In half a league of his own

Well, he not only crept onto my desk, he managed to push his way straight to the front of the painting queue. This is BC/75 17^th Lancer in lancer cap in “foul weather” cover and full dress marching order riding on Horse BCH/4. The fact that the horse is given the code “4” does make me think that Marcus Hinton had perhaps intended to beef (no pun intended) up the cavalry in the Crimean range.

I’m really pleased with the way this one turned out especially as I didn’t find him easy to paint. The casting suffers from an extreme case of “disappearing detail syndrome” and it took me ages to get the cords and straps right. None of this was helped by the fact that every source I looked at had a different version of a 17^th Lancer’s uniform. This is one occasion when it would have been very useful to have the Hinton Hunt painting instructions as a guide.

The figure is really superb and I’m now more frustrated than ever that Marcus Hinton didn’t finish off the range. This chap seems lonely without any Light Dragoons or Cherry-Bums to keep him company - not to mention personality figures of Cardigan, Lucan and Nolan. Also missing from the range are Russian gunners and cannon (so nothing to the right, left or front), Cossacks and of course no Heavy Brigade either!

If I had the skill I’d be very tempted to sculpt them all myself…

Thanks to Dave for the updated photo!

9th legere – progress so far

A frenzy of painting this week has seen me pass the halfway mark on the recruitment of the 9th legere. The figures are:

1 x FN/80 Light Infantry Officer (charging)
5 x FN/82 Light Infantryman (charging)
6 x FN/254 Voltigeur (charging)

I have a few more figures for this unit part done and somehow that Crimean War 17th Lancer has crept onto the painting table as well…

Light Infantry Voltigeur

I normally paint a “test” figure whenever I start on a new Hinton Hunt type because I invariably tweak the paint job as it progresses. I didn’t do that with this one so ended up having to re-paint the plume and epaulets on all 6 of these Light Infantrymen, which goes to show that I shouldn’t try and cut corners.

The figure is FN/254 French Voltigeur in Plumed Shako (charging). I’m painting this one, together with his five friends, to represent the Voltiguer Company of my 9^th legere unit. Progress has been slow on this unit because of other distractions but I hope to get a few more figures painted soon.

This figure is almost certainly a vintage one and was among the batch donated to me a while back by Douglas. I’ve been thinking recently that, given the title of this blog and my limited painting time, I really should focus on painting all my genuine vintage figures first before working on any more of the dubious types.