"Conversions"

HaT box front

I don't really know if what I'm doing to my figures really qulifies as converting them as I'm mostly just re-purposing and adjusting their stances.
My latest efforts in press-ganging figures comes from the HaT box (*smirk) 9120 - Carthaginian Light Infantry (as shown)
As usual there are four sprues each of four different figures in the box.
This was my first HaT box of 54mms that I bought and came from a fairly local model shop for the princely sum of £4.50 (less than 30p a figure!).

Rear box art

Unlike the newer box art of a single figure , this older version features an artists impression of the four figures in the box, whilst the reverse shows line drawings of figures within and a' painting guide' .
Opening the box is where reality clashes with artistry,
The two figures I'm currently interested in are the two helmeted ones, as shown on the front, with their red shields and long bronze spine.

Once more I've paired the two similarly dressed figures for use in the arena to be used as a spearman and a duplicate for when he has dispensed with his spear and drawn his sword. 
Even the line illustrations of the two figures
 don't give cause for concern as there seems little conversion work to do on either figure and all that will remain to be done is to re-position their stances a little to give at least some semblance of variation.
These of course being very lightly armed will be used as velites in the animal hunts (normally the first session in an arena's day (and in my games too- if they ever get really going on a regular basis).

The original on the left and plume-less on the right

 So where's the problem then?
Mr. Spearthrower (Thruster ?) has what appears to be a small plume atop his helmet,which is probably just sprue to enable easier moulding and was fairly easily removed, but his shield has none of the lovely veriucal spin on it as shown on the front box art - even the small drawing showed the pose on the left, thus hiding the omitted spine.

The Spineless Spearman

Original swordsman on the left, and 'converted' one on the right

His sword armed counterpart on the other hand does have the spine on his shield - as illustrated.
So for uniformity between the two figures (spear and sword armed) I got to cutting away the spine and the supporting pieces to the centre boss on the sword-armed version. This a more or less gave a suitably similar figure to the spear armed one, save for the very nicely done shield edge, which of course had to be cut away too as Mr Spearman didn't have one on his shield!

Re=positioned Spearman

  The spearman took little to no time cutting his his plume off and slightly re-positioning his spear-arm and leg (there's only so much that can be done) and were duly based up.
You'll probably notice the bases are cut-up plastic 'credit' cards and are great for my purposes. 
The quillons on their sword hilts were also cut back to more represent the gladius (- and as I thought the ones present looked odd)

The swordsman took a little while longer to finish off, especially after I stabbed my index finger on my left hand and slashed the corresponding one on my right hand a day later (the latter not hobby related! - for a change).
There wA A litttle more that could be done re-positioning the sword arm, but not much.

And in case you're wondering where the fourth figure of the group is - he went awol at the time of the photoshoot (but now found).. These will have their bases finished and painted in the coming week (or more) and I'll be taking another look at adding nets to my retiarii 0 which is all I managed to do to them in the last week too (i.e. look at them).

That's it then for this week.