Thanks Mike. It’s always good to try something different…
Thanks for that Martin… and thanks for giving us a glimpse into your wardrobe!
So I count this as the most conversion work I have done on a figure so far… not that it’s anything like the dramatic alterations that Jerry Rutman has shown us.
First I had to razor off the guy’s lower legs. These were replaced by a pair of lower limbs from a Tamiya Desert Fallschimjager figure. This also helped to give him a bit more height because the original sculpture is a bit short.
Next I had to bulk out the lower trousers using Tamiya two-part putty. This stuff is very useful for rolling out into thin sheets, but it is very sticky, so you need to use plenty of talcum powder to stop it from staying on the cutting mat or your fingers. Ironically, I then found I had trouble getting it to adhere to the resin figure.
I also used the same putty for the belt and the wider part of the shoulder straps which go over the shoulders.
But the rest of the webbing was made using Tamiya masking tape. The beauty of this is that you can a) thread it through the photoetch buckles and b) it actually sticks to the model whilst you work with it!
The buckles, by the way, came from the excellent Aber 1/35 Assorted Buckles & Straps Detailing Set # 35A21:
To help stiffen / attach the masking tape and also soften any rough areas of sculpting I used Mr Hobby 40ml Mr Dissolved Putty # 119:
The water bottle was added from another resin figure set and the binoculars come from a Minart Russian equipment set. The strap was made with foil from a pudding lid.
Finally the helmet was courtesy of Ultracast with a top rivet made from punching pewter sheet. This was a very useful technique which I first used on the new shields for the 2-pounder. Below is a sneak peak of how this is coming along…
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Tim, absolutely love this diorama; almost makes me consider going beyond my A3-sized base constraint (self-imposed).
I believe the good Sergeant is wearing “Bombay Bloomers” - a typical British Army expedient measure which never really satisfied the wearer. The trouser legs could be buttoned up to effect shorts, or unbuttoned to become, well, like Sgt Parsons is wearing, leaving a huge gap for leeches etc to have a real picnic. I think I’ve said before on this site, never ever think that the kit one is issued with in the British Army is any bloody good. Luckily, the sheer cussed nature of Tommy Atkins usually prevails and he makes it work(!)
As for Mr Dissolved Putty - I couldn’t live without it; absolutely vital for me (which is probably a pointer as to how poor I am at some aspects of modelling - but it’s a life-saver).
Outstanding work - keep at it.
Aha! Bombay bloomers… thanks Boots!
That sounds like an apt name for a very odd piece of British kit. I don’t suppose the Australians were any more impressed - although it is interesting to see Sgt Parsons wearing them even when there were clearly other options available.
Now, talking of Bombay (now Mumbai, of course), here is another figure I have been working on:
Indian Madras Sapper, Malaya 1942
I am very keen to try and show that the Malayan campaign was so very much more than a British affair. I have already mentioned the Indian troops who made up a large part of the defending forces. Among them were two units of particular interest: the Bombay Sappers and Miners and the Madras Sappers and Miners.
WW2 shoulder patch for the Madras Sappers
My interest was especially peeked when I came across the full first-hand account of the Bhakri action from Lieutenant Bill McCure, part of which I have already quoted above from another source. Speaking of the moments after the Japanese tanks had been shot up he says:
“We knew that there could still be Japs alive in the tanks, and I turned to an officer in charge of the Madras Sappers standing near me and asked, “What do we do now?” “Just come with me,” he said and with all the courage in the world, he calmly climbed on to three of the tanks, opened their covers and dropped explosive charges in them. We then checked the tanks to make sure that all their crews had been killed.”
So it seems pretty clear that there was detachment of Indian Sappers nearby, most likely from the Madras contingent. Then I thought of the felled trees… so far I have failed to uncover any reference to the trees from any of the contemporary accounts of the battle and yet they clearly were cut down to block the road very soon after the action was over. It would, I suppose, make perfect sense to ask Sappers to cut down trees.
With this in mind I started looking for images of Indian troops. Here is an especially nice colour shot taken in Malaya for LIFE magazine:
Indian soldier Malaya LIFE magazine
I also came across this superb selection of portraits of Indian troops in WW2:
Another really striking shot I came across was this one, although I suspect it was taken in Italy:
WW2 Sikh soldier with scrim-covered turban
Next I went searching for 1/35 figures of Indian troops… and all I could find were Sikhs. Which puzzled me for a bit. But here I have to admit to a bit of rapid self-education…
As I understand it, any Indian Regiment would have included men from all faiths, although at a smaller level the units were segregated. Obviously both Sikh and Hindu Indian soldiers wore turbans (of course this was before Indian independence and the creation of Pakistan so there were also many Muslim Indians serving as well), but what hadn’t occurred to me was that only Sikhs always wore them into battle.
Sikh men also had full beards, whereas Hindu men tended to have either a moustache or were clean-shaven. I must stress that this is only my understanding after a few hours research - and I will happily be corrected if I am wrong!
What this means is that, since Indian soldiers generally wore the same battle dress as their Commonwealth counterparts (including the British), there would be little to distinguish them in battle from other troops unless they were Sikhs - at least from a distance.
However, this does not appear to be a hard and fast rule, as we can see from this image of Indian troops guarding ‘native suspects’ in Malaya. They appear to be Hindus and, although there is clearly no battle raging, the situation still looks tense.
INDIAN TROOPS GUARDING NATIVE SUSPECTS, MALAYA
Anyway, this appears to explain why there are only Sikh Indian troops available in 1/35 scale. And since I wanted to make it obvious to anyone looking at my diorama that there were Indian troops involved, I decided to go for a Sikh.
ICM do a great looking set in action poses, but I was after something less dramatic. In the end I cobbled together two figures from the Mini Art British Armoured Car Crew set.
Then I added one of the heads from the beautiful Hornet set ‘Five heads with Sikh turbans’. There was very little modification needed, apart from drilling out the neck and building up the rear of the collar. I also added an axe (slightly trimmed down) from the classic Historex range. Any slight gaps were filled with Magic Sculp putty and smoothed with a little Mr Dissolved Putty. One interesting detail from the Mini Art figure that matches the images of Indian soldiers in Malaya is the fact that they seem to have been dressed in much more of a ‘regulation’ fashion than their Australian counterparts - witness the long socks and gaiters worn over them. And no ‘silly’ trousers!
This guy is going to be positioned at the extreme right of the diorama alongside the felled tree peering into the distance and the direction from which the Japanese would soon advance again… Here he is temporarily in place, still attached to his cork.
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Looking very good… I do have some e-books about the Indian army and about the Malayan campaign (including Images at War), so if you want them, drop me a line…
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Incredible work through out this project Tim, absolutely first rate! Can’t wait to see the diorama come to life. Keep it up !
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A pleasure to see the progress and information on the Indian troops, I never saw a diorama on this topic, I keep seeing your progress.
Greetings, Omar
I don’t know, Tim, considering what a debacle the Malaya/Singapore Campaign turned out to be if I were an Indian, Gurka or an Anzac I’d be happy to let the Brits have all the credit for it!
Regards,Bob
That Hataka looks great. Your tank looks good.
Tim, elsewhere on this site I have confessed to being a “pedantic bastard”, and indeed I am; Miniart have omitted the rear buckles on the '37 Pat web belt. An easy enough fix with a smidge of plastic card and some etched buckles. Having blanco’d and polished said equipment far more than a man ever should have done, I’m afraid I always notice this.
Thanks for all the kind comments…
I decided that my Sikh sapper needed a little more work. Specifically I gave him a haversack bursting with grenades. This was made from Tamiya two part putty with straps from masking tape (coated in superglue and then some Mr Dissolved Putty to give them stiffness and help them blend in) and then buckles from the Aber set mentioned above. I used a bit of artistic licence to have one end of the flap open, then pushed a couple of grenades into the putty whilst it was still maleable.
I also replaced two two visible belt loops on his shorts with masking tape and small buttons made from punching out pewter sheet. Boots thanks for the tip about the rear buckles, but I’m thinking of giving this guy a leather belt just to make him look a bit different. I was also thinking of adding a Sikh kirpan (the ceremonial knife) but I haven’t found any photos of these being worn in combat.
Finally I used a sharp knife to slightly spread the fingers on the right hand and chopped off and rotated the thumb so that he looked as if he was grasping the axe rather than simply resting his hand on the blade.
Here he is with a coat of Tamiya grey primer…
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Not sure if this fits with the build. If not, I’ll remove it.
Dan
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Dan, thanks so much for that suggestion. I have been hungrily devouring those Historigraph videos ever since.
They have another couple dealing with the earlier stages of the Malayan Campaign so I am hoping that they get round to dealing with the Bakri action very soon…
Meanwhile I have other updates on this dio to follow very soon.
Glad that you like it and it follows with your epic build.
Another book-
Scene looks familiar…
Apologies to all for the lack of recent updates… work has been busy and having two teenage boys aged 16 and 18 taking ‘milestone’ exams probably hasn’t helped.
But rest assured that I have been covering quite a lot of ground (quite literally) in recent weeks…
So here’s a question: how DO you create a jungle? I had absolutely no idea when I started this project…
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Really nice. Quite often, I find that figuring out how to ask the question, goes a good way to providing the answer, as I think you’ve demonstrated.
Mal
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