Lieutenant Cuthbert, gunnery officer

The last figure in my Molaterian heavy artillery team is the gunnery officer - Lt. Cuthbert. He is based - as with all my 'Berts' - on Black Hat's metal artillery crewman.

Unlike the rest of the Berts, however, I chose to start with a resin duplicate of Black Hat's figure as I imagined that tying to heavily modify a metal figure would be a bit of a pain. The resin that my brother is currently using is a joy to work with and very easy to cut and sand.

The job began with some major sanding back of the torso, removing the braces and shirt format of the original Black Hat figure. Once done I built up the officer's tunic with Milliput putty and added a double-breasted button arrangement based on a design from Osprey's 'The Belgian Army in World War 1'.

The head is my Mk. II 'Albert' resin head modified with new - and suitable 'upper-class' - facial hair and an officer's kepi (again, based on a Belgian army design).

Next I have to add his arms, I am thinking of poses but want him to be holding some binoculars in his right hand. The uniform will be mostly black - a nod to the Belgian influence - with tangerine detailing.

As I mentioned, this will be the last use of my Mk. II 'Albert' head for modelling my figures - I am working on a Mk III head sculpt to replace it - but it will be nice to have a unit in my army that will reflect the evolution of my sculpting skills (such as they are).