Paint desk update, October-January what I have painted/done

The last months work for the final phase of my bachelor in photography has sooked up most of my time (writing my thesis, graduation work etc). Though I did manage to occasionally paint here and there, making a slow process on certain projects. Two weeks ago I finally managed to document the paintwork I have done since roughly the first week of October.

Enjoy some pictures and some toy soldier rambling!

A call to Arms Life Guards converted to Austrian Light Dragoons. 

I think these deserve to go first to stick to more or less chronological order. I think I converted these A call to Arms British life Guards somewhat by the end of September into Austrian Light Dragoons or Chevau Legere...To be precise the 5th Regiment Klenau as they would have looked more or less by 1809.

I digged these up out of my collection, both the figures on the left had no sabres anymore. So the 2nd from the left I gave a new sabre, the other received a pistol. All men received the typical detachable lance next to their carabine. They got the more typical Austrian canteen and the Life Guard plume was removed and replaced with some Imperial leaves. Also, I gave them some Imperial Moustaches ;-) Fur Kaiser Franz, forwards!

Karl and Heindrich, full in the charche! As you might notice..I bought some more different tufts to stup up my basing game...Since I felt like my bases started to look a bit dull. I especially think the flowers add a lot to the bases and fit perfectly when I think of the 1809 campaign which was from April till July. I will order some more flowers and maybe also other colours. So with all the figures you will see in this post, I waited with photographing till the flowers arrived and I could stick them onto the bases! Now they are all officially done :D

Light cavalry were regarded as the most functional type of cavalry... Though how will they perform against French Heavy Cavalry?...Hmmm

Finally managed to get these done!..Guess I started painting them two years ago...Had the horses done for a while and over the last weeks finally managed to finish these and now base them all together with the Austrian cavalry! I have plenty more of these that are in the WIP stage...

A call to Arms French Cuirassiers 

Guess these don't need much of an introduction...A Call to Arms French Cuirassiers!

William Britains French Infanterie Legere officer charging Hougoumont, Repair job! restored in honour and ''pimped''

Then another small project I did was this William Britains guy that I really like! He came with a lot of painted (not great) hat figures I bought beginning of the autumn. He had quite some wear damage and his sabre had broken off from the beyond the plume...After waging my options I decided that cutting his metal sabre away was the best option I had... So I took my strongest knife and cut in my finger haha! But then also the sabre shortly after was removed.

With the utmost care, I removed it and looked for another sabre...Measure the size it would have been and replaced it with a Helmet Kits heavy cavalry sword. 

And its gone..Now you can also clearly see the wear damage on the figure. 

And there we are! Now lets find hime a nice base! I deceided to paint him over entirely. First exactly how he was..Then I decided to give him more of my own ''touch''.

See here the result :D

What started as a quick repair and pimp resulted in my touching upon almost every part of the figure with my brush, but I am very happy this one can lead the troops again! The figure is a dipiction of the officer who is putting his body weight against the door to force it during the siege at Hougoumont.

You see? Look at the Carabinier or light infantry officer with his back against the door holding it open for other light infantry Frenchmen to enter! It's him! Quite an accurate depiction I think!

Austrian Brigade Commander, conversion...Finally based!

Since I finally had the flowers and more different kind of grass, it was time to base this guy! I converted and painted him in I think March last year (2019). He is a Britains Deetail Confederate mounted officer or cavalry figure. I cut off his kepi and gave him a greenstuff bicorne. Also I tweaked his uniform like the sash around his waist and gave him a wig. He struggled a long time with painting his face...Finally I settled on the fact that there are handsome and less handsome commanders ;-)

 Heavy cover! Some Scenery walls

Something else I did was this fun project!...I found these pieces of foam and since their size was quite good I saved them from the garbage bin in school and turned them into some Napoleonic 19th-century walls..Based on drawings I saw and also with the walls of the Aspern church in mind (those walls had tiles on them) I wanted to make a first try out... They still feel a bit too much like desert walls yet at the same time I like them a lot!

 

And wall number two!

I still have some material left, I might go for a third one... This are meant as a quite general type of wall usable from France to Austria, Prussia and maybe even Russia. It could be in a town, the outskirts of a town, wall around a garden, church or farm...At least in my humble opinion ;-)

Now...I am slowly getting closer to the present time...Haha...This post is more a catching up of what I have been up to! xD

Neufchatel Artillery 

In November I bought this great set of very well painted ex force artillery men! Credits go to Rob for painting and assembling them (they luckily were not attached to the base that was only for display). They are painted as Neufchatel artillery.

This is how they looked when I received them! Pretty good huh?! Slicker and also more conventional then I paint mine...So let's get those uniforms dirty! 

A Neufchatel artillery men by Knotel. 

Though I really liked the figures already they were not yet fully after my own taste. I repainted the bonnet the Police (forage cap) of the soldier carrying the water bucket and tweaked the figures here and there. Then give them different washes and some dry brushing. An lastly I based them, oh and don't forget the flowers Stan! haha.! Now they are ready for action!

As far as I can tell, only the figure with the water bucket has an expeditionary force head. The other heads are from ''Les Armees de Waterloo en 1815'', a small one-man company ( I think) who is also a re-enactor and has been present at the waterloo re-enactment ever since the first time I participated in it. You can find his 54mm figures on eBay or find him on Facebook.

I gave the piece a wash, then went with some shiny stuff from citadel over the barrel, I really like the effect, it really feels like a real piece to me now!

And the crew, cabin crew...ready for take off?...''Oui!''

You can tell from the look on the left soldiers face that he is wondering'' How long do I still have to hold this cartridge?''

Slowly catching up! Hungarian Grenadiers and Dutch Grenadiers 

Hope your not getting tired of this everlasting post?! Ha ha! Well...We are almost back in the now! In the last days of my summer holiday simultaneously with converting my ACTA British life guards I also starting prepping a couple of more Italeri Hungarian Grenadiers. I had already done two more then a year ago, time to turn them into a unit. I converted one figure into a flag bearer and all Grenadiers received green stuff moustaches.

 

The Italeri Hungarians don't have a cartridge bag so I made them out of green stuff.

I also selected some more Airfix and two armies in Plastics figures to join my Dutch Grenadiers unit which is a on going project. Also for them I made a flag bearer. Since I don't felt like painting up the flag of the Airifx Eagle bearer I removed it which ment giving the fige a new standard, put back the old eagle and gave him an arm that was before '' under the flag''. With all the grenadiers I stuffed he plate away on the bearskin since the 3rd regiment Dutch Grenadiers had no plate on their bearskin. They did have chin scales which I also made out of greenstuff.

Then I decided to go for the kill and remove the entire flag of the eagle bearer of the 3rd. 

Then he was like this, but it was impossible to wrap a paper flag around the remnants of the plastic flag, so I took drastic measures, all for the best. 

See the result here :-)

New flag pole(standard) old eagle, new arm and hand! and made some tassels under the eagle =D

And for the Austrian battalion I took a Grenadier, cut away his musket, repaired the damage, drilled a hole, gave him a standard, the stick as Austrian non commissioned officers have, cut away the bayonet and I did not give him a cartridge bag of course. Happy with this one! My armies are in real need of flags!

And here he is with an Austrian Ordinair Fahne. It was quite pixellated so I painted over it, the colour blocked edges looked particularly low quality and since I felt pixels don't really connect to this era.

 I will give it a wash later and then it will look quite decent I think

And off to the battlefield, they march! They are currently full in the painting process! Hope to post pictures of them soon!

Cheers! From the Hungarian Grenadiers!