Spartans Assemble!

So, rather than cracking on and starting to paint my converted spartans in fetching shades of red and blue, I thought I should probably convert some more to make enough for a four-player game. I'll use Master Chief for one player, but that meant I still needed seven more minis...

To start with, pistols:

I had to convert two, since there isn't already a Master Chief fig with a pair of pistols (although I'll use the Master Chief I'd previously converted for him, as that way it's only the M.C. figs that are stood on various large chunks of scenery...)

Whilst converting these I had a sudden thought: what if, rather than cutting through arms, wrists etc to convert them, I just wrenched the whole arm out? Turns out they're held in place with a handy Tetris-piece shaped plug (which you can sort of see here):

Which you'd think would make arm swapping fairly straightforward, no? Turns out they're positioned somewhat differently in different figures, resulting in the following:

All hail surrender Spartan! He amused me briefly, but a little bit of cutting, some liquid green stuff and a dab of superglue later, and he became the Spartan you saw in the first picture.

I won't bore you with individual shots of each of the other five:

From L-R:
Battle Rifle (that was originally going to be on the sniper model, but I just couldn't get the Sniper Rifle to sit right so they got swapped);
Shotgun (using a Brute Shot body so it looks like he's rocking back in response to some suddenly appearing threat);
Sniper Rifle (I think this one's the body of a carbine wielder on a random pair of legs from my halo bits box);
Needlers (legs from the leaping carbine figure, looks a bit like he's doing ballet though...);
Plasma Rifle (I used the energy sword body with an arm swap and some hot water repositioning to make it look like the rifle had just overheated and burned his fingers, because that's how I imagine it happening whenever I play the Xbox game...)

So with these done, that brings us to two dozen:

Bammo, I'll base the rest once this post is up and then they'll be ready for undercoating (which probably won't be until the weekend).

Before all of this happened though, I decided to base the discworld miniatures I had on the cobblestone bases I'd made:

I added a few patches of rough sand to mucky it up a little and voila, done! Well, not entirely. Note the green stuff under Rincewind's boots, where I made an epic fuck-up. After spending so much time coating those bases with PVA to protect them from the harshness of aerosoals and chemicals, in a moment of unthinking ridiculousness I pinned Rincewind to his base. Yep, I drilled through the protective coating into the poor, defenseless foam and poured in superglue. It promptly started dissolving, prompting a bout of swearing and and a rush to pour enough green stuff into the recently created holes to try and plug them up... I think I'm going to brush undercoat the bases before I spray them though, just in case anything else goes wrong...