Painting Progress: Adler 6mm - 4th Tirailleurs of the Guard

I can't recall now if this is a Middle or Young Guard unit, but it's another formation for my Smolensk 1812 6mm army. The figures are Adler, and remain unbased. But I like to share my ongoing work, and hope some of you might enjoy seeing what I'm up to, as I climb lead mountain.

Inspired by Richard of 'perfect six', I tried my hand at a few buttons on this officer.

A more 'massy' group shot.

The drive up to the Foundry gates today. An earthly paradise: a gorgeous day, a fine location, and loadsa luvverly lead soldiers!

Today I decided to drive 'hup narth leek', to Nottingham, and visit Foundry, in their lovely new premises, where I bought a bunch of 28mm French personalities.

Carl Möhner, as Schneider, places Robert E. Lee on the table, whilst Catherine Schell, as Jenny, looks on (she's perhaps best known because of her role in Space 1999, but I knew her better from The Return of the Pink Panther).

'The Equaliser' places General Meade on't table.

Just like Callan and Schneider, in the movie Callan, adapted from the TV show A Magnum For Schneider (starring 'Ed Wood Wood Wood', of Wicker Man fame), I want to have larger figures for my commanders, Brobdingnagian generals for Lilliputian troops, a literal realisation of the politics of scale in ancient art, where ginormous kings (or other bigwigs) lord it over their tiny underlings. 

My several earlier posts on the Alan Perry 'Napoleon Crossing The Alps' figure are a part of this quest for oversized commanders. And incidentally, talking of oversized Napoleons, I've read that Boney's height was actually about average for the era. The pint size dictator image is, so some allege, a piece of British propaganda.

Big St. Greg and his 'ickle scribes.

Apparently Boney partook of this ancient tradition, if we are to believe the rendering of his encounter with a character called Isabey, as depicted in the TV miniseries Napoléon. Essentially Napoleon complains, as he prepares for his coronation, that he shouldn't be depicted in literal relation to others, esp. where smaller, but according to the proportion of his genius, or some such egomaniacal cobblers. 

I just watched this big-budget star-studded four-parter. And I'm already re-viewing it a second time! It's definitely worth watching, in my view, even tho' it is in some (Boney)parts peculiarly flaccid.

Clavier as Boney.

Napoleon is a tough role. I wasn't sure if I dug 'The Pawnbroker' in his Waterloo rendition, but re-watching that film I grow to like his portrayal more with each viewing. The same is happening with Clavier. But my current favourite screen Napoleon is Alan Swift, in the 1972 BBC War & Peace TV series.