So after about 10 years absence, my blog is back up and running There have been a few changes. I have gotten over the crisis that caused me to ditch it, and I am now fairly happy. I have properly retired (on health grounds) I have a dog and my daughter is all grown up and curating a museum in Scotland.

I am of course still painting and messing about with history. I had planned on writing a book about the Battles of the Hook(1952/53) which certainly taught me that I was no writer (great in my head, lousy on the page), but the research was a great experience, and you never know, I might re-visit that subject along the way, which will be fun (?)

Much of what follows will involve me showing off the toy soldiers I have painted together with a fair amount of History. I have won various prizes round and about and I have plenty of favourable comments for my models, which is very nice. There are still painters out there who are better than me, but I feel I can hold my head up. I now specialise in vignettes representing command stands for gamers both in 15mm (principally AB Napoleonic’s) and in 28mm Medieval/17th C/and more bloody Napoleon’s! and individual Medieval figures which I really enjoy doing. 

Do I take commissions? Well yes and no. I will not paint armies in any scale and I have to insist on choosing the figures I paint. I will not paint plastic or resin and I am quite slow. But if you do have a general in mind I am happy to talk. Prices are reasonable, but high. 

I am happy to paint the following- Assault Group, Claymore, AB. I quite like Old Glory, but boy do they need a lot of work, Footsore are good. but everything else needs looking at. I am pretty good at basing.

I do rather insist that what I produce is Historically accurate and I pride myself on the accuracy of my research, I am a heraldry and vexillology enthusiast- because frankly there is a load of bollocks out there.

And now to begin…

A subject that has been ‘bubbling under’ for many, many years has been the Teutonic Knights

The Teutonic Knights

There is more bollocks than you might think written about the Teutonic Knights. Mostly this down to laziness  by people who want your money. Here I will try to clarify some issues, possibly in a bit of a cack-handed way, for which I apologise, and hopefully without coming over all superior. I can only assure you that I have done a fair amount of research over the years and invested a lot of my remaining intellect into this subject. What I will not do though is give endless bibliographies and references- this is not school and to be perfectly honest, if I can find the information, then everyone can. I have a terrible feeling that essentially warmers and modellers like to be spoon fed, they see one ore two pictures and call that ‘research’, However no amount of enthusiastic modelling and lovely painting can cover the fundamental errors.

Let us start with a quiz…

Which of the following following photo’s from the web properly represents an accurate picture of a Teutonic Knight?

Obviously, I would not have put these pictures up If I was not about to pour scorn on them. And please believe me that I admire both the sculpting and the painting and I agree they do look rather cool. I have no idea what ranges they are from or who the sculptors are (I think perhaps the same sculptor may be responsible for all) The one thing they all have in common is that they are wrong!

No Teutonic Knight EVER(!!!) wore such an article as a helmet with a crest on it. In particular I am sorely disappointed with Northern Crusades Miniatures. They are beautifully done and full of character, but you would think that a group that specialises in the Baltic Crusades would have developed a superior level of honest research, which is sadly lacking.

There really is no evidence for it.

 ‘Oh come on Mr Atelier,’(I hear you shout!), ‘Mr Clever legs, how can you make such a claim, these are produced by reputable miniatures companies..’ Our answer lies in history and art

Upon joining the Order a knight had to agree to many strict rules one of which was lose any right to any family heraldry and fully adopt the heraldry of the order in addition to this he was forbidden to wear any article of clothing that  was un-Godly, appealed to vanity or made him stand out in any way – arguably the principle purpose of a crested helmet. 

None of the regulations regarding the heraldry of the order make mention of the crest. What ever his worldly status, he became a simple Knight of Christ. Generally a crest denoted a knight of some high status, and the brother has left all of that behind. If you check for yourself in various Wappenbuch you can find online you will find some knights with crests and most without. And in every example the colours and occasionally the shape of their crest refer directly to their personal arms. 

The next picture is often cited as proof that the Brothers did wear crests and is quite wrong for a number of reasons. It can often be found in Osprey books for example, but I am dammned if I know the origin of the claim that the person depicted was a Teutonic Knight at all.

This picture from the Manesse Codex is of a bloke called Tannhauser. He is sort of a founding legend of Germany, certainly he is the exemplar of the best of German knighthood. (See Wikipedia for details.) Yes he wears a white cloak. No, he is NOT a Teutonic Knight. Article 11 of the Rule of the teutonic Knights does state ‘Brother knights shall wear white mantles as a sign of knighthood, but their other garments shall not differ from those of the other brethren. We decree that each brother (knight) wear a black cross on mantle, cappa and armour surcoats to show outwardly that he is a special member of this order’ The rule does not specify precisely where the cross should be place, but it has been generally accepted for several hundred years the it was over the left chest of the cloak.

This is a copy of the tomb of Luther von Braunschweig(Grand Master 1331=1335- we shall meet Luther again…) The Tomb was in Konigsberg Cathedral see below. Showing the cross, as it should be on the left shoulder of his cloak.

Obviously Tannhauser has it on his right. Also the cross is the wrong shape for the period. Given his historical and mythological status, don’t you think the Order would have leapt to claim him as one of their own? They do not. 

Take a close look at his crest and arms, often taken as proof of the Knights wearing crests. They crest reflects the colours of his arms (in this case black and gold), since as a Brother Kight he cannot show these colours, he cannot be a Brother Knight. (exception warning! He is auite obviously depicted as being alive)

And now – Hey! I have caught myself out here don’t you think? Knightly arms, white with a black cross, and a splendid crest, proof that the Teutonic knight could and did bear a crest. Yes?

No! Take a close look and you will see that these are the arms of the Archbishop of Cologne (or Colon). 

 I cannot find much evidence for the Archbishop actually prancing around in this get up but if he did go to war, this is what he would wear. His claim to ‘Argent, a latin cross Sable’ predates the orders grant of arms by some years. Unfortunately the modern Order has posted pictures of murals from inside Cologne Cathedral on their website claiming them as their own so no-one is fool proof. This page is from The »Bellenville« armorial. One of the very best and clearest available The accompanying arms are of vassals  of the Archbishop and therefore do not have crests. Essentially vassels couldn’t be “of” anywhere, their knighthood was dependent on thier lords grace The Order did have a convent in Cologne but had no connection with the cathedral.

Yes! These are Teutonic Knights and yes they are shown with crests, but you have to understand why. These are wall paintings from Juditten Kirche  in the former Teutonic stronghold of Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad), they are destroyed. This Church, along with Konigsberg Cathedral, was a centre for the celebration for Knights killed in service, either brothers or Crusaders. As you can see they are definitely members of the order The heraldry on their chest confirms this, but the fact that they are shown with their own arms and crests tells us something. Either they are dead or that they are possibly Halb Bruder (I will talk about them later) One of them clearly bears the arms of Jungingen= the blue and white squares. And I really don’t know who he is supposed to represent. He could be Ulrich (killed 15 July 1410) or an unknown younger brother. The elder brother Konrad died in his bed and would never have been celebrated like this But coming  back to my original point the crests reflect the personal arms and could not be displayed by a brother knight under normal circumstances. The present order has in its collection many examples of ‘joining’ plaques dating from the later fifteenth century and apparently recorded the arms of every brother with their crests, sort of as an ‘in memoria’ of the life they had left. What it does not show however is that Teutonic Knights could wear crests, these would have had to reflect the arms of the order.

Unfortunately Konigsberg Cathedral is of no help, There were a lot of paintings and stained glass and presumably written records about Crusaders in particular in situ. There were tombs of English. Scottish and French knights in the cathedral itself. 

On the night of 29/30 August 1944, in an act of apparent revenge for the Teutonic Knights refusal to allow English Crusaders to display the Cross of St George, the RAF destroyed it. The Lancs did not spare the castle either, burning it to the ground, leaving it to Leonid Brezhnev to destroy it completely in 1968.

So I hope I have made the case for no crests. I have never seen any contemporary pictures of Brother Knights sporting crests – If any of you have and to render my years of passionate research to ridicule, I would be grateful if you can show me.

I said that there were exceptions. Two members of the order were permitted to wear crests. The Hochmeister who was a prince of the Empire and the Oberst Marschall who was the Grandmaster’s principal representative on the battle field. Some contemporary pictures will illustrate.

This is often described as the parade shield of the Grand Master (Karl von Trier?) around 1320 . It could equally be his funery shield. The inscription states “Shield with the helmet of the Master of the Order of the Teutonic Brothers.” It seems odd that the actual inscription tells us that this is a pictures of his helmet.  

We will come back to Karls shield later as it does give Mr Atelier a problem that he has difficulty talking his way out of (but not about Crests)

Now this is a real treat. This is one of the illuminated pages of The Apocalypse of Heinrich von Hesler This was composed in the 13th century (Often now called the Torun Apocalypse as it is held by the Nicolas Copernicus University Library in Torun, Poland). Its exact period of origin remains unclear to this day. The heady work is a German translation of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. The text of the manuscript is in rhymed prose (a surprising number of documents were) and its stunning illumination, richly embellished with gold, makes this Apocalypse manuscript one of the most interesting works of medieval German literature. It was gifted to or commissioned by the order presumably to be read at meal times. 

The picture above shows the Grandmaster in the final battle of the Apocalypse, note his crest. I have no idea who the fellow in front of of him is with the red horse caparison and fancy helm crest, but he is certainly not of the order.

Two seals follow both of the Oberst Marschal (Grand Marshal) one from 1344 and the other from 1416. No Brother could display on his seal any mark that he was not permitted display by his right as an officer of the order

Also of interest is the lack of a horse caparison.

 The final picture is literally the only picture of a brother knight wearing anything on his helmet. 

Two little pennants or banderoles. 

It is a picture of a monochrome painting at Bunge Kyrka (church) on the northern end of the island of Gotland, The island was conquered in 1398 and occupied until 1407 by the Teutonic Knights. The Bungye Kyrka is said to have been refurbished at this time and has a good number of colourful wall paintings, in particular the Martyrdom of the Theban legion. As with all medieval paintings they were done in a contemporary style so it is logical that the soldiers of the Orderdenstaat were used as models- certainly the ‘good guys’ sport white and black heraldry. As I understand it this little fella is long gone however.

And finally… The Albert von Prankh Great Helm in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 

Someone has decided that the dead bloke who owned this was a Teutonic knight. There is absolutely no evidence for this at all.

This is his funery helmet and it commemorated his life at the monastery of Augustinian Friars at Seckau in Styria, before being gifted to the Imperial collections.

So there you have it, all there is on Teutonic Knights and helmet crests. I am very happy to entertain any evidence that anyone can supply to prove me wrong- its all about learning is’t it.

If your blood pressure can stand it the next part is all about heraldry, shields and flags

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Tanketty-Tank

Last August I had a dreadful wargaming/model soldier experience. I had engaged in an agreement for someone to produce some figures. It was fully funded and the figures (are) were awesome.

Then an unexpected change of fortune – and my family were left without a financial safety net. The only decision I could take was to let the other party down. I am deeply ashamed at that, even though it was the only course of action I could take.

The experience has left me quite shocked and discomforted and my partner in the venture did not deserve this (neither did I to be fair) and I have been through quite a bit of soul searching as to whether my hobby of more than 35 years was actually giving me anything any more.

I only picked up a paint brush again in April 2016.

With great irony, it was to paint some of those ubiquitous multi part plastic figures which I hate with a passion and World War Two, which I am not sure is a viable area for gaming, being both impossible ‘model’ as a tabletop experience and having two morally compromised opponents which need to be included in any game (three, I suppose, if you include the Russians) I wonder if anyone else struggles with the morality of it all?

Anyhow.

Late war British –

I did a 30 infantry on single bases. but didn’t take photographs as they are quite dull. and some larger bases as below

Mortar

Vickers MMG

[

Forward Artillery observer

Forward Air Controller

and yes he is in an allotment! there are cabbages and some onions in there which gave me an idea for an element on this base

Command stand

 

Notice the trooper holding ‘tea’. And the two Huns. I imagined the British officer holding them at gun point as having no concern at all about the rules of war.

There is an abandoned German lmg position on there as well.

Basing is from all sorts of sources  with etched brass trees.

And two Tanks

Churchill Croc

 

AND finally a Sherman Firefly

The burlap cammo was done using a gauze bandage soaked in old tea and coffee grounds to colour it. Then in a mixture of water, acrylic flow improver and white glue to give it a little bit of stiffness – don’t skip this step. it makes the modelling bit so much easier. then cut this into scale size strips portions (whats the biggest piece a crew of 28mm tankies could handle sort of approach). and fix strategically around the tank.

The cloth strips are, well…cloth strips. Its called bias binding and its available from all good haberdashers. I used three colours brown, green and a beige. Its fragile stuff and once again the old water /flow improver /glue mixture is brought into play to give it some stiffness and stop it disintegrating. This is the cut into tiny tiny strips and glued one at a time onto the netting. Start at the bottom and make clumps of same coloured binding leaving small gaps between clumps.work your way around the tank. When you have a ‘row’ paint the clumps of strips in the old glue mixture. Then using the colour of the binding as a guide paint the clumps. (I used chocolate brown, Russian uniform, and English uniform)

Then repeat for another ‘row’ once its all on. I gave a wash of burnt umbar oil paint and then (does the process never end?) painted a variety of differences in colour on individual strips. Finally I made some twiggy- foamy things to act as foliage and glued on here and there.

One problem that never occurred to me when I started though. Underneath all the netting and stuff I had carefully made quite a bit of track armour especially on the Firefly which is now covered over. When the model is in you hand , you can see it and you can see the detail behind the netting, but the extra detail is sort of lost in photographs.

I guess that all means I am back.

I am doing some more Berg Light Horse as a commission. and after that who knows?

In a few days I will post some pics of Jerries that just happened to be painted at the same time as the Brits.

 

Toodle-Pip

Those nice men from Berg, and other stories.

Finally finished the Berg light horseOnce again technology has the better of me the photographs really are crap and really they are quite bright and breezy. They have turned out very nice. I think it is the combination of green and grey and then that pink that the French were so fond of.

They took some work. Originally they were Vistula Uhlans because the troopers and trumpeter had the sheepskin saddle coverings and the officer the Polish style shabraque. Which was a big tick. The lances were removed and replaced with brass wire and the end filed down to a point. They are depicted with their pennon covers on. All czapkas were covered, and all were given a blanket roll over the right shoulder. I only had to move the trumpeters riding arm slightly to accommodate this. A piece of fine wire was wrapped over the trumpeters roll depicting the trumpet cord. The officers shabraque was cut and modelled in the fashion apparently favoured by very many light horsemen. Presumeably this stopped the ends flapping about and annoying the horse. All additions were done with a Milliput/greenstuff mix.

 

I have started work on Austrian generals (when in fact I still have some Russians to finish!) and here are some test shots.I seem to have misplaced some. They have some out slightly darker than they actually are. The plan is to do an ‘Archduke Charles at Aspern’ model with him rallying IR Zach. Then do a few others of 1809 vintage and then move on to 1813, but I am struggling for inspiration.

I picked up a load of Minifigs waggons recently. They have stood the test of time well and only really needed new whells for them to be brought up to 18mm standard which they now have. Currently they are having extra detail slapped on. I have a plan…

Here is a bright and breezy fellow indeed

Some sort of drum major – not sure which regiment. The Emperor spoiled things with his Imperial livery. Apparently, I am getting some actual drummers to go with him. Apparently!

I have really struggled with the latest batch of ‘Explosions!’ They have taken an age, and to be honest really should not have. Somehow, I had a complete panic when I had nearly completed them, and ripped them apart (how appropriate). Now rebuilt they look fine and I don’t know what the fuss was.

I am having a bad time with 28mm at the moment. I have been trying to do Front Rank’s General Lasalle. I know FR are popular and and cannot fault the cleanliness and crispness of the casting.

BUT…

Everytime I picked the man up, I was disapointed at the the lack of detail. He was famous for his flamboyant dress and yet there are no distinctions of rank on the model – nothing on his sleeves, nothing on his legs. His shabraque is completely plain with no detail and his scabbard and sabretache are straight up and down as though the man was stood completely still and yet his horse is preactically flying and so is he! It is the same with his Adc – dynamic pose and horse, but from the waist down nothing. AND the arms have come off both the Adc and the accompanying cuirrassier officer (ditto comments about his scabbard)

I  cannot sculpt for toffee, but there is something really disappointing when an artist (Front Rank) sort of only does half a job. Had more imagination been put in to match the vision it would have been an utterly outstanding model. When I started I was determined to do a good job and I am dead pleased with my painting (having said that FR sculpting style does help very much) but have got to the stage wher I have to give up. Its ‘doing my head in’ as young people say. AND no matter what I do I am never going to get a seem -less join on the AdC’s sword arm. Bin or if anyone wants him pay postage and you vcan finish the model at your own leisure.

In this mood I picked up Perry’s General Uxbridge and his light dragoon escort. They have already been through the paintstripper process once. And I thought …No! life is too short.

And I have a dark ages general dude on my table. He is fine but I cannot get his shield right. And I aint paying for decals!

So I am not in a good place as far as my own 28mm figures are.

What I have retrieved from this debacle is this little dio. But I really had to work through some dark places to get it finished. I thought only writers suffered with block…

Thanks for listening…

The tip of the (Nice) Berg

Sorry for the pun.

I have had it in mind to convert something AB into the Light Horse Lancers of Berg for quite a while and so I picked up half a dozen Polish Uhlans for that very job. The Lancers of the Guard would not work as the troopers all had pointed shabraques, whereas the Berg Light Horse rode with light horse saddlery the same as the line chasseurs and line lancers.

The officers may have had either.

Also none of ABs lancers are dressed in  campaign dress with rolled overcoats and pictures of the Berg regiment with blanket/overcoat rolls have always caught my eye.

So 4 Vistula Uhlans, a trumpeter and an officer.

All epaulettes and fancy lace and cords were removed from all the figures

All needed Czapzka covers. Off came all the detail and a thin film of milliput and/or greenstuf applied. I tried to ‘suggest’ the folds etc in the putty but it was a difficult job. Another problem was not to increase the size of the head gear which looks fine to me though painting might reveal a horror.

More putty was used for the blanket/overcoat rolls over the right shoulder and under the riding arm with the ends over the hilt of the sword. I think that these ‘roll’s were very much more substantial as to simply be flattened by the left arm, but there is really nothing I could do short of lifting up that arm from the body for it to rest on a ‘bulkier’ overcoat. This would have caused much buggeration (sounds a lot like a certain Russian General!) so was not done. I can live with the result.

Cast lances were removed hands and lance buckets drilled out and replaced with brass rod which had had lance points cut and filed. The pennants were enclosed in the little cover, and the lance grip modelled in putty.

The trumpeter got a new trumpet cord to go over his overcoat roll.

The Officers shabraque had its rear corners removed and remodelled with them folded as would have been the case in action.

In the photo you get the idea of the areas worked on. I may have to revisit the czapzka covers and the ends of the  rolls to make sure that they are straight.

I have had a number of enquiries about explosions both as commissions and as a ‘how to’ with photo’s. I will try to remember to do this.

I think I have nailed the process of doing ‘air-burst’ explosions and am in the process of modelling an exploding tree (!) – beloved of Hollywood I know, but confirmed in eye-witness accounts. Another explosions will also feature a fence or something along that line.

 

Cheerio!

Bang!… and the fusiliers are gone! (but without Barry Scott!)

Here are three versions of the same of thing more or less. I had these boys knocking around for a while whilst the inner workings (of the part of my brain that actually works) did a bit of imagineering (huh?) about how to do the explosions.

Looking at paintings of troops in battle and to a lesser extent film of explosions its quite clear that when a Napoleonic howitzer shell explodes it caused a lot of noise a great deal of smoke full of bits of soil, grass and chunks of iron – most of which seemed to miss people, and really not much else. Casualties appear to be knocked down rather than blown up into the sky.

Scary – very much, a hazard to most, but deadly to only a few. The conundrum was to model something that could clearly cause death or serious injury to the soldiers on the base, but looked fleeting or ‘wil’o’the wisp’ like – soon dissipated.

I think I have got it just about right with the skills I have.

It starts as a small ball of milliput drilled to take some small pieces of white pipe cleaner. This assembly is painted yellow with bits of black and mid grey. Once stuck to the base, with the pipe cleaners pointing in various directions I took some wool. This particular wool is actually Harris Tweed wool picked up last year. It has some lovely colours in it browns blues greens and off whites. These were glues around the base of the blast and teased out until the threads were very open and you could just see the ‘yellow’ of the explosion. Above and around this I put some stuff called Kapok which is very fine open weave cotton (actually I am not actually sure it is woven as such) Its sort of like teddy bear stuffing but much less dense. It is white or off white so I coloured it greyish in patches.Once fixed in place it was further teased out.

White glue was dotted around all over and used dried tea leaves scattered liberally over. Some catch the glue others find themselves stuck in the fibres.I tried to glue some lumps of garden earth on it took but they didn’t take.

I glued scatter and flock to paper  painted brown, and cut very small bits off this and glued these on to the smoke to simulate disturbed clods.

 

The kicker is to work out how to do this in 18mm scale!!! and the pics together with some recently completed sacrifices to eBay.

Some French AdC’s 

 

I cannot tell a lie. I quite like him

I am a warrior

Just finished a small boxed diorama as a gift for my friend Steve. It just awaits a name plate before it goes off in the post. Perry miniatures.

 

 

Landsknechts and some 28mm Naps going on eBay

Oh Happy days! – A blast from the past and its awesome!

A long time ago, in the early 80’s my wargaming life changed completely. At the time, I, along with most other gamers it seemed, was locked into WRG style rules. We were all masochists back then. We knew they were crap and badly written, the cause of arguments that could spoil a Sunday afternoon and they created an arms race every bit as financially draining as the Cold War.

Moreover, we could not stop inflicting these horrors on ourselves week after week.

Then at Sheffield Triples 1981, our poor sinner’s lives were illuminated by the golden rays of ‘Empire’ by Bowden and Getz.

I hadn’t taken too much notice of Napoleonic’s until that point. I had always been bowled over by the sight of Richard Lawrence’s immense Napoleonic collection, but trying to ‘game’ those wars didn’t work for me at all.

And then…

Suddenly I was in a gaming heaven. Stuff I had read about in Chandler or Petre or Lachouque could actually be reproduced with toy soldiers. Richard and I sold our souls, and our ancients and renaissance figures, and poured gold into 15mm Napoleonics.

Alongside of this was the requirement for more knowledge and at the forefront of this was a strange little magazine from the U.S. – Empires Eagles and Lions, written by the New Jersey Association of War gamers. Guys just like us!

These fellows didn’t use Empire, and perhaps didn’t even like it, but their little magazine was chock full of inspiration and information. Every other month or so we waited eagerly for EEL to come from the States (via Caliver Books?). It always had a good mix of information that we couldn’t just get hold of: – and these people were in New Jersey for Pete’s sake! It was full of humour, uniform information and genuinely entertaining battle game reports.

I think we were quite jealous that this small crew could produce so much. Our gaming group at the time consisted of three people who actually bought books on the period and half a dozen that were happy simply to turn up on a Sunday to have a laugh and a good game.

I used to daydream that one day everyone at our group would develop a deep interest in the period and contribute to our knowledge. Alas, this was not to be.

So why this little essay?

Well some generous soul has pdf’fed Empires Eagles and Lions and put them on line. I don’t know if it is Jean Lochet the old editor of EEL or what.

Whoever it is; thank you, thank you, thank you!

Go to http://www.zaotlichiye.net63.net/EEL/

I have downloaded them all just in case.

If you haven’t seen it before, a treat awaits you!

Look out! Here we come!…and its about time too!

With the Russians more or less out of the way it has been time to revisit the Landsknechts. So two command stands follow.

As usual flags are painted. Both are made up. I dont know what flags they may have carried. However, I am bored with some of the specimens often shown. The  Doppel Adler or whatever, and the usual few southern German city arms are fine, but I am not convinced that as mercenaries they would have carried these unless employed by  those places. It’s an arcane subject area. I don’t doubt that there are good descriptions/illustrations out there, its just that the wargaming community (and me!) haven’t found them yet

The one for the chaps in white was inspired by Durer’s Ship of Fools they have a flag with the head of a “Narr” on it. The other is from some coat of arms I have a picture of. Its sort of Imperial, without claiming too much authority. I am sure it’s German.

The drummer has glasses on. Almost without exception I have seen these painted as blue with highlights, as though reflecting the sea. These tend to have been painted by foundry fanbois.  They don’t look like this. Generally all you can see is an approximation of the wearers face – a smudge of pink. So this is how I have done mine. Wouldn’t look good on the front of a Magazine of course but I do try to keep things more or less accurate here at Atelier-Robin. (rant over)

I am both happy with and unhappy with the dudes in all white, perhaps the underclothing showing through the slits ought to have been lighter, or some sort of bluey- grey. I just happen to think that pale browns look fine.

The figures are from Pro Gloria and are rather nice. I am doing the vignette of the dice players at the moment.

The Company of fools

 

Next up appears to be some miscellaneous  Napoleonic 28mm that I have had around for a while. It may be that they are straight to eBay releases rather than appearing here!

 

These two bases are for sale. I’d rather not do eBay so if they tickle your fancy contact me direct!

A new general, some close ups of banners and Moreau’s dog

I ended up with a spare general from ABs 1806 Prussian command. The others slotted nicely into Russian or Austrian command groups – with a bit of help from Messrs Milliput and Green Stuff.
However, this figure of a very dramatic Blucher did not fit with any plans I had. I gave him a ‘fore and aft’ bicorne and he suddenly became very French. Messrs Milliput and Green Stuff called again and he got a nice fur lining to his jacket and some badges of rank and became, in time a General of light horse. He could easily pass for Lassalle, but there were plenty of other blokes sporting fancy uniforms.
He is on a base with a senior officer and trumpeter of the Guard Chasseurs.
Our photographer has caught a particularly dramatic moment in the charge. A six pounder has struck the earth just in front of the general, and because luck and glory are on his side; the ball has bounced and will continue past him on its destructive path. It does have some ones name on it but I am guessing it will be the name of some unfortunate trooper.

its just a turd, boys. Pay it no heed

 

You can clearly see said ‘turd’. It does have someones name on it, but not these fellas!

Pierre Bezhukov is based on Antony Hopkins (glasses) and Sergei Bondarchuck (top hat) One can never have enough dilletante Francophile spectators with your Russian Army.

This is Moreau’s dog. I dont know what sort of dog it was or what colour it was. So it is THIS dog and it is brown. Here he is having a good bark at a fleeing Russian!

I was very pleased with the way the religious banners came out. I had surrounded my painting table with postcards of Orthodox depictions of Jesus and Mary. I can take the all down now thank heaven!!

 

I am back on to the Landsknechts via Perry’s new General Washington  and then I’ve got some flats and Austrians to do!

 

Another success at White Rose – pleased with myself.

I took the Russians to White Rose M.M.S. today and was very gratified to get a bronze medal. To be honest I thought that there were plenty of models that should have been placed above me, but I got some amazingly positive feedback especially with regard to the banners and icons.

I find it fascinating that nearly all of them say that they would never touch something in such a small scale whereas I wouldn’t know where to start with a 54mm figure. I know its different techniques. I will have to have another go with flats, but you have to be so subtle and careful with colour to get the effect right.

The Gold Medal this time went to an awesome 75mm flat of a semi nude lady wearing (barely wearing I must emphasise) a silk thingy. The effect of the skin showing through the silk was simply superb. Silver went to a militia man of the AWI.

I am in awe of the talent on show here at this club. There is fellow who makes 1/76 scale vehicles from WW1 out of plastic card and the detail makes your jaw drop. Some of the flats are inspirational.

The camera battery is recharged so I will have another go at photographing the Russians. I will have another vignette completed this week and hopefully a 28mm George Washington completed. I am tempted to dig out the Landsknechts again too.

Unfortunately one of Barclay de Tolly’s mates broke yesterday. He was a conversion and I am not sure that I can fix him with out it looking really bad. He will probably get a replacement chum.