Painting Progress: loadsa figures...

Nothing too specific in this post, just keeping myself motivated on the painting front, really.

I bought a can of matt grey undercoat paint, from a car parts shop in Ely, on a friend's recommendation. You get more coverage for your buck! I bought the can Saturday, it's Tuesday today, and I've emptied it already. 

Proper 'toy soldiers' these!

These fellows in zeltbahn needed their right hands adjusting, to look more natural/realistic: left as bought; right, after plastic surgery.

But then I have sprayed base-coats on quite a bit of stuff: about 150 1/72 plastic figures (not the hard plastic type either, but the 'toy' soft plastic sort!), from several different brands, inc. Airfix, Revell, and Caesar; then there are about 40 or 50 28mm Retreat From Russia figs, almost all of which are Perry (there's one figure, of Ney, in the famous musket-toting, long fur-lined-jacket wearing pose derived from that famous painting of him fighting with the rearguard... but I forget who the manufacturer is!?); and fourteen 28 hard plastic hussar mounts (Perrys again!).

Ready for undercoating.

I love these figures!

Can you spot the lone non-Perry fig?

The can also saw service on Saturday and Sunday, as well as today, covering a further 10 or so mounted 28mm figs, and around the same number on foot, both groups being Napoleon and staff. 

There are also a few random extras, like some Salute figures from various years. And then there are all the ongoing 20mm WWII Germans, that I started during Half-Term. Oh, and the 10mm Russians, and the 28mm Front Rank drummers, and...

At left, Gringo 40's rather nice 28mm Murat, a pied; centre, a Salute ACW officer (shades of Custer?); right, Foundry's Murat, also in Polish garb.

One of my several 28mm Napoleon's, this a one-piece casting, from Foundry.

Another great Salute figure: Colin Maud, or rather Kenneth More, with blackthorn stick and faithful mutt, Winston.

Well, it's all proceeding in a rather haphazard manner. That kind of bothers me on one level. I feel I ought to fix on one project, and see it through. But, thus far at any rate, I seem incapable of doing that. So, never mind, I'll just follow my whims for now!

Vive L'Empereur... almost

In a bid to take a break from painting my 6mm armies I decided to finally paint my Alan Perry Napoleon Crossing The Alps figure. The project has turned into something of an obsession! I get very little time to do it, but where I can I snatch it.

Here's a pic of the miniature as it is now:

A close-up view. Backdrop is part of a Caspar David Friedrich. Ok, not Jacques-Louis David, but hey, at least both have David in their names!

It's still not finished - now that I've based it I'm unhappy with the horse: colours look too blocky in places! And the tail and main remane (sorry, but I love spoonerisms and silly word-play!) too glossy, thanks to Army Painter Quickshade. So, hey-ho, on it goes! Here's a painting of how Boney allegedly really made it over the Alps.

Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, Hippolyte Delaroche, 1850.

This latter scenario is available as a beautiful model from French sculptor Bruno Leibovitz's firm Metal Modeles: Bonaparte crossing the Alps on May 20, 1800.

Here's a couple more pics of the work as it's been progressing: first the Milliput base, more or less finished, but unpainted; second the whole thing, with base painted... so, more or less finished... in theory!

The observant may notice Sean Connery enviously eyeing my cuppa... fuel for Milliput creativi-tea!?

A lick of paint for the rocky surfaces, and an attempt to tidy the edge of the circular base.

I've been enjoying the delights of Flanders & Swann in the motor, chortling as I'm pootling along. They do a great song about WWI which I'll post if there's a YouTube link to be had. In the meantime, they do make at least one reference to Napoleon, in the song 'Friendly Duet':

'When they whispered Napoleon

Pays Josephine's rent,

'Nonsense', said Bonaparte,

'She lives on her own, apart,

In her own apart-ment'...'

And this in turn reminds me to remind those who don't know but might be interested that novelist R. F. Delderfield wrote a book about Napoleon's amours, in which he (Delderfield that is, not Napoleon) refers to the field of love as the 'bonestrewn beach of the Sirens', which I quite liked!