I took four Waterloo 1815 figures and removed their backpacks and replaced them with pouches. They have painted up okay, but as I am finding with this project, the varnish is turning them glossy. I still haven't decided if that is how I will leave them, but it is good enough for now.
A poor attempt an arty shot using an uncharacteristically cloudy sky for Perth.
An unintentional "wet look" to the ground.
It's a bit more noticeable in this photo and the following ones, but I did a bad job on the gun elevation, made worse by the scenic effect on the basing as the wheels are indented, but the trail slightly elevated by the plaster I used to build up the base.
I like the pose of the guy looking hopefully out into the distance while the ball is more likely to bury itself six feet under just a few yards in front of him.
The guns are detachable. A style which produces a few loose cannon.
This last photo was taken using a flash, the rest are all natural light.
While I am still thinking up the best way to show unit status etc, it never hurts to have a few casualty markers and so, using the trusty Airfix set, I painted up these three. The fallen jager is the companion headswap to the officer I did for the Belgian infantry.
I reckon you're too hard on yourself, dude! I checked back on the August posting, and in my view the figures were fine, and even if the uniform wasn't completely correct for their intended purpose, recall that on campaign soldiers were more likely than not to be got up in wrong or non-uniform gear.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of a comment by a former Confederate officer after the Civil War. He said that only once ever did he ever see an soldier wearing regulation artilleryman's uniform. That soldier happened to be an infantryman.
On the matter of gun elevation, too many modellers set the gun at too high an elevation. I've done that myself. Ideally the gun ought to be set very close to horizontal, and it is my belief that a degree of depression is not at all unrealistic, especially for close range work.
How about howitzers, then? These days I'd be inclined to set them the same as the guns, as if they were firing canister. But there is something to be said for setting them at a few degrees of elevation in accordance with their role at longer ranges.
Part of the obsessiveness with getting the detail right is that I had such good source material and stupidly hadn't used it. Worse I've just gone and done the same thing with the 4th Dutch Light Dragoons (blue pants when they should be grey and white straps on the blanket roll when they should be black - the latter is probably debatable, but actually might look a bit better and the grey pants will be an improvement - with a nice white stripe as well).
DeleteThe other part of the obsessiveness is having the right figures. When I first had the dream of doing the Waterloo army from the Haythornwaite book all I had available were the Airfix figures (and that was before they had brought out the Prussian Landwher figures). Finding the recent HAT figures and the Waterloo 1815 Dutch Belgian Artillery set was just a dream come true. So I wanted to do them proper.
They are done now (at least the artillery). I did fix the elevation last night. I had used PVA glue to secure the barrels and it had enough give to let me move them up 10 degrees to the horizontal position I was after. Another coat of PVA has secured them now.
The guys I painted in August I will base up as a foot battery, or rather I will paint up another gun and base them as singles to serve the gun and act as individuals in potential skirmish level games.
In my whole Napoleonic army I have only one howitzer model. It is with my Prussians. The ones with elevation that I like are those ACW mortars. Don't have any of those, yet...
Thanks for taking an interest.
These are very nice Mark. Like your adaptive converting skills!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Thanks Carlo. I used to do a lot of converting of Airfix figures, not something I need to really do with figure availability these days, but it is still fun.
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