I thought I'd share some elderly miniatures who have been in the wars and needed some TLC to avoid being binned. I get a lot of joy from nursing these veterans back to something like their former glory.
Sometimes I want to recreate as faithfully as possible the original miniature, replacing weapons and making repairs that (I hope) will be invisible once painted. Sometimes I want to make something a bit different.
Going left to right on the first photo -
Orc chieftain with scimitar and flail (1) - this guy is one of the longest serving mins in my collection. I've had him since the early 80's and I butchered him quite badly back then, chopping off his hand (to replace it with an axe hand!) and grinding off the chains of the flail to give him a shield. He's also the closest thing I have to Barry Sheen (younger members are encouraged to Google him) with so many repairs, most people would have binned him.
I replaced the scimitar hand with a plastic zombie hand (with thumb removed and a new greenstuff one added in the right position), a ground-metal blade (a variant of this model had a scimitar blade close to this shape, but I was working from memory!), greenstuff hilt, a new wire flail haft and metal chains (probably too bulky, but it was the closest I had, size-wise) with repaired greenstuff weights. He also snapped off at the ankles during the repair, so he needed re-pinning with greenstuff patches over the join.
Orc chieftain with scimitar and flail (2) - just a greenstuff repair to a miscast end of the flail haft and a new ground-metal blade.
Orc chieftain with axe - the whole of the axed above the hand had snapped off, so I replaced the haft with wire and then covered it with greenstuff and lightly scored it for the woodgrain effect. A new axe head was painstakingly made to try to match the original as closely as possible (an original is shown behind for comparison).
Armoured Orc with large mace - the head of the mace was missing, so a new one was made from greenstuff. I stupidly tried to match the position of the rivets to the original (shown behind for comparison), which in hindsight was probably pointless attention to detail!
Armoured Orc with sword and shield (1) - the sword blade was snapped off by the edge of the shield, so an extension was made from plasticard and pinned in place, with the join covered by greenstuff.
Armoured Orc with sword and shield (2) - he had snapped off at the ankles (a common mishap with many of the C15/16 Orcs I believe). He's another contestant for the title of longest serving miniature and he has also sat crippled in my collection for over 30yrs, waiting to be repaired. He's just been drilled and pinned with the joins covered with greenstuff.
Second photo -
Great Troll adventurer (1) - this guys always seems to lose his maul. Since I already have an original model with maul intact, I decided to have a little fun. His original maul has been replaced with a slightly different version, made from a chopped-down section of standard from the plastic Ogre sprue. I have also built up his shield into a dome ready for a nice design I have planned.
Great Troll adventurer (2) - I wanted this variant to have a much shorter weapon, and also repositioned the hands to hold it in a different angle. I specifically wanted a weapon that looked like he could use it in one hand as well (he does have a shield after all, and no other weapon in sight!). I originally had a larger war hammer sculpted, but chopping it down to a simpler model seemed to work better with the aesthetics. Hammer head is made from plasticard and the haft is wire covered in greenstuff.
Half Orc - the long blade with this weapon (what would you call it, a glaive I guess?) rarely seems to have survived the years, so I picked him up cheap and added the blade made from ground metal. I fond it difficult to get the correct length and the notches in the right place, since I was working from an old Citadel illustration.
Great Trolls - these guys are in the waiting room. Since I already have an original model intact, I will be experimenting with these guys and having fun. I don't like the original pose very much to be honest (heresy!) so I may try to reposition him a bit to show a bit more life.