Greek in the Trojan War

Here is another work in progress. I like to do several figures at once so that when the glue or paint is drying on one, I can work on another and get the momentum going. (Getting my butt into the painting chair in the first place is the biggest obstacle to me getting anything done in a reasonable amount of time.)

So, I saw "Lu" on the Wargaming on a Budget forum use a different style of clothespin than that used by Ken ("Lions Den"), so as I wanted to take a trip to Michael's anyway, I decided to look for these other type. They are flat on the front, back, and sides, rather than round, so they look more like the old semi-round figures (or thick 'flats'). As that was different than the game pieces I use now, I thought I would do a little experimenting with them and see if I liked them. I thought it might be interesting to do fantasy/semi-historical in a different style.

Here is the basic figure - sans arms, weapons, shield, and accessories - for a Greek during the Homeric period.

As you can see, it is not too bad a representation for a human shape. I took the basic clothespin, cut off the long split, added a heart shape to the bottom for the feet, then glued it all onto a 1" disk. These figures are about 38-40mm high to the eyes, and not as bulky as the game pieces, so they definitely look 'smaller' than my Napoleonics.

I wanted the figure to hold a spear in the overarm thrusting pose, so I needed to make an arm to hold it. The problem is that the head is as wide as the body, so if the spear is glued to the inside of the arm, the army needs to be glued to the body at an angle. That would leave little surface area for contact, so the glue bond would not be strong. To solve that I decided I needed to extend the body by about the width of the spear so the arm would glue flat. As shown in the figure below, I created a wooden 'spacer' to place between the arm and the body. Not only would the space have more surface area to glue (it would be flat against the body and the arm), but it would create a simple 3D effect.

Using this method of 'pinning' the arm to the body (I used a wooden dowel to go through the arm, spacer, and into the body) means that you have that much more surface area to strengthen the glue bond. I stated doing this with my Napoleonic figures too. This really helps if you have already painted the surfaces, or have glued paper to them (as with my British).

Here is the figure with the spacer, arm, and spear in place (unpainted). The dowel is strong and tight enough it all despite there being no glue applied yet.

I'll post another entry once the figure is complete. I have a 'figure 8' shield for the figure, made from two dowel slices, that goes with it before it is finished.