Prussian Command 31.7.13

Well I fell on my arse tonight! I have no idea what the hell I was doing going backwards over the rug and I ended tits up. Luckily all I suffered was a couple of red cheeks. Thankfully nobody seen me although I still felt a but of a tit!!!

Still basing away at the moment but I did managed to finish these wee guys off (as well as the church that I will post later). A general and an officer of the general staff. I added a wee bit green stuff to their saddles to make it into bear skin (the poor bears!) and also added the guard stars to the generals saddle cover.

    

Sorry about the fuzzy quality of the top 2 pics I just don't seem to have it at the moment? Again it's difficult to see the shading on my horses but it is there. I am happy with the eyes after blending in the following flesh highlights however I will try dark blue instead of black. 

    

I'm not sure if the camera has picked up the difference in reds with the general having the brighter red and the officer of the general staff having a more crimson colour plus silver litzen.

  

It's when you go in close on the AB figures you see the quality that Mr Barton put into his figures. These to officers are sitting in different poses and the way he has captured the shape of their backs are amazing with the shoulder blades sitting at different angles.

I'll keep going with the basing and hopefully will have something else finished tomorrow. . . Famous last words!

Kurassier Command

To avoid burn out with my painting I'm having a few days off full units for the moment and concentrating on basing/finishing the stuff I've already done. You'll probably be sick of seeing this Kurassier command floating around in 1 shape or form however I am glad to say they are now 100% finished and can join the ranks in battle without embarrassment.

     

I still can hardly see my shading on my pics however it is there somewhere. I'm really happy how the horses came out.

  

I put the French cuirassier to close to the edge of the base so the little tuft on his helmet will be forever being rubbed. Phil if you read this I promise you 1 day you will see French command bases with the odd allied figure being hunted down running for their lives!

   

I have been watching my way through my DVD collection that I very nearly got rid of last year. Thank goodness for movies and my wee men or I would be mad by now. Anyway I am thankful as I know there are plenty of people in a far worse situation than myself. 

    

I've continued on with my commands I showed in the last post in between the rough stuff and this 1 is coming close to an end and will be (hopefully) completed tomorrow again where are the highlights??? I have the 3 shades of Foundry Prussian blues on these 2 and a little Bavarian cornflower blue (shade) added in for the final highlight. Some metal work plus tidying and we are ready to varnish. I have added tiny black eyes from a tip posted on WD3 forum by Tony Barton. I used to add eyes (light grey with deep blue in a corner) before but dropped them as I thought there was no real point in 15mm. I am trying this out on my commands to see how I feel. 

    

I got this a couple of weeks ago and it had a basic hard brown finish. I had to stick it all together which was a little harder than I thought it would be as the buildings angles were pretty off however it came together ok. I stuck it on a base and gave it a new lighter finish plus a wash on the wooden areas. the base is finished minus grass and I'll finish that off tomorrow. So my 1st complete piece of terrain is nearly finished and I'm really happy with it!!!

Lithuanian Dragoons WIP

I'm still stuck at home due to my leg in plaster, so I have continued painting my late Prussians. It just struck me how amazing it is I have the amount of figures finished in my collection that I have as I now realise how bloody long it takes me to finish a regiment/battalion and I don't think I'm a slow painter either? However the loft has been a god send as it's the only place in the house I am "proper mobile" I have wheels on my painting chair so I can get around the area fine and the 2 big windows have kept me cool in the warmest Scottish summer I can remember. Can you believe it I did this on the evening of the 3rd and the heat wave started here on the 4th!!!! 

   

So onto the figures: The figures are AB and I bought them from Darren already painted. I had a much better time with these guys than the hussars. I remounted a good number where possible and sorted out anything I felt needed to be sorted and pretty much repainted the whole lot using the original painting as a base coat as best I could. Also around 10 I did totally from scratch. 

   

I had a couple of stumbling blocks regarding a few conflicting details within my own references so asked some questions over on TMP. Unfortunately I didn't get much help there however I did stumble upon the Calpe veteran website that pretty much told me what I needed to know even down to clearing up the confusion in my own reference material so I really can't thank the gentleman enough for his research! (Peter F?) Also the gentleman who wrote his online article on late Prussian standards, what a star! (Dallas Gavan?)

   

I used the light shade of Foundry Prussian blue as my base coat and then progressively lightened it by adding GW enchanted blue. I think I hit the colour of 1 of the prints I was working from on the nose? You can't make out my shading so well from the pics but it is there.(sorry for the pic quality) 

    

Gold and red on the trumpets and wings, very tricky to get the gold to stand out. I used a mid brown 1st then brass with a final highlight of shinning gold. I had to use green stuff to sort the horn on the trumpet as well as a few of the belts on troopers as they had gaps in some.

   

I used a flag from signifer that I picked up a couple of years back. The Prussian cavalry standards are perfect for AB cavalry (The infantry flags are to small for AB but good for Minifigs). I had to repaint it as the only colours I have left are pink and yellow for some reason?

  

So that's my latest regiment stuck on their bases and ready for battle (I'll finish the base work later). Let me know what you think of the colours etc as I'm interested to hear other peoples views on the Prussians dragoon blue. 

I'm taking a wee break from regular troops to keep the painting bug going so I cleaned up some command stands I've had in my mind for a wee while. I'm trying out JJ's idea of 30 days of continued painting. What else can you do with a leg in plaster and crutches? Also it just dawned on me I will miss Claymore :(

   

It's been hard on Mai as she's been buying the food after work and as we live on the top of a hill getting the odd taxi/bus up, that is until I discovered Tesco delivery . . . Brilliant!!! 

    

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and happy painting plus wargaming!!!

Brandenburg Hussars WIP

Well I'm very happy to say I finally finished my AB Brandenburg hussars!!! The figures were originally painted by Darren and I spent time turning them to my own style using the original paint as a base coat.

   

   8 figures are 100% my own painted from scratch and the rest are very heavily repainted and highlighted.

      

I was going to hold off showing them until I finished the bases however I plan on keeping the painting going while my leg is healing. These guys are also my 1st light cavalry finished for either of my Prussian or Russian armies however I plan to add a set of lancers very soon.

      

I'm really happy how the trumpeters and officers came out, as the eye candy of the unit I'm glad they ended up looking sharpe. I've also been experimenting with new flesh shades and I'm very positive about them to.

  

I added a wee bit of detail to the sabretache to give the impression of the Royal logo but it isn't perfect. The only area i am not 100% happy with are the overalls as I felt they were a little to heavily painted after I had finished them.

   

All in all I'm happy with the unit plus it's another cavalry regiment for my Prussian army and also another unit ticked off the Katzbach OOB!

   

I'm going to slide over to Prussian dragoons next as I bought a good number from Darren already painted and I reckon with a bit of work I should be able to make up 2 regiments (Lithuanians and Neumark).
   
Wish me luck . . . 

WIP 11.7.13

My goodness it's nice and toasty at the moment . . . 1st a huge congratulations to Andy Murray for his incredible determination in finally winning Wimbledon especially with the pressure that has been heaped on him all his playing career!!! Next the usual apology for not posting more frequently, I've been working far to hard for far to long, however I have been doing some conversions that can be seen below.

Up until a couple of days ago I hadn't done any painting at all lately as I had been concentrated on the conversions, however last Wednesday evening I stupidly ruptured the Achilles tendon in my left leg (hellish, hellish, HELLISH!!!) and I am now stuck in the house for the next 6-8 (or maybe more) weeks? What can I do? There is only so much daytime TV a man can watch before he takes his own life and for me that amounts to around 1hr a week (Everybody loves Raymond x2).

With my 1813-15 Prussians I have started to work towards the Katzbach order of battle as something solid to aim for. The OOB has a national cavalry unit in it and as I had no idea what 1 it was I did a wee bit of asking and searching. I found out the unit was the East Prussian National Cavalry EPNK and with there being no figures of the unit available I decided to convert my own. The basic figures are the AB Prussian landwehr cavalry figures with various modifications.

  

1st the Elite squadron wears a French style colpack/busby and sports shoulder scales, also the troopers have hussar braid added with Pro-create and green stuff. The officer is in the short uniform (I would have liked him in the long coat however figured the conversion would be to time consuming) The heads are from AB French elite hussars.  

The regular troopers have the 1812 Russian kiwer (all have plumes at the moment however I may change some and maybe add some shako covers?). The heads are from AB Russian hussars.

  

Again the hussar braid was added with the same materials above as are the eagle plates and shako cords. This will be an interesting unit to field (Run Forest Run . . .) 

I also decided to finish this wee command base for my Kurassiers . . . It's been lying around for far to long. I'll pop some grass on it later when I have some more troops finished.

  

My buddy Robert was kind enough to drop off a Russian church I purchased through his friend (nice), and I also managed to knock out another 3 hussars (not shown as they are drying). So that is 17 down, 7 to go. I also started putting some paint on some of my uhlans that have been sitting around primed for months . . .  

   

I have been looking at my AB Prussian uhlans for quite a wee while wondering what to do with them. They look to have the saddle cloth for Waterloo so I did the penant for that period also. They are the Brandenburg uhlans so fall into my Katzbach OOB nicely to.

    

I couldn't be arsed to do the red pin line on the trousers, not because I can't do it but because after 3 shading the uniform, flesh, penants and shako's in my burning loft I thought to myself what's the point . . .
   

This is Bertheir for a friend.

  

He came out pretty well and I'll do him for myself at some point to.

    

And for me . . . some little additions to my future Saxons, some light infantry chaps. I'm pretty pleased with the buttons!

So for the moment I hope to continue to add to my collection while I am in plaster. I'll try not to scunner myself to much and hopefully the weather will cool just a wee bit so the loft isn't to bad . . . I hope to finish my hussars, maybe the uhlans and I have 2 regiments of dragoons I would seriously like to touch up and finish (although they are not on the Katzbach OOB). There are also plenty of workbench infantry . . .