Thursday 16 April 2009

Erstwhile Minions - Ming's Palace Guards in 15mm

In the cracking original Alex Raymond comic strips Ming and all his palace guards are yellow skinned and oriental in style, much like many pulp villains of the 1930's whilst good for Ming (although I favour green skin over yellow ala Defenders of the Earth myself) the look I wanted for my palace guard was that which has already been excellently captured by Graven Images and their 40mm Flash Gordon range which I first saw on Dampfpanzerwagon's blog...



With just a bit of digging and some internet searches for picklehaub helmets I discovered that early World War I Germans in picklehaub helmets look almost identical to them.

So with a target in mind I first checked out the Peter Pig miniatures. As they had no photos of thee particular miniatures on their website they were kind enough to bring some along to Salute for me to have a look at. Sadly they were too 'kitted out' with pouches and paraphernalia for my liking so I opted not to grab them (but did buy a swath of their Red Alien range for my main protagonists). I did find a few more picklehaub Germans with other suppliers but none of them leapt off the web at me.

After much more searching of miniatures from different era's and different companies I saw something on Eureka's site that fitted the bill and I also tracked down a UK supplier in the form of
Fighting 15's. So I have decided to order a pack of their Schleswig-Holstein 1848 infantry. The helmets are very close to what I'm looking for and the figures seem to have no additional detailing other than their uniforms. Now, I have no idea if the scale will fit in with my Peter Pig hero's (like the problem I have with my chosen figure for Zarkov) but for £3.20 I might as well order a pack anyways.



I am going to have to sculpt a little half cloak on them and change the end of their gun for something pointy but I think in the scale they are they'll look pretty good.

Laters,

Craig

6 comments:

Eli Arndt said...

An option I have considered for pulpy troops in 15mm was to go with Napoleonic era Bavarians or Austrians with their "smurf" helmets.

If those Eureka figs are sculpted to their usual proportions they should fit in well with PP. I have used some figs from Eureka alongside some of PP's AK-47 and WW2 lines with little issue. The biggest issue is that older PP often comes in a lot smaller than their newer stuff.

I have some PP Ak-47 figs that are supposed to be command figs for some of their insurgent types and I ended up using them as child soldiers due to the drastic height difference and the overall bulk of the figs.

-Eli

Leutenant Brittan said...

Hi!

Have you tried Irregular miniatures?

http://irregularminiatures.co.uk/15mmRanges/15mm1870.htm

They have a ton of Prussians and Bavarians which might do the trick. Theres some pics on their website but I dont know how they scale up next to peter pig (their sci-fi stuff is supposed to be on the large side) on the plus side they are cheap!

Anyway cant wait to see what you come up with!

Leutenant Brittan said...

Hi! I also spotted these minifigs 15mm stuff which may be of use:

http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/Catalogue.aspx?ScaleID=2&CategoryID=13&SubCategoryID=82

Black Autumn Productions said...

This should turn out to be a fun unit.
:)
Michael

MadWelshWizard said...

Hey Lieutenant Brittan ! Not sure if you're still following this thread but I can't seem to post replies on your Blog. Craig

Leutenant Brittan said...

Hi!

Which one? The Leviathan and Special Corps ones should be ok but the general gaming one is pretty much shot. I may just nab the pics and start again from scratch!