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.
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| 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.
26 comments:
Everyone in the Blues is surely a blue blood and therefore every bit as good as an officer in any other regiment so why not paint them that way?
They look gorgeous and that's what matters - reality was inevitably a lot nastier and grubbier than our games - I vote for games over reality any day of the week,
Thanks Rob, that’s what I think too!
Shiny and beautiful Ian. Got to love those helmets with the caterpillar crests. Very neat bit of brushwork there with the yellow/red.
Thanks Lee, I like the yellow and red whether or not its correct!
Nice change from the “menacing brick red wall” as some called the heavies in 1815. They look just as they should, Ian. I remember reading that an unnamed Johnny Foreigner in one of your earlier engagements declined to attack the Blues on the grounds that “they looked hard”.
Quite right too.
Nigel, I think you could be right although I can’t remember who that was!
Looking carefully at the figures coming off your painting bench is always such a joy to behold.
Best Regards,
Stokes
I find I pick up more missed bits and mistakes when looking at the pictures of my minis on my blog than I do with the models in hand, really not sure how that works.
Thanks Stokes but please don’t look too carefully!
Thanks for the comment Ian, I don’t like to look too closely at my photos as all I tend to see is wobbly lines!
*Laughter*. I used to go by the artwork in the Ladybird books when I was a lad.
Your Blues are brilliant, Ian!
Lovely work, Ian - these chaps are splendid. I'm impressed by your trumpeter conversions. You probably think of these as fairly routine now, but they still impress me.
Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Wargames figures form the attractive spectacle of the hobby, the games/rules the mental exercise. If the figures were intended as stand alone display models only I would agree that "rivet-counting" is important, but in this case a missed scabbard etc. is of little cause for concern.
They look darn good, but if you seriously want to throw them away in disgust you have my address!
WM, I never thought of Ladybird books at the time - good idea! My only painting guides back then were my one Blandford (with only 3 pages on the Napoleonic wars) the various Airfix box arts and of course Hinton Hunt painting instruction sheets.
Thanks Tony, I do like a good old trumpet conversion!
Matt - ha! No I’m very happy with them thanks!
So, how many squadrons will you have to paint to accomodate the officers?
They are lovely though.
(hmm, re scabbards, keep thinking like that and you're liable to come over to the toy soldier side. Its a slippery slope but a very comfy ride....)
Ross, fortunately the scarcity of figures will prevent me from up-scaling the squadrons!
Very nice Ian...
A nice change from all that scarlet... and the certainty do look ‘hard’.
All the best. Aly
Thanks Aly!
The eternal dilemma for us veteran collectors, do we meddle with our youthful projects? Thankfully the young me was pretty careful although reference material on one occasion was limited to BBCm's War & Peace commeorative magazine! An inspiring job as usual Ian.
Simon, I wish I had known there was a commemorative magazine. I used to watch each episode in the hope of a battle scene but of course that was before VHS recorders so I had to hold it in my minds eye - not very successful!
Very nice Ian. There really is something special about that uniform and you capture it beautifully.
Better not to discuss the "mistakes" I have found on my painted figures, but a whole squadron of officers, that's impressive!
My first source of information on uniforms was a set of pictures from Look and Learn. I then got a Hamlin book which I still have.
David, I must confess I have impressed myself on this occasion!
Anon, interesting, I never had a copy of Look & Learn Magazine which explains a lot I guess! My first (and the only uniform book I had as a teenager) was Blandford's 'Military Uniforms of The World' which I still have. A lovely book but with a limited number of illustrations for each period so not much good for in depth coverage of a particular army. One of the reasons I chose Hinton Hunt over Minifigs back in the day was the availability of the HH painting instruction sheets.
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