Poseable Army Men

The original poseable paracord army men!

I grew up playing with little plastic green army men. They were okay, but they couldn't really do much. They were either shooting guns, throwing grenades, or using binoculars. That was about it.

So I made some poseable paracord army men, and these guys can do all sorts of cool stuff. They're not just limited to war-type activities anymore; they can dance, scrapbook, chase butterflies... anything is possible.

You will need some paracord and some thin wire. I used "bell wire" which I believe was 22 or 24 gauge.

Cut two strands of paracord, one about 44" and the other about 20". Remove the inner paracord strands. Cut two matching lengths of wire and insert them into the hollow pieces of paracord.

To keep the paracord from fraying, you can fuse the ends with a lighter as shown in the third photo.

Create the basic body shape with the longer piece of paracord, as shown in the photos.

The head shape should created at the mid point of the longer piece of paracord.

Wrap the chest and torso with the loose ends of paracord as shown.

Wrap legs as shown. When you get to the bottom of the feet, trim off the remaining paracord and wire leaving about and 1/8" remaining.

Use a lighter to heat up this remaining bit, and moosh the molten glob down smooth with your thumb. (I highly recomment putting some spit on your thumb first!)

The arms and head are wrapped with the shorter piece of paracord. Begin by feeding it through the chest section and wrapping around the head circle. Continue wrapping through both arms, and finish them in the same manner as the legs.

Put a keyring on the head and throw it on your backpack, make a simple base out of cardboard, or just play with it as is. We've had a lot of fun with these by adding parachutes made from garbage bags and the inner paracord strands.

Thanks for reading!