Well, who says painting miniatures is a safe hobby? Ten days ago I cut myself badly with my trusty Exacto knife while converting some figure during my lunch time break. The incident led to five stitches in my finger and has slowed me down a bit. For now I'm putting off green stuff sculpting. I need ten fingers for that! :) Fortunately I prep figures faster than I can paint them so I've got some prepared figures in reserve.
I finished this last batch with 9.5 fingers. I had a tough time taking good pictures of these (dark colors just don't seem to photograph well, but they're accurate to the pictures I've found), but I'm very pleased with them and happy to add them to my forces. They add a lot of regional character, I think.
Civilans and fighters in photographs I've collected for post-Soviet wars wear all manner of hats. I think the variety of hats and the inclusion of certain hats in a force/collection complete the look I'm after. In the pictures I have derbies, especially for civilians during the Tbilisi unrest of 1991-1992, are fairly popular. Rolf's Irish Civil War figures are a great source for these hats. I'm not sure what to call it, but I've found a few photographs of persons wearing a 1930's gangster like hat, so I also create a guy with one of these. Similar to a derby one can see quite a few "worker's caps" (that's my description) in use. Georgian felt caps can be seen worn in Georgia and here and there in Chechnya. To make these caps I used Rolf's baseball cap head, trimmed off the visor and filled up the back.
RH Models ICWCIVCAP
RH Models URBAK74 with head swap; URBAK* with head swap
RH Models URBAK74 with head swap; URBAK* with head swap
RH Models URBCIV* with head swap
RH Models URBAK* with head swap; URBSVD* with head swap; MULTBCAK
Lastly, I added two teenage fighters to this group. RH Models makes two such fighters with RPKs. I wanted them to be carrying lighter weapons so I swapped out the RPKs for an AK-47SU and an AK-47. I also made them a bit more suitable for my period by changing the heads.
RH Models PLO14 with head/weapon swap
Opposition leader Jaba Ioseliani being escorted in Tbilisi (January 6th, 1992).
Tbilisi, January 7th, 1992.
Opposition fighter in Tbilisi (December 22nd, 1991).
Chechen rebels, Grozny, January 1995.
Chechen youth, Grozny, January 1995.
Young Chechen fighter in Grozny, January 1995.
