1:35th Zevzda Equestrian Soviet Cossack

[kansas kid]

Like a lot of other modelers, I live on a limited budget. Yet when I started to do figure modeling, I realized that we learn by doing. So IMHO, that meant I needed to paint a lot of figures. And so less expensive figures were my marketplace. So not only did I work on some of those small scale sets from Italeri with that “durn burned” soft plastic, but I also painted some of the sets from Zevzda cast in styrene. (Meaning, in regards to styrene plastic, I could remove the mold lines on each part rather easily, unlike the “soft plastic” figures.) So here is an effort from some years ago, of a figure from the Zevzda Soviet Cossack set.
Now regarding the name plate, that I did in Adobe Illustrator on my Macintosh ‘computer. Growing up as a young lad, we only had radio. Television didn’t come to my house until the 1950s. So each day after elementary school, there were half hour radio programs for the young. One of those was “The Lone Ranger”, from the old days of the West in Texas, circa mid 19th century. The program started out with the announcer’s voice proclaiming: “Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear! The Lone Ranger Rides again!. . . Hi Ho Silver! (Silver was his horse’s name, of course Why can I remember that, but I can’t tell you what I had for lunch yesterday? Oh my, you young folks have all this to look forward to!!!

I really bombed, in a negative way, you understand, regarding the stream on the left of the base. This was before I found out about using food colouring to tint the liquid acrylic. But it was still fun, so feel free to comment on this 1:35th scale vignette.
Rick the Miami Jayhawk PS. There two photos are of the Italeri Soft Plastic figure sets. The weeds/grasses were made from letter sized bond paper. All of the photos have gotten put in the wrong order. And I have no idea how this happened.

 

[housecarl]

You kept this quiet Rick.
Very nice.

 

[kansas kid]

You kept this quiet Rick.
Very nice.

Thank you Carl, my friend:
It was kind of you to respond.
Rick

 

[chippy]

Thank you Carl, my friend:
It was kind of you to respond.
Rick

Like Carl has already mentioned , you snuck that one past your mates Rickster . I only remember the Lone Ranger on black and white TV in the 50s starring Clayton Moore as the lone Ranger and Jay Silverheeels as Tonto .
chippy

 

[kansas kid]

Like Carl has already
mentioned , you snuck that one past your mates Rickster . I only
remember the Lone Ranger on black and white TV in the 50s starring
Clayton Moore as the lone Ranger and Jay Silverheeels as Tonto .
chippy

Holy Cow, Gordon. . . Oh yeh, I also remember the TV series. And you're
right on the money, with Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. Ha, oh my
goodness. I wasn't trying to "sneek one past you". It has just been a while
since I finished that piece. And thinking of the beginners, who like me
are on a strict budget (thanks to the US Stock Mkt. crash in 2008) I
was hoping I could give them a "leg up" without spending too much
cash. I try to remember to think, all the time, about the many beginners
who peruse this site, yet never make any comments. I think we need to
remember the beginners. . . . I believe they do not know what WIP
and SBS means. . . . . Rickster

 

[Braemp]

very nice. I think you made the best out of this. His face and charactere reminds of old soviet propaganda posters. Well done
Regards Lars

 

[kansas kid]

very nice. I think you
made the best out of this. His face and charactere reminds of old soviet
propaganda posters. Well done
Regards Lars

Well hello, Lars: Thanks so much for your kind words regarding my
"thrilling days of yesteryear" vignette. I do so appreciate it. And you're
right, altho I didn't think of it until you mentioned the stype of the old
WWII Soviet propaganda posters that became so popular. I always
loved that very strong style, but an not able to do art in that manner!

Kind regards, Rick

 

[swralph]

Lovely work and great painting of the horse.

 

[kansas kid]

Lovely work and great painting of the horse.

Good morning Ralph. And thank you for your kind
words. I tried to execute the dapple(sp?) grey on the horse,
not completely successful. . . Kind regards,

Jayhawker

 

[ChaosCossack]

Lovely work Rick
With a little gentle massage the cheaper plastic kits can look pretty damn good! The modern plastics like Dragon or MB have all kinds of potential.

This particular piece speaks to me as well... My grandfather served in a Red Army Cossack regiment in WWII. Dragging a little bit of the old world into the 20th century. I have a couple of newish plastic kits of WWII Soviet Cossacks... I just have to hike up my boots and get dug in, as you well know, these kits need a little TLC to bring them up to the level of high end metal and resin figures. Unfortunately I don't know that I have the skill to bring these "soft" kits to life.

Looking forward to your next piece... like another Cossack from the set (hint hint )

Keep it up!!!

Colin

 

[kansas kid]

Lovely work Rick
With a little gentle massage the cheaper plastic kits can look pretty
damn good! The modern plastics like Dragon or MB have all kinds of potential.

This particular piece speaks to me as well... My grandfather served in a Red Army
Cossack regiment in WWII. Dragging a little bit of the old world into the 20th
century. I have a couple of newish plastic kits of WWII Soviet Cossacks... I just
have to hike up my boots and get dug in, as you well know, these kits need a little
TLC to bring them up to the level of high end metal and resin figures. Unfortunately
I don't know that I have the skill to bring these "soft" kits to life.

Looking forward to your next piece... like another Cossack from the set (hint hint )

Keep it up!!!

Colin

Hello Colin: My goodness, your Grandfather certainly would have stories to tell.
Hopefully, he lived long enough for you and he to develop a lasting relationship.
And I appreciate your comments regarding what we can learn from some of
those smaller scale sets of figures. You mentioned Dragon and MasterBox. Over
the years I've seen both of those company's small scale figure sets really improve.
And in some respects I would even say I've seen a lot of improvement in the
quality of small scale figure sets from Zvezda and even MiniArt.

Hopefully, you'll get some time at the hobby bench soon. And as you know,
Colin, we have to put the time, to see our skill level improve. Good luck,

Rick