Friday 23 August 2013

A neat coincidence

By complete and utter coincidence these chaps dropped through the letter box yesterday just a few hours after I put up my previous blog-post. Amazingly they are the same figures I was just waffling on about (FN24 Guard Standard Bearer and FN25 Guard Drummer). This means I now have enough command figures to complete both of my Old Guard units.

The figures were very kindly sent to me by Don from the US and he originally posted them to me nearly two months ago however due to an address hiccup they have become very well travelled having crossed the pond three times before finally arriving with me. I had no idea what was in the package before I opened it – talk about good timing!

Marcus Hinton gave his line flag-bearer figure (here) a flag based on that of the 45th Line Regiment with the correct battle-honours engraved on it. If you zoom in on this picture you will see from Don’s stunning brush work that the lettering on the flag is exactly the same. Presumably Marcus decided to use the original master rather than inscribe a new one – fair enough as I doubt if he ever considered that someone as nerdy as me would be scrutinising his work so closely some 45 years later.

The figures will eventually be stripped and repainted (although I won’t be able to get that lettering to the same standard as Don’s) and given the honour of being assigned to the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard.

5 comments:

James Fisher said...

Nice painting by Don. Look forward to seeing them once they have been 'promoted' to the Guard!

(A great news story in there about the parcel that eventually arrived too!)

James

lewisgunner said...

couldn't you just improve hem rather than a complete repaint? therebis, after all, ony so much ime!
Oy

Stryker said...

Roy - I have had the same thought, they are beautifully painted but not in my own style so it may be difficult to do that. One thought was to stand the flag-bearer in the jar of bleach with the flag sticking out so that I could at least keep that part as is!

nigel shackleford said...

I share your paint-stripping angst. Have you tried cellulose thinner? It's slower than bleach, but less damaging to the original metal.

Stryker said...

Hi Nigel - no, I've not tried cellulose thinners, one good thing about the bleach is you can just chuck it down the sink when you finish!