VSF 1890 German Flyers
(August 2009)

Here's some pics and info about my German flyers for HotT.

Firstly I took an airfix WWI German crawling figure and removed the pipe thingy he was carrying in his right hand.

Then I made a VSF looking wing out of brass wire and greenstuff. The wing was made to look pretty much the same both sides so I could use it as a left or right wing. I then made a two part mould of it by lightly covering it with vaseline, pushing it into a blob of two part epoxy (blue and white), letting the epoxy set and then doing the same on the other side. I bought the two part epoxy from Auto One or some similar shop. I could have used greenstuff to make the mould from but this other stuff is cheaper and greenstuff is much better for sculpting.

Then I made a pair of wings by putting a piece of wire down one side of the mould, then pushing some greenstuff into the mould and then squishing to two halves together. Guessing the right amount of greenstuff takes a bit of practise. There's usually quite a bit of flash that needs trimming after the greenstuff cures. The wire was then snipped so only 2mm or so is left. This was bent a little and then pushed into the shoulders of the soldier. I used a pin vise to drill a small hole into each shoulder beforehand to make this easier and then I superglued the wings in place.

I've yet to paint them as I'm waiting for the next base of figures to be complete so I have two flyers. You can see in the above photo the original wing I made on the left most soldier.