Napoleonic Westphalian gunners

Hot on the heels of my two Westphalian Guard battalions here are some gunners to give them support. I've no guns as I have so many for the French I doubt I'll ever get them on the table and I may as well use them for allies when needed.  The figures, once again, are from Elite miniatures.

I couldn't get the horse gunners to stand up. Minus one on firing for them for hitting the ale too heavily at that last village!

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.

Bundles of joy

Latest arrivals from Warlord Games

Basing, un-basing, re-basing my Bavarians

Back in 2011 I posted pictures of some of the thirteen Bavarian battalions I had painted. The figures are Old Glory 1st edition, which I like for their animation (more people hate them than love them). Well, not having mounted officers for those units bothered me. I could feel the figures calling out to me from the shelf.

Napoleonic Bavarian 6th Line Infantry Regiment (Old Glory 1st edition figures)

http://lacenbighats.blogspot.com/2011/02/old-glory-28mm-1st-edition-bavarian.html

 Eventually I broke down and ordered a Connoisseur miniatures mounted officer for each battalion. This was part of a huge order to Bicorne miniatures, which took months to fill - I spent months dithering over the order too! Then I had to get around to painting the figures, of course, and to face the pain of taking the painted figures off their bases and re-basing.

Now I am finally done.Well, except for the fact I have to sort out flags for the units and import some silfor tufts for the bases. A wargamer's work is never done.

Napoleonic Bavarian Line infantry regiment. Old Glory 1st edition figures with Connoisseur miniatures mounted officer.

Napoleonic Bavarian Line infantry regiment. Old Glory 1st edition figures with Connoisseur miniatures mounted officer.

I have all of the painted figures, which were replaced by a mounted officer, and so, of course, I have to paint more battalions. And so the cycle begins again..

10mm WW2 British Hamilcar Glider (Pendraken miniatures)

This is a Pendraken 10mm Hamilcar glider. It is photographed next to a couple of German Sd. 222 Armoured Cars, which I have airbrushed with three colour camouflage and then dry brushed.

Pendraken shipped a huge order out to me in Bangladesh. Unfortunately the glider was broken in transit. Pendraken kindly offered to send me a replacement part, for the wing which was broken in the middle, but I was too keen to get started. I used some quick bonding metal filled Araldite to glue the wing parts onto the body. This was far harder than I had expected. The resin warped once it was broken. After a day of messing around I finally got it together. I used "green stuff" to smooth over most of the damage. You don't notice any problems because of the strong black/white pattern.

I undercoated the aircraft with airbrushed Vallejo deep bronze green primer, which is great stuff. Then I sprayed on brown, in the RAF heavy bomber pattern. Next I went back to the green areas and sprayed on Vallejo US olive drab while leaving a border in the original, darker, green. After this I used a darker brown to border the brown areas of camouflage.

I took a sheet of paper and drew around the aircraft body. Then, using a ruler, I put on marks for the start and end points of the D-Day black/white markings. Putting this on the aircraft I was able to get roughly symmetrical patterns. After these were painted on, I printed out a variety of sizes of circles for the roundels. Once I had the right sizes, I drew outlines where they were to be. My handiest painter, Mishma, was tasked with painting the roundels for me. Voila!

15mm WW2 German tanks camouflaged

Here are some 15mm German tanks which I have airbrushed. This time I used vallejo's airbrush paint, together with airbrush medium to dilute it. I also had the compressor produce the right pressure (I'd always had it too high before).

First I airbrush the tanks, then I ink them, then I dry brush with pale sand, to bring out the edges. I paid on the tracks lastly, and ink over them.

I am going for a battle worn look. The Panthers are all in three colour camouflage. Some of the stugs are in three colour, others in brown over a base coat of desert yellow. I painted "kill rings" on some tanks. You can click on a picture to get a larger image.

28mm Napoleonic British 18th Hussars and 3rd Hussars KGL

I have been working on these two regiments of British Hussars for six months. They are the 3rd KGL Hussars and 18th Hussars. The figures are from Elite Miniatures (28mm).

The swords have been replaced by steel pins, which I soldered on. I ground off the original reigns and replaced them with thin copper wire. I converted some horses, having them tumble, or rear up, with my handy dremel. I moved some of the Hussars body parts around; heads looking side ways, arms at different angles. I would have liked to have had one of the figures doubled over, or falling to the side. I figured I could do this by using the dremel to cut out a wedge, deep at the ourside, narrow inside the figure, which would allow the figure to be folded from the belly forwards. But the braid on the Hussars jackets got in the way. I will try this another time.

I had to drill/cut through hands, and then build up the hands again, to get the copper wire reigns to appear to be held the Hussars. This was a warm up exercise for two regiments, each of 32 men, of Saxon Napoleonic Cuirassier. The Saxon figures are from Connoisseur and are one of their classics.

Grinding off the reigns took days of laborious work. It wasn't worth it. When I took a look at some beautiful Guard du Corps figures, which I was imitating, I noted that the original reigns were still there. The modeller, the superb Peter Guilder, had just added another set of reigns with copper fuse wire. I think the wire I used is a little bit to thick. I may use a thinner wire next time. I hammered this wire flat before adding it to the model. There are still some jobs to be done. The wire reigns has to be smoothed in places. I am going to import some Silfor tufts to put onto the bases.

3rd Hussars King's German Legion

3rd Hussars King's German Legion

3rd Hussars King's German Legion

18th Hussars

18th Hussars

18th Hussars

3rd Hussars King's German Legion

3rd Hussars King's German Legion

3rd Hussars King's German Legion

18th Hussars

18th Hussars

18th Hussars

18th Hussars

18th Hussars