Hi,
I wanted to find some russians visually compatible with my valiant collection. Since I could not find the perfect match, I first thought creating my own minis. But sculpting, molding and casting is a work of itself, and I didn't want to spend my worshop expensive materials (resin, silicon) for my personal hobby purpose too.
So an intermediate solution was to find some figures already available in the market, and modify them for my needs (=make big, tall russians figures). I tried several brands with no succes, until I try raventhorpe figures. Their russian range is small, but the figures size is not bad, so I decided to use them for my project, adding details if needed. Best of all, it's a good sculpting pratice (since I do sculpting commissions, mainly small scale terrain accessories and war machines)
So I bought equivalent of a rapidfire bataillon (=a 1fig:1man platoon with assets), a resin ZIS5 (I wanted to test their vehicle resin range : really good product), and a few zvezda and psc vehicles and weapons (ZIS3 battery, 45mm AT gun, AT rifles, T34 platoon).
I decided to start my work with a squad/company, doing this to validate technical choices for the rest of the force. Basically, the work consists of head swaps, greenstuff detailing and/or resculpting. Here's the result of my first efforts.
the squad with LMG team :
Comparison with valiant US soldiers :
The 2 SMG figures are completed :
The other riflemen are still under progress :
I'm resculpting the DP lmg, it's still under progress too (once dry, I will finish the barrel and flash hider)
This is the result of 2 evenings of work, not bad it means that I can complete the conversion of a whole unit under a week, wich is still a realistic timing.
to be continued