More Blues

The white frozen stuff has finally gone, the temperature in the Hut is back to a nice balmy 4 degrees, and I’m back painting British heavy cavalry. I’ve had to do this because increasing the Greys to a full unit has left me with half a unit of Royals that now need to be expanded to a full regiment.

Two things I noticed when I started to paint, firstly, I realised that I had erroneously painted the six existing figures as officers rather than troopers. The reason appears to be that my Blandford shows an officer and I never bothered to read the text. No problem, this just adds to the 1970s authentic feel of this project because it’s the sort of thing I would have done aged 12.

These are the first two of the extra 6 figures I need to complete the unit. They are both vintage castings of BN60 Household Cavalry Trooper but I have converted the one on the left to a bugler.

Secondly, I clocked that on half the existing figures I had failed to paint the scabbards. I’ve played with these figures on quite a few occasions but never spotted that before which makes me wonder just how much detail is actually worth painting if I don’t even notice it? Answers on a postcard please.

More 1745 British (Off Topic #30)

I have spent a good part of today staring out of our kitchen window as our neighbour’s car across the lane has gradually disappeared under a layer of snow now 8 inches thick. It’s getting to the point where we probably couldn’t get our own car down the lane even if there was somewhere to go.

With a forecast of minus 7 Celcius tonight (and it always gets 2 degrees colder here than the BBC says) I took advantage of a short break in the weather to remove all my paints and the painting tray from the cabin so I could set up work next to Mrs S’s jigsaw puzzle workstation in the kitchen (“do you really have to bring all that in here?” – “YES” I answered).

I'm going for a 1:20 figure to man ratio which makes Semphill's Foot 20 figures strong. The Grenadier companies were split between the flanks so there will be 2 figures at either end of the line. This will mean they are over represented but they will look pretty.

I did manage to finish up the first ‘base’ of Semphill’s Foot a couple of days ago. I have really enjoyed painting these, but they were more time consuming than I hoped (I’m always over optimistic about how long it will take to paint something). My plan is to base the British infantry in 4’s on 40mm x 40mm bases. At the moment the figures have a layer of gloss varnish but I’m not sure yet of the final finishing or basing style.

Finding any information on the backs of the Grenadier caps has proved more difficult than the fronts so there is some artistic licence here.

I will be returning to the Hinton Hunts soon but I have a few items for my Boer War project to complete first.

Scotland Forever!

Here they are The 2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons finished at last. The figures are all vintage Hinton Hunt castings brought together from different sources over the course of thirteen years, stripped, repaired and repainted by me.

Lock up your Eagles, here they come!

Ponsonby with the full Union Brigade - the Scots Greys, the Irish Inniskilling's and the English 1st Royal Dragoons. 

I’ll be staying in Heavy Cavalry mode for the next unit – The Blues.