Dad's Guys: Head Swaps

On Friday I took the day off. After a nice morning hike with the family I decided to build a light box from foam board, tissue paper, packaging tap, three cheap lights and three daylight bulbs (normal bulbs definitely gave me yellowish shots). I based my design off of two good You Tube videos I found:

Build A Light Box On The Cheap, Take Gorgeous Photos!

Photo Lightbox: Build or Buy?

It didn't take to long to construct. I got some good results the next morning with it. My ultimate goal is to have something I can take quick, good pictures of miniatures at any time of the day (I don't always have a sunny afternoon to just take pictures, etc.). I'm not there yet, but a little closer. In the future I hope to build a more permanent light box that will probably be a little smaller, definitely have the lights firmly attached, be sturdier and have a location/spot for small tripod. My photos aren't entirely consistent just yet.

My homemade light box.

A while ago I bought a small jeweler's saw for the purpose of doing some head swaps with miniatures. RH's miniatures have great variety, but sometimes I just want more. It was a bit of work, but I'm really happy with the results. I'll definitely being doing more soon.

The first swaps I did were to add some tank crew head gear to three bodies from various packs. These heads were a bugger to lop off, but the result was worth it. This hat was used occasionally by Chechen fighters during the first war and I have also seen it in use in other Post-Soviet conflicts. It's just cool looking and seems quintessentially Soviet to me so I had to have a few figures with it. I was inspired by this picture for the middle guy.

1995 - Chechen fighters; Grozny

RH Models MULTBHAK; MULTBHRPG; EER11 with head swaps from RUSTANK5

I next decided to add some more variety to my Chechen militia forces with two more head swaps. I've only seen evidence of these hats being used infrequently during the early part of the First Chechen War. I presume because the SSSH94 Steel Sphera Helmet (I call it the O helmet) was pretty new even for Russian forces and the it was a bit too cold for the peaked forage cap. I'll have to do a lot more swaps with both of these heads in the future as a whole unit or two of Russians with the O helmet is in my plans and this style of forage cap is seen a lot during the later (warmer) parts of the First Chechen War and definitely during Georgian Civil War and Armenian-Azerbaijan War. The guy on the left in the image below was inspired by this image.

1995 - Chechen fighters; Grozny

RH Models URBAK with head swaps from RUS25O; RUS22B

I've seen some pictures with Chechen fighters in balaclavas and bandanas (usually green) so I painted these up. I'll probably be do more balaclavas in the future.

August 20th, 1996 - Chechen fighter; Grozny

RH Models BALRPK; BALRPG; BALAK

RH Models BANDAK; BANDRPK

My forces could use some more camouflaged figthers and definitely more guys with RPGs so I painted these. To make these more compatible with the Second Chechen War I've made use of more Woodland camouflage. The guy with the blue/gray camouflage is my first attempt at painting SMK style camouflage. The kneeling guy with an AK-47 is the first dude I've painted with KLMK camouflage. I'm happy with how the painting turned out - the picture just doesn't show it well.

RH Models EER2W