New Command Stand

As my Army of Italy command stand was one of the tragic victims of the figures-on-the-floor massacre, I need to make a new command stand for IV Corps.

The thing about internet forums (fora?) and blogs is that they offer many opportunities to participate in challenges which tie you to a deadline so you HAVE to finish a project by a certain date. I'm participating in a painting "duel" with Deon over at Benno's Forum in order to get the new command stand out of the way.

I've bought the lovely Zvezda French command set previously and have multiple leftovers from several of the Italeri command set, so I've decided to blend figures from both sets to make another mini-diorama. However, the figures form the Italeri set don't match the style of the Zvezda figures, so I've had to indulge in a little creative decapitation again! The Italeri bicornes look puny compared to the impressive Zvezda hats, so I took one of the over-sized bicornes from the pre-1805 Italeri French infantry figures and used it to replace the figure's original hat. I also added the ostrich feathers along the top using Milliput.

 

The aide-de-camp also got a new head, courtesy of the Zvezda light infantry to replace the stunted shako he was originally sculpted with.

Talking about painting challenges, I've joined in the merry band who have participated in the growing popularity of the Analogue Hobbies' Annual Painting Challenge! This will hopefully spur me to finish various projects that have been languishing, such as Jim's WWII Soviets (the world's longest painting commission!) and my late Roman / Germanic tribes project,  as well as to complete (or at least put a healthy dent in) the IV Corps for Borodino project. That's the plan, anyway!

P.S. I just realised that today marks the 158th anniversary of the storming of the Eureka Stockade, our own attempt at revolutionary zeal. So, huzzah for "Miners' rights and liberty"!