New Stuff

After a while without posting, here's an avalanche of new stuff I've been working on over the past week or so. It's amazing what you can get done when you've actually got the time!

So, to recap, I've been working on my British Light Dragoons using the black spray undercoat which has come up trumps. I've also disciplined myself to work on multiple figures at the same time, something I've never been able to acheive previously as I've always got distracted and not been able to stop until I've finished the individual figure I've been working on. This time I managed to paint each figure with one colour at a time which seemed to speed things up considerably.

Super-speedy assembly-line!

Tarleton conversion

I had to do a few minor veterinary surgeries on the horse pose in full gallop, because the fine sculpting was ruined by an anatomically impossible feature; it's rear hoof was bent forwards where no joint should have been. As the PSR review of this pack says, it looks like the horse has suffered a disatrous fracture of the fetlock and the next step it takes will reult in horse and rider crashing to the ground! I sliced off the hoof and with a little trimming and a lot of fiddling around with superglue and tweezers, glued it back on in a slightly more anatomically pleasing pose.

The unit I painted was the 9th Light Dragoons which participated in Hill's raid at Arroyo dos Molinos in 1812. After already painting most of the unit I did a bit more research and found that the 9th were hardly in Spain for a year before being sent back to the UK in 1813. They certainly wouldn't have had time to be re-uniformed in the post-1812 kit, so my squadron is more or less a what-if unit rather than a historically accurate one.


I've painted the converted infantry general and a cavalry general (actually supposed to be Prince William of Orange, but will masquerade as a dashing Hussar general) from Waterloo 1815. And yes, Rafa, you'll see all horses have had their tails shortened despite the difficulty I had in cutting perfectly good horses!



I've also painted my first artillery unit, an Italeri horse battery. Like a lot of Italeri figures, the lovely sculpting is let down by a couple of weird poses as well as uniform inaccuracies. I had to slice off the gunner's arm holding the linstock and pin it back in a higher position, as it wasn't high enough to clear the gun once assembled. The uniform also includes tails and turn-backs on the jacket, which didn't exist in reality, so I had to make it up as I went along, giving them white turnbacks, after debating whether I should do them red or white. After they were painted up I think that the inaccuracies are forgivable. Check the pictures below and see what you think.

Smoke wisp from shredded cotton bud (Q-tip) and muddy wheels from rolling in wet putty which was applied to the base to provide wheel ruts (base drying when photo taken)

Last Saturday was also the NWA Open Day which I neglected to promote on this blog (tsk, tsk!). The Napoleonics display attracted a few people and by all accounts we could have a couple of new members of the Napoleonic variety from it. Quinny and Tim put on a beautiful looking display game with their figures and terrain, but again, I forgot my camera! What I did get out of the day (besides a new bridge and some more dice, thanks Garry!) was the idea to make hills from those interlocking mats. One trader had his own, small versions on display that gave me the inspiration. I had 2 spare mats from the last lot I bought, assuming they'd fit with the packaged set I bought. Of course, the interlocking teeth pattern was different, so I had a couple of spares I couldn't use for the original purpose. After seeing the trader's ware's (sorry, mate, I like to make my own stuff!) I decided to try my hand at making a couple of long ridges. See the reults below.

The white areas under the flock is not snow effect; It's so wet and cold here in Melbourne that the PVA glue has taken days to dry properly. I tried bringing it in to the house to dry by the heater, but the fumes from the sealing glue made me decide to put it back in the shed!

The beauty with my creation is that you can have 2 long, low ridges, or 1 not-quite-so-long taller stepped ridge, perfect for a British division to hide behind!