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


Tuesday 11 April 2017

The Serial Turncoat

Always striving to get ahead...

This chap has been featured on this blog before. I bought him, a good while ago, as part of a job lot on eBay - he was sold as a mounted British infantry officer - apparently an old Hinton Hunt OPC, and I put him away in the spares box for a future refurb.

British officer - as purchased

When I had time, I had a good look at him, decided it would be best to strip and start again, and consigned him to the Nitromors (hand-remover). It shifted the paint, but also shifted his head...

Carrying on heedless
...and it became obvious that in a previous tour of duty he had started life as a Hinton Hunt Austrian general - AN 102 - like this one:

Origins - photo borrowed from The Hinton Hunter 
It seems a pity to waste a useful figure, and his Austrian origins, and consequent lack of epaulettes, suggested a possible conversion to a Spanish general officer. As is the way of these things, the headless horseman has been kicking around my painting desk for three years now, but I am trying to move my Spanish army towards some kind of complete state, and I am always short of generals and staff officers - in particular, I need brigadiers - quite a few of them - and since there are precious few suitable castings around it becomes a very attractive idea to produce some conversions. Not many things look as limp as a complete set of identical officers - a matching battalion is OK - I have plenty of those - but matching officers are not so cool.

Righto then - there was a pequeño uniform for Spanish generals - single breasted, like a French surtout, and I gave my adventurer a head from a miscast Spanish fusilero from my NapoleoN spares, who had a missing foot. Better and better - nothing goes to waste here, if I can avoid it. As always, he will win no prizes for beauty, but he is a unique figure, and I need all the characters I can get for my Spanish army.




Hola! (I think a brigadier would probably say "Hola!" in a suitably deep voice.)

By the way, you will observe that the base of the original figure has been built up with lead sheet, which is a bit serious for my collection - if anyone recognises this fellow - in any of his past personae, please do get in touch!


15 comments:

  1. An excellent use of classic Hinton Hunt figure. I recently renovated one myself.

    http://ilkleyoldschool.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/hinton-hunt-102-painted.html?m=1

    Mark

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    1. You did an excellent job on it - very nice.

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  2. I have some of those with the thick base serving as Swedish generals in my own armies but they're not as pretty as yours!

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  3. Nice work. Hinton never did do a British, or other mounted colonel...a great pity as it results in battalions commanded by gaudy marshals and British Generals. The NapoleoN head goes on well, I would have thought it might be a bit bigger , but it looks great and with rather more expression than many HH heads!
    Roy

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  4. That is a crackingly good conversion, Foy!

    I also have a mysterious British mounted officer, but not nearly as nice as yours. I think he may be an Alberken casting. I've yet to decide what to do with him.

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    1. BNC5 is a listed Minifigs 20mm Inf colonel - I've never seen an original, but there are a lot of very lumpy copies and copies of copies in circulation - carve your own figure!

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    2. He's so thickly coated in paint that it's hard to tell whether he's an original or not at the moment. The metal seems good, however.

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  5. That new head suits him, I like the slight turn to the right, adds character.

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  6. Thank you all gentlemen - these days I take a lot of trouble over head grafts - a little brass wire as a dowel joint, careful matching of faces and superglue accelerator. This one also took a little Vallejo acrylic putty to smooth off his collar.

    I must add a note to my catalogue of where he came from - otherwise this Spanish brigadier may one day wonder why his horse is called Schnüβchen.

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  7. Great work - he looks suitably insouciant!

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    1. Exactly the word I was searching for. Thank you, young sir.

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  8. A nice job you have done there and I do like the idea of "unique" figures.

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    1. Thanks Matt - he's a little bit unique anyway... (stand by for Pedant Blast)

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  9. Martin S emailed to point out that the photo of the Austrian general I borrowed from the Hinton Hunter blog also seems to have the base built up with lead sheet. Erm - now that is getting a bit spooky. You don't suppose...?

    No - course not - I guess it's simply that it was common good practice among wargamers circa 1968 to give general officers some extra weight to stop them falling over on the tabletop. Interesting, though?

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