28mm Napoleonic Westphalian Guard and Russian Soum Hussars (metal from Elite miniatures)

I closed my factory in August, to allow me to spend more time outside of Bangladesh, but kept on the best 12 people and moved them to my house (a new and larger place). We still have projects to finish for customers and since August I've only managed to get these figures for myself. I hired a couple of extra painters to speed things up. I guess we will go to a higher staff level from here. I've piles of lead to be finished. BTW, in the future we will only work from stock - of which there is a lot.

These are the Westphalian Guard Grenadiers. The metal is from Elite miniatures. You will see that Pete Morby, the owner and sculptor, has abandoned the "hey, steve!" dramatic turn of the head on his figures. I've still to add flags.

The figures are painted off a light grey base, to make them look different from my mass of Austrians which are painted on a base of "off beige/sand". This is my new painting technique which I came up with about six months ago. Instead of painting a block of colour I have the paint "tickled" on in little lines around the area to be painted. This doesn't cover everything, so the effect is a sort of blending where the strongest coverage is in the area "highest". Then the next, lighter, layer goes on top of that in the same manner but more restricted to the higher area.

I got a new light box fixed up in my house. This, along with a tripod, is helpful in taking good pictures. Click on images to get a larger picture.

 

These are the Westphalian Guard Fusiliers. I think I have the Guard Jaegers somewhere in my lead pile (from another manufacturer). I got the Westphalians from Elite, Connoisseur, Bicorne and Front Rank. I have enough for my needs from each manufacturer (i.e. times 4) and ambitiously thought of selling off the figures I didn't want when I'm finished. Well, only 2 infantry units done so far!

 

These lovelies are the Russian Soum Hussars. I painted 12 for a customer and then noticed that some of the uniform details were from the wrong year. I hated the idea of over painting so I replaced his Elite miniatures figures with some from my unpainted 32 man regiment and then finished this lot for myself.