So, after a weekend away from the painting desk I finished off the Hessian dragoons, jägers, and stuck them and the Hessian & Brunswicker hussars to their bases. The bases were coated with chinchilla dust and when this was dried on, the bases were given a wash of burnt umber. I say a wash because that is something the quarter master has failed to re-order, so the paint had to be thinned down. Oh, and the infantry bases got their regulation 3 levels of highlighting (per the Baccus guide and basing kits). But all are waiting for supplies of 'grass'. So the whole lot was boxed and attention has moved to the next contingent.
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| The Hessian and Brunswicker cavalry and skirmishers. Netherlanders in the foreground in their new coats. Next step is to do the brown on the Dutch (muskets, flag poles, horses*). Then it's on to all the fiddly white bits. When that's done I begin peeling the little chaps off into relevant groups of units for cuffs, facings etc. * My new convention is to do dragoons on brown horses and horse on black. |
By an overwhelming majority (if 4 people voting can ever be considered overwhelming) I started on the Dutch. The infantry is all going to be in blue coats (only 1 battalion of the German Waldeck regiment at Fontenoy was in white). I got the coats on 5 units ('brigades' in TOTSK parlance) of infantry done. I hesitated on doing the grenadiers as (a) I'm not sure if they had separate units of combined grenadiers (none listed on the Fontenoy orbat); (b) I'm not sure who wore bearskins and who wore mitres in the 1740s. More research needed. But I did do the coats on 2 units of dragoons and 2 of horse. The dragoons are in blue and the horse in grey. Some pictures show white, but I wanted a bit of a change from all those Austrians, French, Germans etc. And the grey I used (Vallejo 'wolf grey') is very light if I put it on thick enough.
I might get this lot complete by the weekend. Let's see. In the meantime, I need to get down to a local art shop to get a new tub of burnt umber.
These look great! The formations on each base really add to the whole look of the thing. I particularly like the v shaped cavalry one. Just shows what can be accomplished in the tiny scale. I await more with interest…
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradga
Thanks Alan. I used to do a lot more on the diorama side with my early Prussians and Austrians. But it’s fiddly, and involves a lot of cutting. All figures except for the marching infantry come in strips ‘fore & aft’. If I want to crank out the numbers I stick with the straight lines.
DeleteChris
They look great Chris. Good idea with the horse colours for 6mm figures as it will be a great help identifying who's who or who's what. 😁
ReplyDeleteThanks Ben. Even coat colours can be a bit difficult to spot if the light isn’t great. So anything that helps is good. In fact it’s a bit like seeing a person hundreds of metres away in real life.
DeleteChris
Excellent units. Love the cavalry. I think that the 6mm cavalry horse colour convention is very sensible and will aid cavalry type recognition on the table.
ReplyDeleteCheers Richard. It certainly helps as looking down you don’t get much of a view of the coat colour but you do see the horse colour. Need a similar convention for infantry now. Maybe different hat lace to represent different quality units? It means straying from uniform conventions, but food for thought.
DeleteChris
You continue making great progress. For my only 6mm project (Punic Wars), I denote cavalry type by the number of figures on each base.
ReplyDeleteThat’s pretty much what I did with my Punic War cav.
DeleteChris
Real life has got in the way of all hobby related stuff, bar reading, so nice to see you making good progress whilst I'm stalled.
ReplyDeleteAh Real Life. Yes, that’s going to limit my production soon, which is why I am pressing on now. Should be finished with the Dutch by the weekend though.
DeleteChris