Von Wrede 1812-14

And so a little commission . . . I exchanged a few emails a wee while back with my friend and fellow blogger Ken in regards to a Bavarian project he was working on for 1814. It just so happened I had started a similar project that had hit the breaks when I realised how many Russians and Prussians I would need to paint up to face my brother and nephew.

  A little while later the typhoon hit as you will know from my previous posts so I was looking for ways to make a little extra cash. I took on this command base as an experiment to see if there was any point in doing painting commissions to raise cash? I have to say even with Ken being very generous, with the time it takes to convert and paint figures I have no idea how the painting companies based in the UK do it! I am a very slow painter as you will know and for myself I believe it is much easier to take the odd extra shift at work so for now probably my 1 and only commission. Also I find it very difficult to part with my own work!

   

Ken planned on a command base with Von Wrede in 1814 and a couple of hangers on. I think I used the 1806 AB Prussian command set for these guys? Wrede has had his hat pinned in the forward position that appears to be the late war style plus silver braid added to his chest, collar and Bavarian emblems added to his hat . He is taken from a painting I found on line however I left off the chest sash due to the arm position and also the size (Ken I hope you don't mind that?)

  

The 2 chaps with him are a cavalry ADC and staff officer.

    

I didn't find much info on the uniforms however there are a good few pictures and figures around to compare with, most however are in the 1809 uniform. Just a little bit of work on the upper lapels and a couple of buttons added to the ADC.

   

The staff officer was a little bit of a pickler as I had to add the litzen style lace to his lapels and cuffs and also reshape the lapels as well.  I added the detail to his hat and his saddle was a mess so needed sorting. The main bother with this guy was the colour of the uniform as some sources show him with black lapels with red edging and also the saddle with silver fringe. I went for what I felt looked right (again Ken, I hope you are cool with that? Bavarians are fun to research!!!). The eyes on the figures came out well as did the Bavarian blue that I held back from being to light. I had intended to have this set on a 4 figure base with a Bavarian cavalryman guarding the high flyer's but I think it works well as a 3?

So in a day or 2 I will wave good bye to them for the last time and keep the pics as a reference for my own future Bavarian project . . .

Swings and roundabouts: So now onto troops I will keep myself, my French guard chasseur a cheval. I purchased most of these from John a few weeks back and have finally got them based.

Only 8 out of 12 to go to make the 40!!! 

   

And here they are in their scruffy half painted state! I'm slowly finding nice Vallejo shades for horses to. Once I finish this post i'll get stuck into the 1st 4 troopers!

   

And the little/big chap is on the horizon to. I am contemplating a double command base that can be for display and gaming, a base within a base. Not 100% my idea as a guy on TMP did it 1st. All I have to do is get a hold of Martin of warbases at Falkirk in May to see what he can do. Also I don't intend it to be as flat as this, fingers crossed it comes out well!

  

Finally this morning the last of our 9 boxes left on their way to our family in the Philippines. They are jam packed with food and clothes however this time it will be mostly given to the people down my the coast who lost everything as our family are slowly getting back on their feet and the farm has had a harvest and is planted again so fingers crossed!!!

  

Thanks again to everyone for their support over this passed few months, happy painting!!!

Bavarian 5th Light

A little surprise tonight, as a change to my current Russian 1812-13 project I thought it was about time I got this particular monkey off my back. RTL I am sure you will be glad to see I finally finished them off!!! I started them way before I started using Army Painter so this is my old style of painting I am afraid.

   

I started these guys a long, long time ago and tried to get a feel of a firing line with them. I am not totally sure it worked as they look a little bare in areas?

 

I have forgotten how many conversions are in this lot? from what I remember the mounted officer was a Saxon, the hornist was a casualty and the 2 man casualty team were Austrians. If I do another light battalion I will include all 36 figures in the battalion to fill up the spaces.

  

The sappeur is from Fantassin as AB don't have 1 and I didn't fancy converting him.

    

A bit of a rush job to finish them off but they are done and look not bad in the end.

   

I really like the officer casualty, loads of life (pardon the pun) for such small figures.

 

Pretty happy with the hornist as the cord and horn were quite tricky to do.

Oh and the 2 Bavarian beers were great ;0)

Bavarian Foot Artillery

I know I said I would be doing a Bavarian light infantry battalion next but these little guys have been glaring at me from their little take-away box desperate to be finished so I dug them out, cleaned them up and got stuck into them.

So 3 guns and crew, no problem they should be easy to do I hear you say? well no these guys have actually been a little bit more complicated than they look! 1st off I bought them as part of an already painted job lot on ebay from a very helpful guy from Germany (who very kindly threw in some extra Bavarian casualties). For speed I planned on repainting them to my own style without stripping them so I cleaned them up based them on 40mm x 40mm bases and applied the sand around them (I always mount my artillery before painting as it helps me get started seeing them in position).

Anyway I blocked in the black to cover the areas I felt needed touched up and painted 1 figure to test out the colours (it was a bit difficult as they were painted pretty thick but it seemed ok so far). However when I tried painting more they just started to irritate me as the finish just was not what I was looking for as the paint was far to thick and obscuring the detail so frustration got the better of me and I tossed them in the "simple green" to strip them down (bases and all!).

So they lay there for a few days before I fetched them out and cleaned them off and remounted them on new bases ready to paint. I bought the Austrian guns separately unpainted and I had undercoated them a few weeks back so all I had to do was paint the crews.

I wanted a rich looking blue similar to the many pictures I have seen of the Bavarian artillery uniform and decided on using the Foundry French paints but with a little alteration. The figures were undercoated in black and then I blocked in a mix of Prussian blue and French blue. I then used the French blue as a highlight and then to finish off I used French blue light on the raised area. The colour is very effective to my own eyes and much richer than the test figure I did. The only problem I can see is it's not so easy to see the difference in shades from a distance so I may skip a stage when it comes to doing my Bavarian position battery?

When it came to reds again I wanted to produce something close to the colours I had seen so I went for Formula P3 skorne red for the collar, cuffs, etc but it was a little dark and flat so I highlighted them with a lighter red and then a very soft highlight of Vallejo vermillion (I feel this worked much better).

The AB figures are great as usual with so much fine detail to paint (although you will see I have added a couple of bandages across eyes that had a little flash and I also decided to add trousers to the crew who had gaiters). The little buttons on the lapels are especially superb! To be honest I wasn't sure how these guys were going to turn out right until the very end. I felt the same when painting the Bavarian infantry too. I believe it is because of the Raupenhelm as I leave its metal work, plume and national symbol to last and it is only when this is done that you see the complete figure.

So in the end I am pleased with these guys. The blue looks pretty good and the figures are neat and tidy. And at last my Bavarian limber has a reason to exist!!!!

I also learned some good lessons for the future about buying job lots that are already painted. So next up it should be my Bavarian light infantry battalion . . . Famous last words!!!

Lt. Hausmann Finished

I was taking some pictures of my finished Russian artillery battery and thought I would get some snaps of my Bavarian brigade command with the grass added just to tick it off my list.

Nothing really to add about these guys as I have already shown them a couple of posts back with plenty of text on who they are.

Really chuffed with the cloak and the sash for 1st efforts.

Bavarian Artillery Limber

Nothing new with this 1 as I have shown it pretty much finished early in the blog but this is it all grassed up. I intend to add silfour grass at some point in the future to my bases but I bought 2 sets of the wrong colour and size and it put me off using it (expensive stuff).

My 1st Bavarian artillery limber converted from an Austrian limber team (thanks Steve!). I am not 100% on the manufacturer? I have a feeling that it is BH as the figures and horses are identical in size to BH horses I own myself and all my AB stuff towers above them but no matter as it fits in fine with my AB Bavarians.

As I mentioned before a Bavarian limber team (and Caisson for that matter) are on the Christmas lists of many wargamers but when it comes down to it you have to fashion 1 yourself. The next problem you face is getting information on the thing. A big thanks to RtL and the guys over on GdB forum who helped me out!

As the figures are so small I struggled to find AB heads to fit but eventually a poor drummer and flag man went under the knife for the glory of the fatherland. I left the Austrian collars in place and pin viced into them and also under the head. I then inserted wire and attached with liquid superglue (it has to be liquid or your figures will end up with a thick neck and I am not sure body building was in fashion back then?).

This was my 1st time out with green stuff and I now have proper tools to apply it but for this guy I used a scalpel. The collar was built up plus the shoulder scales and lapels were added (I chickened out on buttons this time out and used a pin to make holes instead, I know, I know I'm a big woos!)

So all that was left to do was add traces with flattened wire and reshape a water bottle and add an Austrian gun from the AB range and there you have it a Bavarian artillery limber quite rare on the ground. I will hopefully be doing a Bavarian caisson as well at some point.

Bavarian 11th Kinkel

Thankfully my new book gave me a bit of inspiration to pull my finger out and get some of my Bavarians finished. Straight out sorry about the pictures as I just don't have the proper light for it

So this is the 1st battalion of the 11th Regiment Kinkel for the period 1812-13 and the figures are from AB with a pioneer from Fantassin.



RtL these are especially for you as I know you were keen to see how they would turn out, thanks for all the help on the uniforms and I hope they don't disappoint!

There is a mix of painting styles in here with the figures at the back of the bases mostly earlier repaints of figures I bought on ebay so are a little rougher looking and also too light and the figures at the front of the bases were done after RtL gave me the low down on the correct shade of cornflower blue.

My grenadier base with the Fantassin figure added in. I am not a big fan of the Fantassin range but this guy fits in really well and I feel completes the unit (you can buy him in packs of 8 which is very helpful!).

To try and make my figures look a little different from each other I twisted a lot of their heads up/down/left/right and thankfully the Bavarians big hat made it pretty easy to do.





A little head swap here, the officer is from the AB Austrian range. In a lot of the pictures of the 1812 period the Bavarian officers have single breasted coats and this figure fitted perfectly. I probably should have added a gorget (if that's what you call it) to him but I totally forgot. I couldn't resist adding trousers with green stuff, they are a little rough on the repainted figures.






The drummer was pretty tricky with all the chevrons and I wasn't exactly sure how the edging went at 1st but I am happy how he turned out.

I was lucky to pick up some AB flags on ebay a while back. I drilled out the hands and used a straightened paperclip as the flag pole (cheers for the tip Robert).






I'm well chuffed I have my little Bavarian army on the go. I remember buying a couple of battalions of Foundry 25mm Bavarians many years ago and just didn't feel right with the shade of blue. I really think the 3 shades Foundry offer are excellent for the job. I blocked in the uniform with the cornflower blue shade and the mid cornflower blue is still deep and can be added to the shade to keep the uniform dark.

I decided to use the mid tone neat then added a little bit of the light to the mid tone for my final highlight and I feel it works pretty well.


It is darker than these pictures show

Next up unit wise will be the 5th Preysing, 1st battalion (pink facings Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!) before that I will post some pictures of my finished Bavarian limber and some in progress pics of my commands.

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has dropped by, left comments and sent emails about my wee blog. It's been great fun and very helpful. It's great to know there are loads of other people who share the same interest. My knowledge in the Napoleonic period is very limited so again thanks to everyone who have filled the many gaps for me!!!