Smurf Soccer! Some test pieces

Now, aside from all the other smurf goodness, I had been tempted for some time to get enough of the various soccer smurfs that were put out over the years by Schleich, perhaps the McDonald's ones if they were of a similar scale and some of my old Kinder ones, with some Schleich headswaps.

I gave up on that idea when I saw there was a complete soccer team with management and supporters put out by Edeka as a promotional item and that I could get them fairly cheap (15 figures posted to my door for under £10 seemed like a bargain compared to the Schleich ones). They are about 4cm tall, which is smaller than the schleich ones, but should work out better to make them look more like miniatures and less like toys.

Downside: they are of the smurf movie variety and I hate that look. So I set about trying to convert two of them to the classic, more cartoony smurfs, as a test. The first steps were to resculpt the eyes and eyebrows and fill out the brows for a more rounded head. The one with the open handpalms also had soms greenstuff applied to the fingers to make them more cartoony. The back of the heads had some lettering ("CE" and "(c) Peyo") that I also had to get rid of.

It's then that I noticed that these smurfs aren't in fact sculpted to be soccer smurfs, but rather repaints of regular smurfs. Since I already converted the heads, I decided to go a step further. I sculpted the edges of the shorts legs and added socks on one of them. I decided to leave the other one without socks to see if this step is really needed, as if this project goes forward, I'll be doing at least 22 + bench sitters and extras.  I got lazy and decided not to do the sleeves and just paint those on as they would be rather tight anyway. Finally, I went crazy and added the metal spikes to the sole of the raised foot, something I'm sure I'll regret when I do the others. 

That left me with these:

They looked ok, but only a lick of paint would reveal whether the conversion worked. I decided to go for players from two different teams (which also allows me to do half of them in socks if I'm so enclined, instead of all of them). Generally soccer smurfs tend to be depicted with a little shield on their breast, so I reproduced that here. I initially did them without any blacklining, but towards the end I felt they needed it to make them pop a bit more. The blue I used is darker than the original blue they came in, but pretty close to the Schleich blue, so, I don't know if it's good or bad. Also, the "10" on the back of the red one is seriously off-center, so I'll have to redo that lest it will drive me crazy. Overall though, I think the conversion worked, they no longer look like the movie version and aside from the fact they are smaller, they could pass for Schleich smurfs I think.

 A side by side of the originals and painted conversions:

Now this leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand they ended up looking pretty good I think, but there was a lot of conversion work, so I could have stuck with my smaller metal versions and converted those instead.

They have the advantage of being rather cheap (for £20 to £25 I could probably get 3 teams worth and some extras) and being plastic, they are easier to cut up and create different poses. I also don't feel I have to be as neat or use highlights and shades on these, which is a timesaver. My metal ones would be harder to convert, but would open the option to do one team, cast them and use different heads, including perhaps a black smurf team. The smaller size would mean the field could look bigger too. Decisions, decisions...

Smurf Wars: Smurf Racers... A Lucky Find?

It's purely by accident I wandered into one of the local toystores and noticed a couple tiny smurf diecast cars to the side, which seemed about just right for my Smurf Wars project. Naturally I had to buy them and research the range when I returned home. Apparently these were a 2013 release (no doubt dusted off with the release of the new movie) and as such no longer in production. I still managed to find a place online that had a few sets left, so I snapped them up. They are called "Die Cast Racers", not to be confused with larger scale equivalents that go by other labels.

There are 5 variants. One is a seriously underscaled Gargamel with Azrael, but I figured it would convert nicely with some of my smurf heads and some greenstuff to get rid of the "evil" look. Or I could add a black smurf as the driver and leave the car as is.

Here are a few examples with a size comparison to my metal smurfs:

And a comparison of the heads. They are very close in size, though the plastic heads aren't looking to good from the front.

Since I had spares, I decided to have a go at beheading a couple to see how they would look with some of my metal heads. I think they look good (note that Smurfette's head isn't sitting well currently because I didn't remove some excess hair volume for a better fit yet.

Not sure what to use these for. As extra smurf civilians perhaps, driving some of Handy Smurf's inventions. Or maybe add a new "racing" minigame to the project called "Smurfy Kart". That could be fun...

Smurf Wars: Black Smurf and Uninfected Mastercastings

Some more mastercastings, this time of some uninfected smurfs to fight back against the black/smurf purple smurf plague with the antidote that Papa Smurf came up with.

Here we have a male smurf body and a smurfette body with the antidote. Some of the heads to be used with these were shown here.

The recent, angry heads destined to be used for Grey Smurfs can also double up as black/purple smurf variants:

Here is an example of the "grey" Papa Smurf head on a new black smurf body variant, which will work just fine with the right paintjob.

Smurf Wars: Fighting Smurfs

Some more metal mastercastings for some fighting smurfs with makeshift weapons. These can serve as rebel smurfs in the Smurf King conflict or as "good" (regular) smurfs in the Grey Smurf menace. These are armed with a wooden sword and shield, a wooden hammer and a broom.

They are to be used with the shouting heads from the bottom row here, though of course, some of the other heads (sad head, surprised head) might also work:

No proper (spear and shield armed) grey smurf bodies in this batch yet, but we do have the first few "angry smurf" heads that will work for them (and for Grouchy of course):

Smurf Wars: Smurf Villager Mastercastings

No new paintjobs but here are some picturesof mastercastings of some more smurf villager bit.

Smurf heads. 

The top row are a sad smurf, a surprised smurf, a laughing smurf and a Papa Smurf character head.

The bottom row are shouting smurfs. These should work well as "good" fighting smurfs too (as in opposed to "evil" grey or black/purple smurfs, which will get more angry expressions).

The Smurfette. One body, five headvariants (you can tell the sculptor has a soft spot for her). From left to right, they are smiling, sad, angry (grey Smurfette), laughing and surprised/shouting.

Then a Jokey Smurf or Greedy Smurf body with accessories (jack in the box, packed present or smurf cake). The head is the laughing head from higher up, just loosely stuck on for the picture.

Some assorted bits and weapons to be used with other Smurf figures:

Smurf Wars: Black Smurf n° 1

Meanwhile, my sculptor buddy converted a first black smurf from a casting of the original smurf, which was promptly moulded and a casting was stolen diverted to be painted. Here he is in all his glory:

GNAP!

Seen here next to the original smurf:

And a small, comic book style, preview of the attack of the black smurfs!

Dun dun duuuun....!

Smurf Wars: Smurf House n° 2

After the pleasing result with the first house, I attacked the second, and decided to go for a new colourscheme that I think worked well. I also used a bigger brush, which made a huge difference on the roof.

With two houses and one smurf, where will he live?

Shown here from different angles, with the original paintjob in the last picture:

I was so pleased with the result that I went back to the store and bought ten more of the piggybanks. With hindsight, I should have picked a few more, as they never got them back in stock, but 12 should make a decent sized village.

Smurf Wars: Smurf House n° 1

With the first smurf painted, it was time to see what could be done with the piggybank houses, starting with the pink one.

First step was to grind of the smurfs on the sides, then patch up the resulting hole, as well as the coin slot in the roof. There was also a small inscription near the bottom that was filled in as well. Finally, a white undercoat to bring it all together before painting:

And here is the result: The roof could have been slightly smoother as the brush I used was too small, but overall the end result looks pretty neat. Shown with the original paintjob in the last picture:

Now that's one smurf of a house,
if I do say so my self.

Smurf Warfs: Smurf Villager

The prototype got mastermoulded and while these were intended for converting more variants, I couldn't resist the temptation to get one painted up to see how it looks.

This revealed a few points of improvement (like putting the eyes closer together, but overall, not a bad start.

Smurf Wars: The Smurf Menace

In this third game, which could be either a skirmish game or all-out mass battle, the inspiration would be found in the story "The Smurf Menace".

In this story, solidarity among the smurfs has reached a low when a second smurf village is discovered in the woods nearby. These smurfs, who all seem to be counterparts of the regular smurfs, including a Papa Smurf in dark red clothes and a Smurfette with black hair, dress in grey clothes, quickly earning them the name of "grey smurfs".

Before long, it is revealed that the grey smurfs have an agressive nature and want to enslave the other smurfs, something in which they initially succeed. It is revealed they were magically created by Papa Smurf to teach his little smurfs a lesson on the values of friendship, but you could say that one blew up in his face.

Who was expecting an air strike on the smurf village...

This aspect of the game will require some angry looking smurfs with spear and shield for the grey smurfs and can use the regular smurfs with makeshift weapons used for the King Smurf battles.

Smurf Wars: The King Smurf's Civil War

The second game would be a skirmish game, centered around the events from "Le Schtroumpfissime" (The King Smurf).

When Papa Smurf goes on a trip, one of the other smurfs turns demagogue, then elected leader and then self-proclaimed King. From there, things rapidly go down hill and when smurfs start to protest some of his actions, things turn ugly quite rapidly.

Malcontent smurfs go live in a hidden camp in the forest (Robin Hood style) and the King Smurf quickly goes about fortifying the village against an attack, while trying to root out the dissidents.

In the end, the rebels end up storming the village and an all-out smurf civil war is fought.

For this aspect of the game, some armed smurf miniatures (halberds for the King's troops and makeshift weapons for the rebels) and a King Smurf mini are all that is required.

Smurf Wars: The Black Smurfs

The first of the Smurf conflicts I would like to cover in 28mm wargame form is probably the most famous: "les schtroumpfs noirs", the black smurfs, although I understand this became the purple smurfs abroad.

The story behind this is a smurf gets bitten by an exotic bug, which makes his skin turn black/purple and gives him an irresistable urge to go bite other smurfs. The bite is contagious and each smurf who gets bitten turns into a black smurf itself. Soon the village is run over and Papa Smurf develops an antidote in a desperate bid to turn the tide.

The game would basically run like a zombie game. You'd have your regular smurfs (civilians), you'd have your infected (the black smurfs) and you'd get Papa Smurf and a a few others armed with the antidote, trying to turn as many of the infected back into regular harmless smurfs.

Smurf Wars: An Introduction

I don't believe I have to introduce the Smurfs here, they are well known throughout the world. They might however not strike you as material for 28mm wargaming, but you are wrong there, The books offer many examples of conflict and near civil war that are easily gamable, be it without anyone getting seriously hurt, but hey, that's something anyone with children can get behind, right?

Smurf on smurf, now you smurfed it!

This project started as a bit of an accident. On the one hand, I knew of the Pixi Minis (them again) smurf village in the right scale. I have however invested enough in Pixi ranges (Asterix, Lucky Luke) to know the pricetag and to be fair, most of their smurf sculpts are a bit iffy.

Then the official Smurf store opened in Brussels when I still lived in the neighbourhood and I inevitably wandered in eventually. That's when I discovered on one of the shelves 2 different resin smurf house piggybanks. Sure, they each had an oversized smurf sculpted to the side of them and the mandatory coinslot, but other than that, they (a) looked perfect for 28mm and (b) unlike all the toys, looked exactly like the houses in the original comic. They were, I believe, priced at 12€, so naturally, I bought one of each, even though I had no specific plans for them. Step one.

Around the same time smurfs happened to come up in the conversation with a sculptor friend who was doing some work for me. Turned out he had a soft spot for smurfs too and we went on a bit about that. (Yes, two grown adults had a prolonged e-mail conversation about smurfs) I didn't think much more about it until a couple days later he sent me a picture of this:

Yes, that's a 20mm-ish tall smurf he sculpted (enlarged here to over double size for the picture). One thing lead to another, I threw the green into one of my moulds and found it scaled very well with the piggybanks:

We agreed to work on and off on this project, when time allowed and get enough for a game for the both of us (not a commercial project). Most of the future smurfs were or will be converted from this test piece figure. Aside from the normal "villager" smurfs, I decided to add figures to recreate three famous conflicts from smurf history: the black smurfs (purple smurfs for the English version), the King smurf (le schtroumpfissime) and the Smurf Menace (smurfs vs grey smurfs).

Smurf Wars was on!