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Apologies if this has been discussed before - if so please send me the link as I can’t find it!
After a sabbatical from my troops, I am ready once again to build units!
How do you experienced modellers get Strelets cavalry troopers to sit on their trusty steeds?
I have tried several ways of building the lovely WSS cavalry sets into painted sets. I tried painting before removing from the sprues (disaster!) and painting after but before assembly. This was better but it is actually sticking paint to paint - which I discovered is not the most effective method! Anyway, getting the rider onto the horse was a game because they don’t fit together (I wondered if it was the paint and primer?)!
My new method will be to glue rider to horse and prime and paint as one, but as before, few riders fit their mounts leaving a large gap between plastic bum and saddle!😂 This looks bad but perhaps more importantly means that the glue actually has a very small ‘footprint’ on the figures.
I thought of carving some plastic away but that seems like vandalism, and wondered whether immersing in very hot water might soften the leg plastic to remould around the horse figure?
Re: Making cavalry riders sit better on their mounts.
Hi Graham,
A few suggestions
-immerse in BOILING hot water the lower half of rider, leave for up to 30 seconds, remove and force figure onto the horse for a couple of seconds, whilst making sure rider's legs don't move immerse into FREEZING ice water for up to 30 seconds. Then check the fit.
-if above fails, try also scooping into the saddle with a hobby knife into problem areas which may be impeding the position of legs and/or butt of the rider
-if all of the above improves but rider still is somewhat forced off try forcing a pin into the bottom of the rider, then pushing pinned figure into saddle along with a small amount of super-glue or hot glue.
Hope some or all of the above helps! Please keep us posted, as to how you fixed your problem!
Re: Making cavalry riders sit better on their mounts.
I always paint post-mounting as I never intend to take the riders off. Plus, working with the plastic to bend/shape, or fiddle with pinning is easier before painting. And besides, you don't want to damage the paint job...