needless to say, mine don't look anywhere near as good as these do. For the rougher sculpting I think they turned out wonderful!


First a few familiars from Ral Partha. These are very tiny; the rat is only the size of your little finger nail:

The group of adventurers arrayed:

Beginning of the close-up shots sweeping from left to right:

You can see the one figure which was included in the first Battle System box in the center. I was amazed he still had his mace after all these years!

The mage in this picture had the top of his staff broken off. I dug around in our massive bits pile and found something to top it off. A bit of drilling and pinning gives him a new staff topper:

The RuneQuest duck front and center. NEVER mess with a duck in a dungeon!

You can definitely see the late 70's in the figure to the right of the duck:

Freehand work on the shield:

The customer was absolutely thrilled with these. Allison at first wasn't too happy with how they were turning out. She started painting on Reapers and Games Workshop figures and the quality of miniatures made today, especially from those two companies, is light years beyond these. These figures do have a unique quality, and maybe a bit of nostalgia makes them a bit of a favorite. At least they now have a coat of paint that can show their potential and give them a place of honor in their owner's collection.