Feldrabbiner and other assorted doings

[Plynkes]

Some of you chaps may know that during December I fell into one of those painting troughs. You know the thing. You just don't feel like painting anything at all, and it all seems so tiresome and doesn't resemble fun in the slightest.

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that from late January the drought has officially ended. I haven't exactly been going at the speed of light, but I've been at least getting stuff on the table. And for me at the moment that's the main thing. Anyway, I thought I'd show off some of the stuff I've been up to.

First up, my Feldrabbiner. I was browsing through one of my Ospreys the other day when I noticed one on a colour plate. I was most annoyed at this typical Osprey behavior. They always like to waste colour plates on random and useless peripheral nonsense when they could include something cool like a bloke with a flame-thrower.

Stupid Osprey! Who the hell is going to want the uniform details of a bloody German Army Rabbi? Then suddenly for some unknown reason I had a Damascene conversion (though I didn't go blind) and so I said "Me, that's who!"


After all, how many other gamers will have got a Rabbi in their Great War German Army? None, that's how many. He's a rare attempt by me at converting a figure. He has the head of one Brigade German plonked on the body of another, with what I imagined as a suitably rabbinical beard to cover the join. I tried sculpting a proper Star of David to go round his neck but after about an hour of frustration I gave up. Instead I opted for a simple medallion with the star inscribed on it. Historically less accurate, but much easier to sculpt.


I could have left him with a standard officer's cap, as both that and the broad-brimmed hat were official uniform for Protestant and Catholic chaplains, and also the 30 rabbis that were in the Kaiser's army. But I thought the brimmed hat would make him stand out a bit more in an early war Western Front setting. Osprey says Rabbis wore a plain red cross armband, rather than the one with the violet band that chaplains wore.


But Grrr! Look at this: After painting him I found two pics of rabbis wearing the standard Chaplain's armband! Bloody Osprey got it wrong again! Never mind, eh?


So, something I just felt like making for a laugh. Doesn't really have much of a practical gaming use, but I think he'll make an interesting addition to a command section, and he was fun to make. Here we see him tending to the spiritual needs of some of the troops in the front line. Having finished him I get the feeling he could also double as a Jewish Robert E. Lee, if you ever had need of one of those in some kind of alternative universe setting.

But then I had another thought. You could use him in a Great War Horror game. It is Christmas 1914, and our Rabbi teams up with a British padre and a French soldier-priest to fight something that should not be!


Here we see Feldrabbiner Maxim-Spellcheck (sorry Maks, just clowning around), Rev. Owen T. Davies of the Welsh Guards and Torchwood, and Abbé Gainsbourg-Birkin of the Prieuré de Sion confronting the horror. The massive bombardments have unearthed something that should have stayed, um ... earthed. Can our heroes prevent it from going on a killing spree that would threaten the Christmas truce?

Note Rev. Davies carries two 'flimsies' with him. One contains holy water, the other communion wine.


A close-up of the horror, for Malamute and any other chaps who are into that kind of thing. Put them away, love. Have you no shame?

[Plynkes]

Found some old photos while clearing out Great Uncle Plynkes' stuff the other day:


Palestine, 1917. The boys of the Heavy Branch, Machine Gun Corps wait in line for the upcoming big show.


Another view of the same.

Also found some versions that obviously have undergone some kind of early colourisation process:






Some closeups of the figures involved:











This one was painted just before the slump started in late November, but I thought I'd include him. It's Ned Lawrence in the uniform of an Arab Regular. Generously donated to the cause by Helen. Thanks ever so, Helen!

Also managed these fellows this week. A few more Frenchmen for the Rommel campaign:


And this lot was done just before the slump hit:

Flynn Patrick O' Flynn, Sebastian 'Bassy' Oldsmith, and Flynn's right-hand-man, Mohammed, with some of Flynn's lads. They've slipped over the Rovuma into German East, to nab some of the Kaiser's elephants. He won't miss a few!

Mohammed is played as a rather timid if shrewd character by Ian Holm (Bilbo!) in the film of "Shout at the Devil." But in the book he is a deserter from the Shutztruppen, a former NCO and pretty handy. So I have chosen to represent him with a figure who looks like he can handle himself.


But someone is on their tail: Flynn's sworn enemy Fleischer!



Note the historically dubious but cool-looking NCO's red neckcloth. (It's in the film and I like it, so it stays).

Well, that's it for now. Actually I have been working on something else, but I'm thinking of saving it for a little story type thing. In fact the mucking about with the tank pics was just a bit of practice to see if I could do the necessary photo-shopping without going mad. But enough of that for now.

[twrchtrwyth]

Wow, some good stuff there. Never realised that Tesco and Aldi were Middle Eastern companies! ::

[Auton]

Carrier bags get everywhere!

[Grimm]

cool Stuff  

Like the Rabbis very much and the Girls are nice too.

What is Tesco ??

where do you get Lawrence ?

[Plynkes]

Tesco is a supermarket, not that different to Aldi, really (except that in the UK Aldi sells strange and unfamiliar brands, presumably from Germany, which is what makes it a nice place to shop).



Helen was kind enough to give me the Lawrence of Arabia figure. I think he's made by Battle Honours. I might have remembered it wrong, though.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

happy to see you're back on the painting   some very nice stuff, mate, those woman with plastic bags are brilliant  ::

[Paul Hicks]

Ned is BH and was sculpted by myself many many moons ago. I still think he is one of my favs.

Paul

[Plynkes]

Too right, he's a lovely little figure. And it doesn't matter if he is dwarfed by today's 28-30mm giants, as the real Ned was quite a short-arse anyway, unlike Peter O' Toole who played him in the film.

[Lowtardog]

You sure those women weren`t shopping in Aylesbury home of the English Jihadi

[Col.Stone]

All nice stuff, especially the Feldrabbiner

i have to ask where did you get the shopping women?

[Hammers]

Absolutely marvelous, Plynkes! As you know I have something similar in mind but that contra-occult (yes, I persist!) alliance of necessity is fantastic.

[Plynkes]

Col. Stone: They're Eureka figures. From the 'Abdul's haberdashery stall' set in the Civilians range.


I got them from Fighting 15s, the UK distributor for Eureka.

Just started out painting two of them to see if I could manage the whole black burka thing. I thought they would be difficult to paint, but I'm reasonably pleased with how they turned out. I'd better get and paint the rest of the set. They're quite nice Middle East background figures for a whole range of periods (anachonistic shopping bags notwithstanding). Or even for modern multicultural Britain, as Lowtardog pointed out.

[Col.Stone]

Ahh i thought i had seen them before, very fitting for all kinds of periods indeed
 thanks

[Hammers]

All nice stuff, especially the Feldrabbiner

i have to ask where did you get the shopping women?

Eureka Middle Eastern civilians