Making Due

When I got the idea for this project, I hadn't yet purchased a single miniature. I hadn't decided yet what angle I wanted to take and so had held off. Once I had decided on a direction, I then had to wait for the budget to allow for a good sized purchase to kick things off.

I've managed to make a few purchases, but there has been a Holiday season freeze on new toys until after Christmas. Pretty much any new minis I buy during the holiday season get put on hold and magically appear in my stocking Christmas morning. I'm not mean enough to make my kids wait for their goodies while I get to open a steady stream of small envelopes and packages.

There is still plenty of planning to do, but I wanted to get my hands in it. The chance to do just this was presented by some Essex Seljuq Turks that were handed down to me by a buddy from the regular group. I really had no immediate use for them when he gave them to me, so they went into the collection of stuff to find a use for, and I have.

The plan is to convert the Turks into nice Tartar or Cossack looking fellows to stand in for some of the various horse tribes of the Alcovian Steppes. I've found this to be a lot easier than I had planned and even came up with a few elements to add in to make these minis and their imagi-culture fit into my imagi-nation.

The bulk of this conversion has been focused on either obscuring, subduing, or covering up the more Persian elements of the original figures. Adding putty over the turbans has proven most effective and I've managed to shape this into several styles of fuzzy hats. On many of the round shields I have added "wolf tail" trophies, something that will be worked into their imagi-culture. When I've ended up with excess putty, I have shaped it into pelts draped over the horses backs.

Other figures have had a bit more done to them such as added the Slavic style lacing across the chest to give the appearance of something other than a robe. Others have had fuzzy goat or sheep skin vests sculpted on. On figures with shields that were a little too "medieval" looking, I sculpted on shield skirts that are supposed to be made of an animal pelt. This has helped to disguise the shield shapes and make them look more like decorated round shields.

Once I've got them presentable, I'll show off the conversions. I've included pictures of the original figures above so you can see where I started from.

-Eli