Saturday 2 January 2016

A few favourite things

There has been a bit of an Austrian start to the New Year. Firstly I watched well over half of The Sound of Music until just before the end I was ejected from the living room along with the dogs for making too much noise – now I’ll never know whether the Von Trapp family ever escaped the Nazis. Apparently it was Christopher Plummer’s least favourite film, clearly Waterloo and The Battle of Britain must have been much more fun to make.


Secondly and more importantly I’ve been working on a few of my own favourite things. I completed this test figure for an Austrian line battalion painted according to the Hinton Hunt instruction sheet as a member of Musketeer Regiment No 4 Hoch-Und Deutschmeister. The figure is AN.7 Musketeer, marching and is a reproduction figure rather than a vintage one as my supply of genuine HH Austrian figures is all but exhausted.


I’ve also got a couple of Austrian guns and a limber on the painting desk – there’s something very appealing about bright yellow artillery and of course the gunners in their brown uniforms will complement the guns perfectly. I'll be completing the limber with a four horse team (cream coloured ponies?) and I think I even have some limber horse riders somewhere.

Now, what did I do with my warm woollen mittens?

10 comments:

Benjamin of Wight said...

Mind you Ritter von Trapp was an Austro-Hungarian U-Boat ace in the first great unpleasantness . . .

Stryker said...

And there's me thinking Austria was a landlocked nation!

Anonymous said...

Very nice indeed, look forward to seeing the unit progress

Paul

Stryker said...

Thanks Paul!

Wellington Man said...

Gorgeous! I'm sworn off Austrians, but my resolve is beginning to collapse.

MSFoy said...

Lovely - I've always secretly yearned to do the 1813 campaign, but have managed to restrain myself. You'll need a few more of these for Leipzig, but this is a splendid start. I once saw the schloss where they filmed The Sound of Music - as I recall it's actually in the South Tirol, which is (technically, if not spiritually) Italy these days, of course. A cousin of mine used to date Mr Plummer's daughter Amanda fairly seriously (this is true, by the way), but managed to fall out with her in the nick of time and now is as undistinguished and penniless as the rest of my wretched family - still, as you can see, I am almost related to Mr Plummer.

I rather liked him in the Return of the Pink Panther, where he had the terrific advantage of not being David Niven. No - overall, I think he is always going to remain Wellington - the idea of a Canadian playing an Irishman who is one of England's greatest heroes is pleasing. One of his great lines in that production is when he announces that his grand plan is to defeat the French - quite why Uxbridge manages to avoid slapping him in response is one of the great mysteries of military history.

Excellent, anyway.

the Archduke said...

Um Gottes Willen, ve haf been here before. Bondarchuk's Waterloo can't hold a candle to ze raindrops on ze roses where it comes to true military history...although I love the bit where Plummer makes the Eniskillen a corporal for stealing a pig. Congratulations, Ian, on painting a real soldier. Splendid chap. Now, Mr Wellington Man, I once foreswore painting any British soldiers. It lasted about as long as a New Year resolution. We need to see you turn those magnificent painting skills to the prettiest army of them all...
Zis has been a Neujahr rant from Vienna usw.

KEV. Robertson. said...

Look forward to you developing the Austrians IAN...they area very colourful Army.KEV.

Stryker said...

Thanks for the comments lads.

Tony - nearly being related to Christopher Plummer is cool indeed. As a teenager I remember watching groups of spitfires and Messerschmitts flying over the playground on their way to film air sequences for The Battle of Britain. I wonder if Plummer ever went in one of them?

Archduke - calm down or you'll split your lederhosen and let's not lead poor Wellington Man astray!

Conrad Kinch said...

Very nice Kaiserlick old son, though I think you'll find they do sort of call out for Hussar accompaniment.