Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Friday 6 June 2014

Painting - a Little Command Tidying-Up

While assembling some heavyweight shipments of soldiers to go away to be worked on by painters who actually know what they are doing, I've also been doing some fiddling away of my own, finishing off some odd figures that have been in the To Be Painted pile for far too long. None of them is going to win any prizes, but it is satisfying to get a bit of the backlog cleared.

First thing I did was finish off my Peninsular War mule train - it's only taken me about 40 years to get around to having one of these. Pack and draught animals are always a bit of a thankless undertaking; since I always put off painting them, I have usually forgotten that they are mostly just a mass of harness and strapping and bits tied on, all of which requires a bit of care to make them look half-decent.

That was last week. This week I have mostly been finishing off some missing generals for my other French Peninsular Army (which is sort of the Army of the Centre, or the North, or Aragon, or any and all of these as occasion demands). Two of these are Art Miniaturen castings, for the cavalry - nominally Generals Treillard (with the white "division" border to his base) and Maupoint (brown for "brigade), and the other is an old Minifigs 20mm OPC figure, who started life as one of several Marshal Neys which I have, and will be a spare General de Division for the Army of Portugal, or anyone else who needs one.




Here they are - glad to have got them finished - feels like more progress than it really is. Once again, my photographs show the blue uniforms as rather paler than they look in the flesh - my camera has outsmarted me again. [I don't mind so much if my camera is smarter than me - it hurts more when I am out-thought by the electric kettle…]

Since the Aragon role is not comfortable for King Joseph (who is the incumbent command figure for this other army), I am also thinking of having an extra figure for Marshal Suchet - the real motivation here is that I have a very nice little mounted ADC in hussar uniform who will paint up very colourfully as Suchet's sidekick, Captain Gaultier, on the 2-figure C-in-C stand. That's down the road a piece - next painting job for me is a group of British infantry intended for digging trenches in the siege game. These will be armed with shovels and pickaxes, and mounted on the house-standard brown "mud" stands (for sieges). After that there is more artillery equipment, and a refurb job on a very elderly unit of Garrison French chasseurs a cheval, who will need some improvised command. Don't hold your breath.

6 comments:

  1. Excellent work Tony - the Minifigs figure is my favourite!

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    1. The French have definitely achieved decisive hat superiority.

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    2. If you can't fight, wear a big hat.

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    3. I've always had a soft spot for Gen Treillard - mostly to do with Robert Stephens lovely, world-weary portrayal of this character in the film The Duellists, which remains one of my all-time favourite movies. I realise this is not a good reason for my affection for the general, but it will do for the moment.

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  2. Wagons, limbers, trains, pack animals, etc., are, indeed, bothersome to paint. Once finished, they do add greatly to the completeness of a collection.

    Congratulations on getting one fielded!

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    1. Thank you sir - I'm under some gentle pressure to publish a pic of the mules, so I may just do that. I have a growing box of ox carts and other logistic units for which I which I must try to find a role in my campaign rules...

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