Well, what with the talk of new plastic pistoliers, wouldn't it be just my luck that part of my GT 2006 preparations include the ubiquitous kitbash of a squadron of Pistoliers?
Yes it would
Undeterred by those rumours, I forged ahead. Armed with my trusty Swann-Morton scalpel (many a fingertip have we mauled together!), set of files, choice selection of glues and a little greenstuff, I managed to produce the following:
As you can tell, the basis for this unit was a set of five common Pistoliers. I got a reasonable deal on eBay and went with it, as I like the legs better than the plastic Knight or Command alternatives. The kitbash parts came from my bitz box, bolstered by a fresh box of Soldiers as I'd used up all my armoured torsos on the Greatswords. But I needed some extra Soldiers anyway. Honestly.
I now have five pistolier torsos lying around. Will trade for a decent meal or a warm blanket.
A new step for me was converting the horses to get some more dynamic poses. There's only so many times you can swap body halves around, and I felt that Pistoliers would really benefit from a more impetuous look. I've picked out a few guys to illustrate this:
I started off easy by making a rearing horse - a classic! There really wasn't much to it - I cut off the rear hooves and re-attached them at a different angle. Horse ankles are no good when they've been sliced through, especially if they need to carry the entire model: You may notice that only the left-hind leg actually meets the base, so that one has been pinned. The John Woo pistols give the model a sense of urgency which I was quite pleased with, as if the rash lad had thundered into trouble a bit too quickly.
I was also quite pleased with the pistol action on the Marksman. The repeater pistol was clipped off a CLASSIC OOP RARE outrider I had lying around and pinned to the arm, the join covered by some greenstuff. The bulk of the pistol makes it look like pretty serious business, and is emphasized by having the model hold it in both hands. I couldn't help mumbling "Bang! Bangbang!" while building this one
My favorite horse pose, which actually comes out better in the group picture, I angled this one to look like it was turning tightly, around whatever's on the receiving end of that pistol. The horse also leans over to the left while its head is twisted right, which I think adds nicely to the dynamic.
Obviously I've still got a little cleaning-up to do on these guys (once I get into the trance of hacking and slashing, I oftern overlook bits of flash), but I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out. More pics will follow once they're painted, of course. They will receive the same colour scheme as my current Pistoliers, with a little red and blue thrown on the cloth bits: I'm hoping this will allow me to mix both units up, leaving me with two interesting looking squadrons, instead of one cool one and one that's sort of... Mêh.
