I'll get to that - any excuse for a play with Paintshop Pro to knock up some flags. In the meantime, just because I have nothing else to post about, here are some trumpeters. Nothing great, to be sure, but any kind of conversion or paint-conversion work is almost always satisfying work.
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| Each trumpeter is sentenced to spend his operational life based with a trooper he never met before. The troopers are all PMD, with the compulsory "eyes-right" pose. The trumpeter on the left (8th regt) is Art Miniaturen, kindly supplied by the Old Metal Detector - strictly this is from an OOP dragoon command set, but perfectly suitable; the one in the middle (3rd regt) is an old (and not very ambitious) conversion by a previous owner, based on the trooper next to him - I've revised the paint job extensively, and left him with his carbine; the one on the right (7th regt) is the official PMD-issue trumpeter (officially a dragoon, but intended to serve in the cuirassiers as well), and I've mounted him on a 20mm Garrison horse - partly for variety, but also because it's a far better horse. |
The uniforms are sort of 1809, and the regiments are selected so that the facings will also be suitable for 1813-14.
Love the yellow chaps! They really stand out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ray. The Austrian rifle-armed sharpshooters really love them too!
DeleteCanaries in a coal mine, you might say
DeleteThat's right - "Oh look, someone's shot the trumpeter again - the enemy must be somewhere around...". Must have been a risky job. Martinien didn't do tables of Trumpeters & Drummers Killed & Wounded of the First Empire" as far as I know - would have been interesting.
DeleteVery smart Tony, I can just see them throwing themselves against some British squares!
ReplyDeleteThey could play them a tune after they were captured. Requests? Give Me Night or Give Me Blücher? Ridge Over Troubled Water? Lazy Sunday Afternoon? Suggestions welcome...!
DeleteVery nice indeed Tony, really strong vibrant colours.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lee - I used about 4 coats of Vallejo yellow - I really don't like yellow paint. My old system was to start off with a coat of white, and put the yellow on that. Of course I didn't do that this time, because I was using Vallejo. Ha!
DeleteColorful and gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil - there is a nice range of variations for cuirassier trumpeters - I did some reading of Bucquoy and similar, plus the eye-witness plates produced in Hamburg. The cuirassiers also seem to have been especially strong-minded about hanging on to outdated or unofficial variants. I was surprised by the blue lace on the jackets, but it seems to have been widely used.
DeleteLovely job. I'm getting another attack of 28mm envy.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much, but please go and wash your mouth out (hypocras will do) - these are 20mm, and don't you forget it!
DeleteOh...if they're that small...no wonder I like them!
DeleteOoh look...my first blogging faux pas!
DeleteMay all your faux pas be little ones. I'm a bit envious of 28mm collectors myself - if I were starting now I guess 28mm would be the thing to have (lovely, but too big and expensive for me, I think). It was after my time that Frank Hinchliffe lost his measuring scales. All good stuff. The Meeji-Deeki Effect?
DeleteTrue 20mm collectors would object to my PMD soldiers being classed as 20's - these are old-fashioned "true 25mm", I guess - what a very silly hobby this is sometimes - I wonder if HO model railway collectors have to use the same make of locomotives to get them to fit on the tracks?
DeleteIt must have been very difficult to pkay a trumpet call whilst on a fast moving horse. Looks like a good chance of a split lip"
ReplyDeleteGood point. Tricky. The trumpeter could have trotted gently in the rear, which wouldn't work. Or he could have carried a cinema organ, which would sound like the ice hockey - or the slow-motion charge from "Waterloo", I guess.
DeleteTechnical update - I understand that the trick was to play the trumpet from the side of the mouth. Aha. Still sounds risky to me.
DeleteI have always liked the bold reversed colors uniforms of the Cuirassier trumpeters (please, none of that horrid Imperial Livery crap!). These will add some nice color contrasts to your regiments!
ReplyDeleteAll the colour I can get helps. Another advantage of the earlier colour system is I cannot, for the life of me, make a convincing job of Imperial Livery - I have to admit to a couple of previous incidents of overpainting with reversed colours when I've given up in despair!
DeleteI treat Imperial Livery with much the same enthusiasm that the troops did - wear the stuff out as quickly as possible, so you can replace it with reversed colors! :-)
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