Wargames Factory St. Trinian's Schoolgirls 01

A couple of months ago I converted three figures from the excellent Wargames Factory Women Survivors set of plastic 28mm scale figures into St. Trinian's schoolgirls. This was the first time I had made any of the WF plastic survivors and I was very impressed with how versatile they are.

At the far left is Chloe Bernath, a member of the Posh Tottty tribe. She appeared in the film, St. Trinian's and was one of the trio of girls (along with Chelsea and Peaches) who took part in the  School Challenge quiz. This was a very simple conversion. I think I only lengthened her hair with modelling putty. When I saw the arm holding a stick of dynamite along with the bag of dynamite, I decided that Chloe should have them. Although she was strictly a non-combatant in the film, I have no qualms in arming her so. Explosive devices were usually the speciality of the Mackie twins or head girl, Kelly Jones, but all Chloe has to do is light a fuse and throw the dynamite. What could possibly go wrong?
Next up is another named character from the St. Trinian's film, Andrea the Emo. Note, she is an Emo, not a Goth, despite the similarity in looks. Andrea was a successful member of the school hockey team, so it was a no-brainer to arm her with a hockey stick. This was a major conversion that involved a lot of work. The hardest part was replacing her golf club with a metal hockey stick. Thank God for superglue! I remodelled her shirt, tie, cardigan and belt and greatly lengthened her hair. In the end, I was very pleased with the result. Note how badly laddered her tights are.

Finally, is young Patsy Walsh, a first former. She is obviously based on the little girl body that comes with this set. I gave her a suitable head and decided to add the arms holding a tennis racket. However, the arms were designed for an adult so I snipped a bit off them at the shoulder so that they were a better fit. Other than that, this was a simple conversion. Patsy is one of my designs and she does not appear in any of the films. I think a tennis racket is a suitable weapon for a first former to wield, although it isn't as good as a baseball bat, cricket bat or hockey stick.
This brings my total number of St. Trinian's schoolgirls to 27. I also have 7 staff members.

To the left of here is a photo of Chloe taken from the St. Trinian's film. Chloe was played by actress Antonia Bernath. Seeing as she was not given a surname in the film I have adopted the name of the actress for Chloe's surname. I was very pleased to be able to recapture her smile from this photo when I painted my figure of her.

To the right of here is the photo that was my main inspiration for making my version of Andrea the Emo. Look carefully and you can see her red and black striped tights. In other scenes the tights are laddered as per how I have painted them. Also, although she is wearing a waistcoat in this photo, in other scenes she wore a black cardigan and that is how I modelled her. Andrea the Emo was played by actress and singer Paloma Faith.

Assorted St. Trinian's Staff 01

Up until now I have been building up a large collection of St. Trinian's schoolgirls, which currently stands at 23 with more on the way. But as we all know, a school cannot run without any staff. So last month I rectified that problem as I actively sought out suitable figures to use as staff members. Once again, I am mainly concentrating on the two most recent St. Trinian's films, with one notable exception - the character of Flash Harry. In St. Trinian's Flash Harry was played by Russell Brand, a person whose face I could never tire of hitting with a baseball bat! He was easily the worst character in the film. No, for me, there can only ever be one Flash Harry and that is George Cole's version from the first four films. On this occasion, old school is better than new school.

At the far left of my two photos is undoubtedly the most important staff member, Camilla Fritton the headmistress. In the first and second St. Trinian's films (The Belles of St. Trinian's and Blue Murder at St. Trinian's), headmistress, Millicent Fritton (a relative of Camilla) was played by Alistair Sim, a male actor. For the two more recent films, the producers kept this concept alive and chose Rupert Everett to play Camilla, and yes, she does look remarkably like her namesake, Camilla, wife of Prince Charles. After much Internet searching I found the perfect figure to represent Camilla Fritton. She is Black Cat Bases old fashioned sleuth, Agatha Rutherford. What I particularly liked about this figure is that she came with a choice of four items in her right hand. The one that best suited Camilla was the umbrella. The other three items were a knife, a pistol and a torch. What I love about this character is that she is totally loyal to her girls and supports them 100%. For example, in St. Trinian's, when the girls are discussing how best to blow up the sewer gates beneath the National Gallery, it is Camilla who suggests the best type of explosives to use. Every headmistress should be like Camilla!
I mentioned Flash Harry above in my introduction and this is my version of Harry Edwards, a spiv and one of the few adults trusted by the schoolgirls. This figure is one of the Turnkey Miniature's civilians - Teenage Thief. I had to lose his long hair and I added the trilby hat to him, which totally transformed him into the lovable rogue, Flash Harry. I wish he'd been a bit taller but even so, I think he's a good find. You're probably asking what's he got in his inside coat pocket? It could be a set of tools or it could be a silver cutlery set. Who knows?

At the far right of this group is Miss Cleaver the sports teacher, as played by Fenella Woolgar in St. Trinian's. Miss Cleaver is a gung-ho teacher with a very aggressive manner. She is based on one of the Wargames Factory plastic female survivors and this was the first time I had made one of these remarkably versatile figures. The head was the female head wearing a stetson but I cut off the sides and back of the hat and filled in the top with Milliput to make a baseball cap. I also lengthened and bulked out her hair with Milliput. The arms came from the plastic male survivors set as I wanted her armed with a baseball bat and an Uzi Sub-Machine Gun. Yes, she does use an Uzi. In the St. Trinian's film she is seen in one scene teaching a fourth form class anger management skills as she blasts away at full auto from her Uzi at a row of plastic ducks. Miss Cleaver would probably be more at home teaching army recruits. Somehow I don't think that a zombie apocalypse will faze her.
Agatha Rutherford can be found in the Cthulhu Investigators section of BCB's webstore and she costs £3.00. Be aware that BCB are being incredibly slow in dispatching orders. I placed an order with them over a month ago and I'm still waiting for it to arrive. TKM's Teenage Thief costs just $1.89, and even though TKM are an American-based company they were very quick to send out my order.
As part of my new improved service, I leave with photos of the three characters featured in this review. Next time I'll review more staff members.

 Headmistress Camilla Fritton, played to perfection by Rupert Everett.

The original and still the best, Flash Harry. The unforgettable and much missed George Cole.

Miss Cleaver, with baseball bat, shouts instructions to her hockey team from the sidelines.

Wargames Factory Zombies 01

Anyone looking for cheap 28mm scale zombie miniatures to flesh out their horde should seriously consider this offering from Wargames Factory, an American company, who specialises in cheap plastic wargaming figures. Given how popular zombies are at the moment I was not surprised to see this set released. I held off buying them for a long time. My plan was to wait until they released the female zombies set and purchase them both together. However, when Phil, one of my blog followers, sent me a few sampler figures my resolve disintegrated and I promptly bought a set last November. These are multi-part models. You get four sprues per pack and each sprue has enough parts to make six zombies. I'll air my opinions of them at the end of the review. For now, let's look at the figures.

The two photos above show six zeds that I created. I mention this because the following photos show zombies in poses and colour schemes that I copied from the Wargames Factory website. At far left is a zombie medic/scientist, whom I painted as an African American to distinguish him from the other doctor/scientist that I made. This is the only figure whose legs and torso come as a single piece, which given his long coat makes sense. Every figure has his left arm moulded to his torso, but the right arms are separate and you have a choice of eight to choose from. Their are nine separate heads, so you have loads of options for variety. This particular zombie has had his throat ripped open.

Next in line is a zed dressed in combat pants, heavy boots and a leather waistcoat. I see him as a street gang member who came to a sticky end. He has been shot between the shoulder blades and there is a large exit wound in his throat. I made the exit wound out of modelling putty. He has also been bitten in both arms.

I did a bit of sculpting and converting on the next zombie in line - the dude in the light blue shirt and blue shorts. His right arm was one of the short-sleeved options, which did not match his long-sleeved left arm. No matter. Because his right arm was horribly chewed up (so badly that you can see bone showing through the gore) I added a small amount of modelling putty to make his right sleeve appear torn and ripped. I also bulked out his hair with modelling putty to make it longer and bulkier. The conversion I did was to cut off the foot in the lower leg he's holding in his left hand and replace it with a spare hand. Now he's holding a lower arm and hand. A dead simple conversion that anyone could do if you don't want lots of zeds holding lower legs.

The fourth figure from the left is my fat slob zombie, Wayne. The torso has a noticable paunch to it. I glued his right arm tight to his body to mirror his left arm, which has been slightly altered so that it is closer to his body. He has a diagonal cut to his right breast that runs to his left collarbone, as well as wounds to his upper right arm, lower back and the back of his right leg.

The zombie in the orange shirt is my version of a shop assistant. That's why I painted a name tag on him just above his left breast pocket. He has an orange shirt because of an unfortunate incident I had in a local Games Workshop store. I went in to buy a pot of Citadel Blazing Orange paint for the simple reason that I'd almost ran out of it. The shop assistant asked what I was painting (why do they always do that?). I replied, zombies. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I've never heard of zombies being painted orange before!" How stupid are GW staff? No don't answer - we all know they don't get hired for having a high IQ. I could not believe how he could A) assume I was going to use the paint on my zombies just because I said I was painting zombies (couldn't I have another reason for buying it?) and B) that I would be using it for their flesh tones! What a muppet! So at least one of my zombies had to have an item of orange clothing. This bald-headed zed has had a bite taken out of his right check, been shot in the back and has lost a great deal of flesh from his lower right leg. His left foot was bare but I added a shoe to it out of modelling putty.

The zombie at the far right of the photo is my attempt at making a crawler. I used the bare-chested torso as the basis for the sculpt. I repositioned his left hand so that it lay flat on the ground to support his weight. His right arm is stretched out, grasping at someone. His entrails surrounding his lower torso were, of course, made out of modelling putty. It was another easy conversion. The fun part was painting his entrails. 

As I mentioned earlier, I took my inspiration for these six figures from the Wargames Factory website. I must admit that the twelve figures that they were showcasing are painted to the very highest standard by Andrew Taylor. However, having just visited the website, I note with sadness that these six are no longer up for view. I'm glad I saved the pics of them when I did! I have used a very similar paint scheme on my own figures but my execution is not to the same standard. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the way that I paint. I paint my figures for use on the gaming table not for winning competitions or being stuck in a display cabinet.

I won't dwell too long on each figure shown in the two photos above.

From left to right we begin with the first of two zombies wearing short trousers. Next up is a bald-headed and bare-footed zed carrying a severed lower leg. To his left is a zed in camouflage pants and black vest (some sort of military type?). Then comes the second doctor/scientist of the horde. Note the bearded head. The zombie dressed all in blue could have been a cop or more likely, a security guard. Finally, is the second of the zeds wearing shorts in this particular batch. He is naked from the waist up and wears a cool pair of sunglasses.

The poses and colour schemes for these final six zombies were also copied directly from those that appear on the Wargames Factory website. These are the six figures painted by Andrew Taylor that are currently on the WF website. Once again, I'll just briefly describe each figure in the two photos above. At far left is another possible streetgang member. Next to him is a rare zombie wearing glasses. Nice to have that option! Next up are a pair of zeds dressed in short trousers. The zombie wearing nothing more that his pyjama trousers is quite cool. I like him just because he stands out from the crowd. And finally, I love the fact that the zed in the long coat looks like he's stepped out of an old hardware shop. Just ask him if he sells fork handles! (Fans of The Two Ronnies will get that joke straight away.)
You can visit the Wargames Factory website here at- http://www.wargamesfactory.com/_product_16676/Zombie_Horde A set of 24 zombies costs $17.95 and additional sprues can be bought for $5.00 per sprue. Instead of purchasing them direct I searched the Interweb for a UK-based retailer and found one at modelsforsale.com where they cost me just £11.57. That works out at less than 50p per figure, which really is terrific value. With so many possible poses you can build a large zombie horde in no time at all.
On the whole, I like these figures. I've made and painted 18 out of the 24. I'm holding the rest back for possible conversions. They go together very well and scale-wise they will fit in well with most other 28mm scale zombie miniatures. However, I do have a few niggles with them, but nothing major. First up, surface detail could be stronger. It takes a good paintjob to make these chaps come to life. Be aware, if you slap your paint on too thickly you'll obscure the detail totally! Second up, I wish the left arms were separate from the torsos to give even more options for poses. Yes, I know that being plastic, it is easy enough to cut the left arms off with a sharp craftknife but I'd still have liked to have seen them with separate left arms. Note that the figures come with integral bases but I reckon that most people will want to rebase them. I stuck mine onto 25mm diameter slottabases so that they fit in with my other figures. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the release of their female zombies. I'll be buying them as soon as they go on sale.