Guest Contributor Issue - Steve Cooney

 Always a pleasure to hear from Steve, and he very kindly sent some photos of his wondrous ECW collection.

Steve writes:

...inspired me to take a look at my Hinton Hunt ECW collection last week and dug out some of the old figures .

Attached pics of some conversions I did way back when my sight was a bit better , shows a small Forlorn Hope party , all conversions done with soldering iron and needle files , no filler , and painted with oils.

 

Excellent - thanks for these, Steve - inspirational stuff. I'm hoping to get back to some figure painting in a month or so!

 

Guest Spot - More of Steve Cooney's 20mm ECW Collection

 Steve Cooney occasionally shares photos of his fine 20mm ECW collection. This week there are some shots of the artillery. All sorts of goodies on view, featuring Steve's legendary conversion work; from great big demi-Culverins to little Scottish frames and horse teams. I particularly like the fellows loading a big mortar grenadoe with a shoulder-yoke.

Steve writes:

Attached photos of ECW artillery , figures are Hinton Hunt with a few Les Higgins conversions and Demi-culverin cannon are mostly Hinchliffe 20mm range .

Hope you like them

 

 Thanks very much Steve; I like them very much!

Guest Contributor Issue - Steve Cooney's ECW Lads

 Steve Cooney, who has supplied me with figures in the past and occasionally sends me some splendid pictures of his collection, has very kindly mailed me some photos of his ECW troops, which are Hinton Hunt and Les Higgins 20mm castings, many of them cleverly converted.

 Steve reckons that, counting horses and men separately, there are "a couple of thousand figures" here. Impressive, and inspirational - thanks very much Steve. 

ECW: Guest Spot

 I received an email from Steve Cooney, prompted by my humble efforts to get a handle on the Battle of Kilsyth. Steve kindly sent me a couple of photos of some of his own 20mm ECW figures (he does this from time to time, just to remind me that his soldiers are rather nicer than mine!). These are Hinton Hunt castings, many of them extensively converted.

Thanks Steve - great stuff! 

Guest Appearance - Steve Cooney

Prompted by my brief return to matters ECW, Steve very kindly sent me some more photos of figures from his own collection - I'm always keen on a little reflected glory so here they are.

Steve says, "Whilst you’re in ECW mode, some photos attached which you might like. They are of Sir William Waller’s Parliamentarian Regiment of Foot, Regiment of Horse and Artillery, all Hinton Hunt figures with a few Les Higgins conversions (this is regiment number 24!!). The mortar is a Lancer Miniatures."

Thanks very much, Steve - I do like them - very much, in fact.

Guest Appearance: More ECW Hinton Hunts

I received a very nice email from Steve Cooney, who sent me some pictures of soldiers in his collection. Always worth sharing, I think.

Steve describes them thus:

Meanwhile if you want to have a break from all those Napoleonics, I have attached some pics of Sir Thomas Blackwell's ECW Royalist Regiment of Foote; all Hinton Hunt figures except for the modified Les Higgins drummer and the thinned-down SHQ Officer on foot.

Hope you like them.

Steve, I like them - thank you!

Guest Appearance: ECW Hinton Hunt

Steve Cooney sent me an email, and was kind enough to include some photos, which are definitely worth a look, I think. Steve makes the point that, for devotees of Hinton Hunt, since tabletop Napoleonic battles normally feature large numbers of units, the small matter (literally) of keeping the footprint down, plus the limited availability of figures, mean that there has evolved a standard battalion size of two dozen or so figures. On the other hand, the smaller numbers of units needed for ECW actions have allowed Steve to experiment with larger regiment sizes, with greater emphasis on the look of the thing. His preferred unit size is 42-45 men for foot - you can see the effect in the pictures.

Nice, eh?

Thanks Steve - I for one am now crippled with envy, but I'll be all right...

Guest Spot - London Lobsters

Steve Cooney was kind enough to send me photos of some more of his ECW troops last week.

He writes:

Thought you might like to take a look at a couple of photos of an ECW unit I just refinished.

It's Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s Cuirassier Regiment, the Heavy Cavalry of Sir William Waller’s Parliamentarian Army 1643. Figures are Hinton Hunt with a couple of recasts to make up the numbers; Officers and Cornet are Hinton Hunt conversions and the trumpeter is a Les Higgins conversion.

Steve is very skilled with his conversion work - a true master of the soldering iron. He has recently supplied me with a shed-load of French Napoleonic infantry; these are mostly old Der Kriegsspieler castings, which he has modified to lengthen the legs a little, to make them more directly compatible with Hinton Hunt. I'm working my way through these, retouching as necessary to freshen the colours and rejuvenate them a bit. Retouching is always a challenge - knowing when to stop is important, and I have the further benchmark of trying to make sure that the figures end up somewhere close to the quality of Steve's original paintwork!

Since there will be a delay before my proposed Bavarian project can start in earnest (I'm waiting for a shipment of figures, and have a lot more to order up), this job will serve to keep my eye in. Because I'm using many colours simultaneously, I've set up a proper (well, improvised) wet palette, which is a big help, saving time and cutting down the waste of paint.

These French troops will need a few weeks' work, and I also have to collect some suitable command figures for them, but once completed they will contribute most of another division for my Salamanca forces.

Thanks again, Steve.

ECW: Another Guest Appearance

In the rather awkward intermission following the (temporary) abandonment of my ECW Siege game, I'm delighted to have been rescued - once again - by the bold Steve Cooney, who sent me some more photos - this time of some rather tasty Parliamentarians (if that is not an oxymoron) from his collection.

These chaps are Sir John Gell's Greycoats - 54 Hinton Hunt figures, many of them converted. Thank you Steve - I thought they were well worth sharing here.

Once upon a time, in my software development days, some of our projects scraped along on a wing and a prayer. One of my colleagues was an amateur actor, and we had a standing joke that the show must go on at all costs - if necessary, we reckoned, we should have the juggler standing by to rush on and fill in the gaps - give the punters something to look at. Thus, if the visiting speaker was showing signs of drying up, or the overhead projector packed in, or the promised test network for the prototype demonstration didn't turn up, someone would do the secret mime of a juggler, and the project team would cheer up on the spot.

My thanks to Steve, then, who on this occasion has passed me a set of juggling balls, just in time!

ECW - Guest Spot...

Steve Cooney very kindly sent me a note with some more pictures of his ECW troops, focusing on conversions. As far as I am concerned, this is a key topic, since the illustrations show a mixture of 20mm Hinton Hunt and Les Higgins cavalry figures (of which I use quite a few), and Steve explains the steps he has taken to improve the compatibility of these two makes.

Steve writes:

"...thought you might like to see some figures I tidied up recently....

They are Les Higgins and Hinton Hunt ECW Royalist and Parliamentarian Cavalry, I have attached a couple of photos. I snip the joints between the base and the horses forelegs on the Higgins figures, raise the front of the horse, and re-solder it so that the finished figure is slightly higher than it was originally.  

That way the Les Higgins figures are very compatible with the Hinton Hunt figures and are lovely models in their own right.

Hope you like them."

Thanks Steve - informative and inspirational!