Hussar Command Finished

So after the great response I had from my Napoleon command base I'm afraid it's back to the darker and much more serious shades of my Prussians!  However I personally love the late Prussian uniforms even if they are a good bit less fancier than their enemies!

Well I'm very happy to be able to slip in another completed item for January, I picked out these guys a year or 2 ago to be the command of my Brandenburg hussar regiment for the Katzbach OOB and like many of my figures they moved sideways into my "WIP" box. This was because I wanted to tackle the braid differently from the troopers in the full regiment as I wasn't happy with the contrast. 

In this group I have tried to represent a commanding officer of the Brandenburg regiment, a trumpeter from the Brandenburg regiment and an ADC from the Normal squadron. I had quite a bit of cleaning up with the ADC as he is a one piece casting and the area around stirrups and horse belly was confused as was the area around his neck and scabbard. A friend gave me another of these ADC's not so long ago so you may well see him in a different uniform on another command base at some point. I'm pretty happy how he came out especially the braid and I have to correct an error I made on one of my videos, I use Coat d' Arms brown No. 235 on the braid as a base to gold not Vallejo beige brown.

As usual it's difficult to see the shading on my horses however it is there. I used the same flowers and tufts as per usual available at most railway and modelling suppliers and I feel they really lift a base.

I used the foundry Prussian blue triad and I feel it came out well if quite subtle compared to a lot of other peoples Prussians I have see online. However I do like my Prussian blue pretty dark even for 15mm. I would say my painting is a little rough in some areas of these guys as I really just wanted them finished but I'm still pleased with them.

I have always wondered why Mr Barton didn't do a trumpeter playing his instrument for his prussian hussars like his other Prussian and Russian charging regiments? Maybe the Prussian hussars are a much older set and the earlier sets received trumpeters at rest? Anyway he's still is a lovely figure, although the castings I have need little bits added in areas, the trumpet cord and shoulder nests are missing detail and I stupidly forgot to add it in with green stuff before painting this guy.

overall  I really like this little command base and it's another thing to tick off my Katzbach OOB. I'm not sticking religiously to the OOB's as there are so many things I would like to paint that are not included in it but I'll pop back to it from time to time until it's completed.

As always happy wargaming and painting and thanks to everyone who has took the time to leave a comment or have a look in. I've cleaned, glued and base coated 24 hussars for my 2nd lieb hussar regiment. I'm not sure how long they will take me as all that braid is a big ask and I have a few other items nearly finished I may jump over to. I'll try and put a few posts each month on my progress.

Regards

Paul

Napoleon Completed

Good news, I finally finished the inner circle of Napoleon's command! Well I've had this lot sitting around for far to many year so to finally see them painted up gives me a great lift and also a great feeling of relief!!!

I hope you don't mind that I'm showing them yet again as I know I've posted a couple of WIP posts already. I also uploaded another video so I hope you enjoy it.

Again I've included a few pics just incase the video quality is not so great however my photography isn't so great either funnily enough with most of the pics being over saturated with light! Ah well you can't have everything and I'll work on that for my next post! So here he is the scourge of Europe ready to lead my none existent French army! I seriously need to paint up some French battalions now or he will be forever leading the David's battalions

A close ups of the blue on my Bertheir, definitely a big positive for me in doing this group has been finally finding a blue (2 actually) that I now can use on my future French army. As I said before I had a good deal of clean up on some of the figures however they were a real joy to paint. Another huge plus, the horses are absolutely lovely and I've manage with the inner and outer circle to keep every horse pose different.

My mounted guard chasseur a cheval, again a pretty burnt out picture so almost impossible to see the shading.

Napoleon scanning the horizon as his side kicks look on. Where will he take them next???

This is the other blue I used, on Duroc this time. Not quite as rich as the intense blue however still very, very nice with really good coverage. The very cool BH Russian gun, these are lovely artillery pieces and I think just as nice as the AB guns.

So that's the big cheese, número uno finished, thanks for viewing and hopefully get something else finished for the end of January?

Vive l'Empereur!!!!

Napoleon WIP 2

Another WIP post tonight I'm afraid. I've put a bit of effort in here and there to proceed with the central section of my Napoeon command base and the hours are finally beginning to bring some reward.

I tried another video as the last one seemed to go down well and I actually find it quite fun although I was a wee bit nervous on this one. The video's are best viewed on a tablet or laptop as the quality isn't great on phones, so I'm told by Mai!  Anyway I have decided when I'm doing vids I'll pop in a couple of still pics on the blog to. Not much info on the video this time, I'll save that for finished items from now on.

My Napoleon as you will know if you follow my blog regularly was completed quit recently (although I'll probably lighten Marengo's legs at the bottom). I've now added 2 orderlies in cornflower blue as well as marshall Bertheir and general Duroc (maybe the feathers in Durocs hat should be black?).

I tried out Rafa's blues from his book for French uniforms however in the end with Bertheir and Duroc I settled for different Vallejo blue mixes with black and then white and I'm really happy with them. I am now out the loft so I'll post the names later. The colours work very well and are quite rich when dark and subtle when White is added so I now have 2 nice blues for my future French troops!

I still have a little detail on the saddle of the orderly that's in campaign dress. I plan to add a row of buttons on each leg and also a little extra detail on the saddle cloth. The colour of the chasseur horse shows pretty orange however thankfully the colour is not in real life and the shading is actually really nice.

The artillery piece is a BH Russian gun that conveniently already had a miscast wheel so is appropriate for 1812-13 and even 1814 at a push.

This is a lovely little set of figures from Mr Barton, I can't remember where I picked them up? Though I know I gave a set to the David's for their collection. I had a bit of bother cleaning up the figures as there was a good deal of flash around certain areas however as I say I can't remember where I picked them up so I have no idea how old they are but this set must have been cast a good number of times over the years?

Anyway I hope to post the completed base soon, and it is true that a French army is much sexier than a Russian or Prussian army to paint up, especially the commands!

Happy wargaming

Paul

Napoleon WIP 1

A bit of an exciting post for me tonight as I have finally taken the plung and painted a really lovely sculpted AB Napoleon figure.

I have had Napoleon and his pals sitting unpainted on my lead pile for many years now for 2 reasons:

The 1st is that I want to keep concentrating on my Prussian and Russian armies and didn't want to complicate matters by jumping into painting the French as well, and 2nd napoleon and all his mates always seemed to me to be a bit complicated on a base, who should be included for a certain time frame (I'm trying to hit 1812-13) and where exactly to put them all on a base?

Anyway there has been some superb 15mm-18mm French eye candy floating about over the past few years starting with Von Bluchers French commands I bought last year (cheers John), John B's completed Napoleon command base last year and more recently stoneman from the TMP forums beautiful French command and a few other excellent commands done by blokes I don't know the name of over on TMP and elsewhere. So with the inspiration flowing I looked my troops out, cleaned them all up and arranged them on a 2 piece base I picked up from Martin at warbases last year.

I was a little scared of doing Napoleon as he really is the main reason we all do this period! I wanted to do him justice for a start and a wee bit added pressure is he is the last of my big commands I plan to do with Blucher and Kutuzov already done. Sure there will be marshals and fancy pants cavalry generals to come but he's the Número uno big cheese for me!

I recently picked up Rafael Perez (Archiduque) Napoleonic painting book which is also great inspiration and used his colour palette for painting Napoleon's coat however I swapped in Coat d Arms dark grey for Vallejo khaki and I'm very happy how that turned out. I'm not sure exactly how Marengo, Napoleon's horse looked colour wise, perhaps the dark ankles I have give him/her are wrong and if someone knows better I may change them. Over all I'm very happy how he came out. Mr Bartons sculpting is simply stunning, I got a great deal of enjoyment out of painting this figure, I really did. I would guess this one has been cast a few hundred times as I had a fair bit of cleaning to do on him before I put paint to brush and I perhaps should have done a little more in certain areas of his saddle but he'll do for me!

This is a rough layout of how I want the command base to look, it will be much better when they are all painted and set out properly and there maybe a little more trimming of the raised area napoleon is placed on. The centre obviously lifts out for use in wargaming and the main base will be for display. I pinched the idea from one of the guys who did a cracking Napoleon command base on TMP.

And my constant inspiration, a stunning meissonier drawing I purchased with my 1st ever wage packet many years ago. Still had some cash left over for dig money and beers at the weekend!

Anyway I hope you like home and I'll do a proper post when the whole base is finished.

Happy wargaming!

Best Paul

Hussar Command WIP

Hello and a Happy New Year to everyone for 2015. May we all have a peaceful time plus get a lot of figures painted and wargaming in!!!

Unsurprisingly I've made a wee plan of what I would like to achieve hobby wise this year and listed it all down, last year was very slow painting wise so I'm hoping to up my output a good bit without scunnering myself.

Anyway as it's my 1st post of the New Year I thought I'd try something a wee bit different for the blog today, a YouTube video if I can figure out how to upload it:

As this is my 1st effort if you guys know how to either improve the quality from my iPad Air recording or capture the screen pic for my posts or generally have any other bits of advice feel free to drop me a line. Oh and by the way the hussar command wasn't on my goals for this year so I've jumped even before my list has started!!!

That's me for the moment, the iPad updates appear to be going well however I center and label my posts in the blogger app as I can't find that function in the iPad app?

Happy wargaming!

Best

Paul

P.S. I'm getting the parcels read for the new year give away to send out. Still trying to track down 2 winners so I'll post a call out soon!