The Three Musketeers - The Flowergirl

Next update is another Lemax conversion for the Musketeers project, and one I'm particularly stoked with as I think it worked really well.

The starting model is Lemax' violet girl, which for once was really well cast and sculpted with really good, fine details. As usual, the paint was splashed on in the general direction of the figure (official pic below is flattering). From the start, I thought this model had a lot of potential for converting to the 17th century (it's practically perfect) and I looked at some pictures of 17th century clothing before deciding on the colourscheme. In fact, she's so perfect that I no longer feel the tomato vendor is good enough to use in this setting, so I may relocate that one to some other project.

 

 

I wasn't originally going to keep the flowers purple, but since I painted those almost last, I more or less painted myself into a corner by already using all the other likely colours on her clothing. No complaints though, I think it worked out well. I also went for brighter colours on this one rather than the drab colours of the others and I think it worked out for the best, so I'll keep going in this direction.

Buy my pretty flowers. They come with a kiss.

I think the paintjob's match to the King & Country figures is as good as it's going to get with my skills. She doesn't stand out next to them as someone who doesn't belong. Size is perfect too, only minor niggle is the thickness of her base, but I did my best to at least round off the edges to make it less noticeable. 

"Some pretty flowers for your lady, Milord?"

"According to my book, those plants are the mark of a witch!" - "Look, I don't want any trouble..."

The Three Musketeers - The Nun

In my quest to find suitable figures, both in size and period feel to use as 17th century civilians, I turned my hand at another Lemax figure conversion, this time of their mother superior figure.

I may be short, but I'm still feeling superior...

This one had the right look and bulk, but was quite short. So I decided to snip off the sides of the base and extend her robes over the edge. Then it would be a simple matter of making a new base to add some height. Which brought us to this:

I did not see that coming

Once painting began, I noticed the casting on the figure was really rough (and my greenstuff work wasn't as smooth as it looked before priming), so in the end I'm not too happy with the result as it's a bit rougher than I'd like. Still, it's serviceable until I decide to try again with another copy of the figure and do a bit more prep time (a good sanding of the robes might have been a good idea).

I went with brownish robes. Both brown and black would work for the period, but I wanted to distance her from the original paint scheme, so she'd look like a proper figure in her own right. Here she is posing with the handsome Aramis:

"Oh my, that looks awfully sharp, my son."

Front, back and sides

"What does a cardinal need to carry a sword for anyway?"

The Three Musketeers - Tomatos for the Red Guard

65mm civilian figures for the 17th century are hard to come by and so far, there is only one available in the King & Country Pike and Musket range. So one has to be creative and source other figures that have the right potential. In this case, I took a gamble. I knew the Lemax christmas figures had the right size and bulk to fit with the larger K&C models, but could they be made to look like? The apple vendor looked like she was fairly period neutral and would work well in the 17th century. 

A promotional picture of the donor figure. Mine wasn't as well painted...

Matching the K&C painting style closely enough to make it fit in was a bit of a challenge. I didn't succeed completely but I think it's close enough to use. The skintones I picked ended up being a bit more pink than the K&C figures, so I will amend the recipe on the next ones. I do worry that I made the colours a bit too drab in my attempt to make her look like someone from the poorer class. The apple vendor also gained a few years and became a tomato vendor instead.

"What... what did you do to me? I feel old..."

On the next pictures, the base was still unfinished as it still needed the above pictured changes to fit in with the K&C figures. :

"Are you going to finish that?"

Sizewise it's a very good fit as can be seen from her posing with young d'Artagnan here:

Buy some tomatos, milord?

"They look awfully ripe, good woman." - "All the better, in a few days time they'll be perfect for chucking at the cardinal's guards, milord." - "... I'll take ten."

And a quick side by side:

You say apple, I say tomato...