Since the 6th month of the year has just started I thought I'd just make up the balance of painted figures so far. In all I think I didn't do badly at all, it's just I wish I would have finished more of the little blighters. Oh well...
Yes dear readers/ viewers, you'll see that amongst the numbered above are miniatures which have not featured on the blog itself. This is due to the fact that I consider some of them to be of little interest (like the 30 Dystopian Wars buildings I did) or because they are a surprise for a good friend, like the 71 Ancient Sumerians, which have now been posted and on their way to their new owner.
Others, like the Battletroops and vehicles will feature in future blog posts so no worries there.
So what's on the workbench at the moment?
I am currently painting some barricades for jungle terrain made from a sushi-mat, there's a "Into the Valley of Death" vignette in preparation, and I just received a small order of Hasslefree mini's on which more later!
We all know that painting miniatures is therapeutic to most of us. It might not be to our spouses or the rest of the world, to us it is. Lately I've had two cases of needing to paint miniatures to get rid of some lasting impressions on my life. The first of these I'll showcase here today.
Let's try and put this into perspective for you. I work as a teacher in history at a local High School, while teaching itself is great fun. a school is more then the sum of it's parts. Doing extra-curricular stuff is what makes the job worth while since you get to know co-workers and pupils at a totally different level. So when the music teachers at our school started drafting people for this year's musical I found myself mysteriously inducted into arranging the props and costumes as well as playing a few small parts in the actual play itself. The greatest part about the play is that it has been arranged and partly written by one of the music teachers himself. It's about a guy, Jan Claesen, who lived during the Dutch Revolt and had to flee from his home-town and listed with the Dutch army as a trumpeter. He later became a bit of a clownish figure in Dutch folklore and eventually became a figure used in a pretty much "Mr Punch and Judy"-like puppet play.
Usually when we have a show or something at school, I stay way clear of the stage, this time as said, I had to venture upon it. While terribly plagued by stage-fright I persevered and after the dress rehearsal I found I was actually enjoying myself... As it goes with these things afterwards I still had this musical in my system for ages and also wanted to do something in return for co-worker Jos, who had given me my first real taste of the theatre. So I decided to make him a figure vignette. Inspiration came from a figure he had used himself as basis for the cover of the script.
Finding a suitable figure was less easy but in the end I found Wallensteins Staff by Warlord Games to include a trumpeter with almost the same gear as the one in the picture. Jos had provided us with a digital script which had the picture in colour and the chap had mainly blue and white regimentals for wear so quite a nice colour-scheme. The figure was based, painted and then came the next phase: the vignette missed a certain wow-factor so I painted the hind-quarter like it was the head-stone of the grave that is said to be Jan Claesen's last resting place. Coincidentally this head stone had been eroded so far that, precisely while we were rehearsing, the town of Andel, was going through a restoration process for the monument... To finish the thing off, I asked friend Mark to laser me a little plaque with some words of thanks for Jos and so here is the end result.
I get the impression Jos rather liked the little piece ;-)
And to finish off the narcissistic experience:
Me helping the lead player out during rehearsal
Me playing a drunk soldier
The grand finale
Cheers Sander
Listening to: The song is Jan Claesen the trumpeter (while the pictures are anachronistic the song is "original")
For quite some time a model in white metal of Murat has been lying in my "unpainted lead pile". It was when browsing through Hourtoulle's brilliant Napoleonic Uniforms book that I came upon a very nice plate of Murat charging with the cavalry at Eylau.
Even though his uniform is different then the one the figure is wearing, I chose to try and depict this scene and went on the look for two ADC figures to match.
I found these in the form of the ADC figure from the Zvezda French HQ set and a regular chasseur of the Garde from the Revell set.
So without further ado here are some pictures:
Cheers Sander
Listening to: "The Hobbit" an Audiobook read by Ian Holmes
One of the first boxes of 1:72 figures I ever bought were Revells Napoleonic British Lifeguard cavalry. Over the years I acquired about 6 boxes of these excellent figures and have great plans for them. The 2 boxes I bought when aged 12 or so, (now some 22 years ago...) were painted like a beginner does: badly. So it is about time these venerable old veterans get the present standard treatment. I decided to do the two Household regiments i.e. the Blues and the Royals, the Royals will have to wait a bit longer still while I finished the Blues first. For these I chose the figures with the sabre at the shoulder and here are the results of this work of love.
If you have followed this blog for some time, you'll know I indulge myself in painting 28mm figures now and again. While I am not into Ancients as such I do have a small collection of Gladiators and these two figures here form the latest additions to said mini-collection (pun intended). These are from Bronze Age miniatures and I believe they depict a Murmillo and a Secutor but I could be wrong. At present I have 3 small teams of fighters, each team has it's own colour (white, blue and red) to distinguish itself from the others. The fighters you see before you are reinforcing the blues and the reds.
A small post today, showing you my rendition of the Saxon Garde-Grenadiere (grenadiers of the Guard). I have composed a 3 regiment Saxon brigade from a box of HäT Saxon infantry and had enough grenadiers left to make a smaller Garde battalion.
Since the regular infantry has white uniforms, and I hate painting white uniforms, I guess they will have to wait a bit longer to be painted....
Cheers Sander
Listening to: "Jingo" a Terry Pratchett Audiobook read by Tony Robinson
No true Napoleonic enthusiast will escape modelling at least one unit of Napoleon's Guard Grenadiers. Since I have heaps of the old Revell Grenadiers lying around and a box of Zvezda's excellent set I decided it was time to put paint to brush and get one regiment at least finished. In the works are some Light troops of the Guard as well but let's have a look at these first:
The Command figures are converted HäT light infantry figures.
