SADF Remake

About a year back I released the first set of South Africans with R1 Rifles, horrid sculpts by todays standards. In an attempt to refresh the existing old miniatures and bringing them up to my improved quality level (first done with the SAS sets) I decided it was time to purge this particular set from my shop by replacing them with a remake.

So, here are a few impressions on what the new SADF section with R1 rifles might look like:

Two almost finished figures:

Two early WIPs:

Together with these, I´ll either mold a few new Modern French or British troops to grow the Ranges for Modern Major powers. All of this is due for September (probably late September).

All the best,
Robert

New Bush War Releases

New figures available at my website - check out the latest Bush War Releases:

A new Squad of SADF with R4 Rifles

And another picture without fancy background and terrain:

And a new Set of African Rebels armed with Battle Rifles!

All available now at www.enfilade-figures.com 
(or just click at the pictures to get redirected right into the relevant shop section!)

New Enfilade Releases Imminent

Having picked up my new casts yesterday I can give you a small sneak peak of some of the next releases coming up...

Light is still crappy, but you should be used to that from me by now :(

South African Defense Forces with R4 Rifle:

African Insurgents with FN FAL:

Babai and one of his Underlings:

And more hidden behind the veil of secrets (not really, you´ve seen it all already if you´ve
been around for some time)

New Enfilade Figures - Work in Progress

Hey guys,

I´ve been busy preparing the next package for shipment and production and it should leave the house very soon, just one figure left to clean up.

This pack will include a new section of SADF armed with R4 - you already saw most of the sculpt, here are the last two of the pack: 

Meanwhile, I´ve started on the next project of further expanding my choice of Insurgents.
Here´s a first shot with various stages of work in progress:

New Releases - SADF, Rebels, SAS...

Hey,

it´s been a long time that these have been in the making, but I´m finally able to release some of the minis presented on this blog earlier as full metal castings.

The following batch is now available through my website:

-SADF Section with FN FALs
-African Rebels with AK
-African Rebels with Support Weapons-
-Cold War SAS with M16
-African Dictator with Body Guard

Below are some impressions of the painted minis (not all).

Click on the banner on the top right or go to  www.enfilade-figures.com to purchase these sets.

 

Thanks for looking!

SADF - Two more Riflemen!

Just a little intermezzo - two more R4 Riflement for the next Squad of SADF troopers!

Obviously still Work in Progress, but coming along quickly. Haven´t started the backside yet, which is why the right figure looks a little odd. Somehow these SADF folks are quite easy for me to make.

Now I just need to start working on the GPMG-Team.

A Figure A Day - Day 8: Dean

And another South African, almost forgot to post the pictures.

This is the first batch of SADF with R4, as I don´t have enough R4s in the stockpile I´ll move on to the next range of figures from tomorrow on - but here´s another batch pic.

A Figure a Day - Day 7: Willem

A bit stressed out today, so I´ll leave the usual talking aside and just post a single picture instead of several. Tomorrow will be even worse. :(

A Figure A Day - Day 6: Jan

Hello again.

Today there´s another South African Rifleman for you, with a big headache... well, or maybe he´s just taking cover?!

And another angle:

As we´re reaching the end of the first week, I´ve got enough figures for a second week!
Big question is if you like this format at all, or if I should revert to posting them packed up in larger chunks....

A Figure a Day - Day 5: Piet

Another day, and as usual, another figure.

As promised it´s something different from all the Insurgents presented recently. Next to doing the Insurgents, which where something spontanous, I´ve reverted to the original plans and started expanding my South Africa Range with more Rifles.

So here we go, first figure with R4 Rifle (the rifle itself might get a bigger magazine later on, I´m not yet set on this)

And the backside, not as fancy:

SADF Section - Finished!

After a few more days of work, the first SADF section is finally finished! My original plan was to take photos of the entire section when the light was better, but unfortunately it didn´t improve throughout the day - overcast and now rainy, so I decided I had to do things with artificial light and some GIMP-magic, as I´m leaving tomorrow and won´t be here for the weekend. So excuse me if the pictures have different levels of lighting and contrast.

This is the full section of 8 men, including a GPMG, an RPG and the Section leader as special figures. I somehow failed to distinguish the second in command from the ordinary riflemen. Alternative heads are mostly done, I need to finish two of the helmets and they´ll be supplied together with the rest of the troopies for head-switches to helmeted version.

This is the closeup of the right part of the picture above, left to right with a rifleman, platoon lead, RPG gunner, Assistant GPMG Gunner,  FN-MAG machinegunner and another rifleman (supposed to be 2nd in command).

And the closeup of the other ordinary riflemen on the left part of the picture. I also filed down some of the rifles a little more, still feels like I could file off a little more...

Last but not least, a special figure I did on the sideline, with the excess putty from the normal guys. A SADF casualty marker. My original plan was to add the arm to the figure, but somehow I felt like it´s not necessary to add it, with the figure being a casualty anyway... What do you think? Is the gruesome depiction of the amputated arm too much?

Weapon Stash

Today, I received a secret weapon shipment from the smuggler:

Well, this is a litte behind the scenes entry, if you want to call it that way. I´ve received a shipment from my alternative casting service, testing quality, delivery time and all that stuff with a casting run of weapons and dollies. And I have to say, I´m very satisfied with the results and will make sure to run part of my production through this caster, simply for the much smaller delivery time and comparable level of quality.

And of course, there´s been progress on SADF - still working on the arms though, have to be very careful with these to avoid breaking them off. Right now, I have to be patient and let the putty cure before proceeding with the details.

SADF Support - RPG

First of the SADF support weapons done (almost done, the rifle again needs minor improvement, but very very minor in this case.

AT-Gunner with RPG-7 on his back. He doesn´t carry a loaded gun on his back but has a grenade pack with him to prepare his RPG should the need arise. If people start screaming and kicking how this would never happen, I can still add a grenade to the shouldered launcher ;)

Now on to the machinegun....

SADF Section grows...

...slowly but with a steady pace. Added another figure, the last pure rifleman. Now I´m preparing the support weapons and the sections 2nd in command, so half of the Section is finished, the other half remains.

I still have to do some cutting on the rifle, but that´s minor stuff, I´m doing that when everything is fully set and cured. Just to make sure nothing is damaged. The rifle is slightly too large right now, but once I´m done with it it should like fine.

So this is my half-section with three rifleman and the section leader, with a perimeter established to provide cover for the leader to safely conduct radio communication.

SADF Leader

Aaand another one. Hope it doesn´t get boring by now.
I´m not very talky today and there are some pictures ahead, so I´m saving my talk to fill the space in between:

 

SADF Section Leader with ´80s Headphones as inspired by the picture in the FoF Bush Wars Supplement. This one is wearing a chestrig and takes a kneeling position to receive or send a radio message.

He has a floppy hat. I decided that I will do some spare heads for headswapping to provide the standard pose in the more common soft hat version (except for Trooper No. 1 who already has a helmet) and make a selection of heads with helmets to swap them.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have arrived from the caster and I have a lot of stuff on the workbench to get painted, so there is some serious tradeoff between sculpting and getting the stuff painted in order to set up the shop for the older casts. I wish I had more time for this, but tomorrow is monday and monday means work.

The R4 rifle prototype has also progressed to almost near completion, you should be able to identify the rifle by now - granted you know how the thing looks in reality :)

And that´s it for today, I´ll be back very soon with more pictures of little green men... and yellow men... and more grey sculpts I hope!

Ciao,
BG

SADF Trooper No. 2

Hello guys (and girls, if there are any around ;) ),

after the very positive feedback on the last SADF Trooper, I´ve decided to do more in the same style, trying to keep my level. And of course, the next is already in line. I´m taking them bit by bit, trying to avoid falling into the "must get them done"-mode that usually grips me two thirds through the process - it usually leads to small errors here and there, which is not exactly what I need.

This guy wears the floppy head, after the guys at the guild have rightfully pointed out that the helmets where not commonly used due to the extreme heat of the theatre. Soldiers usually resorted to the more comfortable soft hat than collapsing from heat buildup underneath their helmets. So I´m making the majority of South Africans with those floppy heads, while providing some poses with regular helmets just because I like them. Under these circumstances, I´m thinking of providing a few spare heads to do headswaps, so anyone can create their forces as they please.

 

 I´m also preparing a prototype on the R4 rifle, which is a South African licence version of the Galil Assault Rifle designed in Israel. Through some tinkering, I discovered that these have some common points with the Negev SAW, which is the modern LMG used by the IDF troops.

So instead of building a weapon completely from scratch, I seized the opportunity to convert one of my Negevs into a R4 style Assault rifle. Still far fom complete, but the first prototype is ready and it already bears a basic resemblance on the original.

Not very catchy at the moment, of course there is still some polishing to be done. Weapons have to be built step by step - this I have learned by now. And they are SMALL steps!

Easter Egg

Hey Hey,

back from the easter holidays, and as expected I couldn´t quite stand doing nothing at all. Having some downtime, I sculpted this little Easter Egg as a test figure, trying to incorporate the latest critiques on the East Germans.  So, smaller heads and special attention on the arms length.

Now, the feet and trousers are not yet quite finished, I´ll polish those as I base the figure. But the important parts are complete.

UPDATE: Now properly based and finished.

Please keep in mind that this is macro photography, the figures is  20mm / 1/72 scale as always.
 And here is a quick preview on the next figure in line, though not very impressive at the moment: