Virgin Soldiers

I acquired most of the castings in my collection already painted by their previous owners, and even in the case of the not-so-good paint jobs I still feel a bit guilty about stripping the old paint. However, some of the figures are vintage “virgin” castings (meaning they had never been painted before) still complete with their original flash metal. I like painting these castings the most because they must have sat in a lead-pile for the best part of 30 years having given up all hope of parading on a tabletop. They also remind me of the excitement of receiving a package direct from Hinton Hunt (umpteen years ago) - the figures always comprised more flash than actual figure but it was dead exciting all the same. Here’s a little taster of some units still to come.

My old friends the Prussians! These are Jagers PN24, PN25 & PN29


And these are line infantry PN4 & PN7


French Cuirassiers – I can’t wait! FN310 & FNH5


Austrian Lancers – what could be better? AN85…

I really must up my game on the painting front so that my virgin soldiers can join the old campaigners in the display cabinet and on the tabletop where they belong.

Brunswick Hussars – Finished!

The Brunswick Hussars are finished at last - 6 x BRN/17 Death's Head Hussar (Horse Attached Series) charging.

I see a line of Hussars and they’re all painted black

I see Hussars ride by dressed in their sombre clothes

I wanna see em painted black, painted black


Black as night, black as coal, yeah…

*Lyrics by Mick Oels Jager

Waterloo Live!

For any of you who haven’t already noticed – the Wargames Holiday Centre are staging a re-fight of Waterloo this weekend. They’ve had the neat idea of posting 'live' updates on the progress of the battle.

Great stuff – click here to go to their website!

Brunswick Update

Thanks to all of you who left comments suggesting the best way to tackle my Brunswick black problem. I tried out quite a few ideas but in the end went for the “safe” option and just mixed up a much darker shade of grey (50% black and 50% Foundry 34B). This means that it’s actually very hard to see all the black detail I have laboriously painted on the figure but at least I know it's there and I feel happier with the overall result.

So much for my cunning plan of painting up some “easy” Brunswickers to crank up the painting output. This figure has actually taken me longer to paint than Stapleton Cotton did in all his finery - there are so many layers of paint on this chap that he may be in danger of falling off his horse under the weight of it all. Anyway, as you can see I am now getting on with the other five troopers in the squadron and already have the horses done.

I decided this year that I would try to stick to a Hinton Hunt painting quota to get things moving along a bit better after last year’s disappointing output. I will try each month to paint either one personality figure, a squadron of six cavalry, a gun and crew or half a battalion of infantry (12 figures). If I have any time left over in the month then I’ll paint up some non-HH related stuff so that my other projects might progress as well – sounds simple enough eh?