Greg Liska”s Comments Conversion BMC 60mm Civil War Greg got the new BMC figures and he has sent his thoughts on these figures. Also he shows how he did
Greg Liska”s Comments Conversion BMC 60mm Civil War Greg’s Thoughts
The 60mm ACW figures that are listed as BMC are being recast and cheap! I wanted to beef up the infantry count in my 60mm set up and I liked that they had mostly loading, standing and kneeling firing poses. The old bagged sets had 2 of each pose for each side, but for about 2 dollars more you now get 3 of each pose for each side. This means you get a ton of color bearers too, though.
Then there’s a General Lee and General Grant figure in each bag. Well, I already had one of each in my set, so I did a head change and color change for the new arriving General Officers. The General Lee was apparently taken out of the mold too soon as he was now General Lee-ning. I cut the hat out of his hand and gave him a new head. the Grant got a color change (to grey) and got a head with a Kepi. He reminds me of T.J. Jackson.
Greg Liska”s Comments Conversion BMC 60mm Civil War More Conversions
After removing the kepis for 3/4 of the Confederates and adding various slouch hat type head gear, I came up with some variants for the multitude of color bearers. Many losing kepis on the Confederate side. I got rid of the sword as a color bearer is not issued one. There were cases where officers leading a change picked up the flag. The following lines in the narrative will usually read, “just as he was cut down by 6 (or 10 or more) rounds….”. I kept the arm up as if cheering except on one variant. The arm down does not seem to work well. I may play with trimming the shoulder to get a more natural position.
The officer firing pistol is, to me, very credible and he looks determined. The cannoneer is an easy switch and I can always use more artillerymen. The conversions with rifles, in my opinion, look great. I had muskets with the hands still attached to them in a pile of conversion scraps from, I believe, Ed Borris. I carefully trimmed the hands off. Looks like they are cheering ‘Marse Robert’ as he rides by, or belting out a Rebel Yell.
Yep those were from me, I got them from Gary Dutko and passed them on to someone that could use them. I call that conversions through cooperation. One mans scrap is another mans gold. Well, not exactly gold, but you get the drift.
That must have been about 6 months ago. I only found them when I went looking for more slouch hats for the Rebs. I tried it out on one and liked it. So, thanks again for the stuff. You see it DOES get used….eventually.
Nice work and ideas as usual from Gregs factory.
I though BMC were 54mm..
Best.
Thanks, Erwin. They are way bigger than the BMC original ACW guys, that were supposed to be 54mm. They are thick and cartoonish, so putting them in with Timmee and Lido ACW is no stretch at all.
Wow. Nice done.
Interesting on size differences.
Well done…
Greg Nice try, but lipstick on pigs.
If you’ve never kissed a pig in lipstick you: A) Were never in the Military, and B) Clearly do not drink enough. Bill, they round out my Timmee ACW guys nicely and are C H E A P. I can’t bring myself to buy the modern makes today that are 2.5 times the price and have a lot of less-than-useful poses that seem to attract a lot of collectors other than me.
If Alamo funny mexicans BMC a re used massive by many collector.I see well use of these x any and any purpose.
Best…
Greg, Whatever floats your boat. I just have no use for BMC.
Roger. Piggy and I are just fine. Piggy says, ”Oink!”, to that.
While I personally have no use for BMC, I think it’s cool that someone can make use of the figures by converting them into more usefull poses and making them look better. If you can take an otherwise useless figure and make him usefull, more power to you.
Incidentally, the BMC kneeling firing up Mexican isn’t really half bad.
I agree in all Ed.
When BMC alamo cone actuallt I like the poses in Most.even their faces looks funny …but fine x me.
The only really bad x me were the BMC germans where in some the poses are horrible and not anatomical possible not mention the uniform and helmets.
My thoughts..
Best
I like the BMC Mexicans, too. I have about 100 of them mixed in with about 250 Marx recasts. They are nearly a color match, too.
Actually, Greg’s Stonewall Jackson conversion is the equal of my new Chintoys Stonewall Jackson, which I thought was itself a pretty good representation.
That’s the thing about BMC, some off the figures look deformed while almost every set has at least one good figure that can be used, Despite the fact that a number of the BMC Germans look like they should be in the walking dead, the actual dead German and the prone firing a machine gun aren’t bad at all. Can’t think of anything good to say about the Brits or Americans from that set though. For the Alamo besides the kneeling firing Mexican, Bowie isn’t bad except for the hand with the pistol. The Custer set has a good dead trooper and there are a couple of decent Indians. I’m sure there are usefull poses in the Civil War and AWI sets too, if you are looking to make a big army they are inexpensive enough where you can take the good with the bad. One of the reasons I don’t buy them is because they are too darn hard to cut for conversions.
Two of the favorite conversions in my collection are BMC ACW generals converted to civilian Western town gentlemen with new heads. The buttons and other details on the BMC torsos were exceptional and painted up really well. One of them wound up with a Chintoys ACW general’s head. The other BMC ACWs are in my junk box, but the two generals’ bodies are my first choice among any other brand.
Chintoys R.E. Lee’s bare head was the civilian gentleman’s head in the conversion.
The character figures in the BMC 60mm ACW set are quite good, really. The rest are a bit cartoonish, but with Lido and Timmee, they fit in well. As to the other 54mm BMC figures, I thought the ACW guys were OK and some of the poses were very correct and needed like the guy at ‘right shoulder shift’ which for some reason had never been done. Good artillery poses. The sculpting itself was just ‘meh’ but OK. The AWI guys grew on me except the Brit Grenadiers. After swapping out the heads, I liked them and the poses were fine. I like all the Injuns and have them in number. From the D-Day (D for Disaster) set, the German dropping the mortar round is a keeper and needed. The Brits were tolerable, the rest is largely unsalvageable even for a converter and the dense plastic made that conversion prospect a lot tougher. BTW, I did get the BMC Iwo Jima recasts in new, good colors. What an improvement!
Kudos on a great job with the character figures and what you did with the others. I remember when I first saw this set I was somewhat disappointed but bought two sets anyway because Bill was such a nice guy and I did like the character figures; my one quibble was the Grant figure should not have been as tall as Lee – but they did a bang-up job anyway. The fact the character figures were usually pretty good made me wonder more than once why they couldn’t have done a good job with the other figures – after all, they proved the were capable of producing good figures.
I agree with some of you about the mixed bag BMC figures represent. I’ve found their Mexicans to be passable with a paint job as “filler” troops. I do hesitate to pay the current asking prices for them. The San Juan Hill figures are okay. I agree with Greg the Brits were tolerable – as were their character figures. But I’ve gone through all that before. Greg hats off to you – you’ve done an admirable job of making lemonade.
Thanks, Wayne. Piggy just got a full makeover last night. I fixed up a bunch of ring hands sent to me. I’ve done what I believe is about the most that can be done with them. They look pretty good and they were the best price of all – FREE. Courtesy of Mike Kutnick and Ed Borris.