One thing the Tallarn Imperial Guard currently lack is a flamer special weapon. As flamers are excellent at attacking bunkers (or the troops inside). These instructions will show you how to create your own. The selection of model to start with is pretty important, though it really depends on the pose you want. If your going to do a Tallarn, then you can simply use the same figure I have done. Throughout my example I'll be refering to this model. If you choose another army try to choose a figure holding a lasgun at waist level, flamers aren't the kind of weapon you fire from the shoulder!
What you will need;
Clip the end off at the forward hand taking care not to damage the hand. Then use the clippers to trim off the top of the lasgun, back to the body, again taking care not to damage the hand. Then it's time to break out the files. File down the metal of the gun, taking care not to over-run with the file and damage the detail of the shoulders or body of the figure. A sharp knife can be used to trim the gun where the body is, but take extreme care if you choose to do this.
File around the hand, for the moment, don't file into the hand, leave the figure holding what remains of the lasgun. Take care not to trim away the figures thumb! Leave the gun butt hanging out the bottom of the hand.
Using a thin needle file, carefully file a groove in the hand, leave enough metal either side for the thickness of the fingers and thumb. Once the groove is cut, carefully bend the fingers flatter. Don't try to get them horizontal, just open up the gap enough to slot in the flamer.
Clip off the flamer fuel tank, and try the flamer for fit. If it doesn't sit right, file some more of the body out or trim the flamer. Because the flamer is platic, it's a lot easier to trim, but beware, you could end uf trimming it away to nothing! Try to file as much of the metal away till the gun sits nearly perfect, and then do the fine tuning by trimming the flamer.
Once all is trimmed up, glue the gun in place. If you're unsure, stick it in place with a small pice of Blu-tac(™). Step back and take a look at the figure. Turn it over, spin it around, make sure you are happy from all angles, because once that superglue goes on, your stuck with it (excuse the pun)
One slight modification needs to be made to the flamer tanks before we glue them on. Where the two small hoses join, trim off the circular bend (to feed into the tank sponson) and file it flat to take the hose. Glue the flamer tank to the back of the model, as per the picture to the right.
If you're using string for the hose, carefully soak a small length of it with super-glue and leave to dry. This will make the string more firm, and make it easier to position for glueing, and will mean it soaks up less paint when that time comes. Trim the end off the string to a flat, 90 degree edge, and glue to the tanks where the two small hoses join (the bit we filed flat), leave this to dry.
Once one end is solidly fixed, shape the string around the figure to the gun, and trim to length. Glue this end to the gun. Now, thats a lot simpler than it really is. You will probably find that the string just pops out, falls flat, and generally refuse to stay next to the gun. Try taping the string in place before you glue it. Once your confident that it's going to stay there, glue it on.
Thats it! You now have a Tallarn Flamer ready for painting. You figure should look like the one below. I have coloured in red the new pieces so you can clearly see where each piece has gone.
