Martians

Caesar Miniatures Germans stand at attention with these new Martians from Twilight Creations.

The new Twilight Creations Martians game includes 100 Martian figures. They are similar in appearance to those from the movie Mars Attacks.

There are three poses of Martians, each is armed with a slightly different weapon. They are flash free, and are not on the sprue.

The figures are molded in this light green soft plastic. At this time they are only sold in the Martians boxed game. I would assume that at some point in the future they will be sold separately, like their Zombie figures.

These little green men fit very well with the 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures. They are very nice figures and I am hoping to get more once they are sold as a stand alone product. $29.00 for the boxed set.

170 mm German Gun

I have been working on the Arsenal M 170 mm gun. As always, each part is cast perfectly in resin.

The resin is a nice bland color. There is a big block of resin at the end of most of the larger parts.

Sometimes the smaller parts can be clipped off or cut off with a sharp blade. The big parts need a razor saw to be removed. Not difficult but tricky and requires extra care. I actually broke one of the wheels, but it glued back perfectly.

Loads of very fine etched brass parts. They make nice wheels and walkways.

These are the parts. The gun barrel is aluminum and it's really nice. The end of the barrel is drilled out, so it is nice.

Vets

These are the old Arii figures with new Odemars heads and a new Evergreen base in the case of the first one.

These are the Imex Union horse troops after their being drafted into the German Army.

The Germans used hundreds of thousands of horses in WWII. Some got sick, hurt, wounded and required veterinary care. They would make slings and special stalls for them so they could stay off their feet while they healed.



This special stall is made of old sprue. When I get long straight pieces of sprue I keep them in my spares box. Then when I have a special project that requires straight round rods of plastic, they are ready.

I used a bit of Kleenex tissue to make the sling. Drench it in superglue to stiffen the Kleenex and then it will glue to the styrene plastic sprue with regular model glue. I put a tiny drop of model glue on each horse hoof to strengthen the piece. This will serve with one of my WWII German Veterinary Units.

Head Transplant

First of all I use the pin vise at the top of the photo to drill a hole into the torso of the styrene plastic figures where the neck is supposed to be. I don't do this for the soft plastic figures on the right. The guys on the right are ACW from Imex. I trimmed off not only the heads but some of the ACW specific gear. I am looking for guys to tend horses and I have a vast number of these Imex fellows, so they are now serving in the Wehrmacht.

The heads have been removed from the Odemars German Officer and a tiny bit of guitar string inserted into the base of the head. About where the spinal column would be located. I use a Ernie Ball Custom Gauge 8 electric or acoustic guitar string. 80 cents plus tax and three feet long. You can transplant a lot of heads with one of these.

As you can see the middle gray figure has been given a new base. His original base was lost to history and I replaced it with a bit of sheet styrene tile from Evergreen Plastics. I love these tiled bits for making straight line cuts. Two tiles across and four tiles long and you can make zillions of nearly identical bases. This size gives a base about the same size as the traditional Airfix rectangular base, same thickness too.

I run the other figures bases along a sanding stick to insure they are flat and smooth. It makes the figures easier to stand up, since I don't generally base my figures more than one per base. Now it is a simple matter to just glue and stick the heads on.