Painting Progress: 1/72 & 1/76 WWII German troops

Left and rear, the acrylics I already had, by Vallejo and Howard's Hues. The large group at right, the new stuff. All Vallejo.

A few odd or even downright bad experiences with enamel paints recently [1] have lead me to decide to go for it on the acrylic paint front. I have bought a few acrylics here and there over the preceding years, but on the whole since resuming miniature figure collecting I've stuck with enamels.

But a few days ago, as some grey-green Revell enamel reacted strangely with the Tamiya dünkelgelb basecoats of a few of the German figs I'm currently working on, I decided to pop into the Ely model shop, and get properly tooled up with all the necessary acrylics to make a decisive change in medium.

So, anyways, here are a few more pretty cruddy pics of the mass of German troops, now that I've started blocking in the base colours. This is all a bit experimental and work-in-progress. But I'm liking the Vallejo paints a lot. 

I want some of these guys togged out in the highly attractive and very intriguing camo-patterns the Germans developed. Working these out, so they look right to me, is proving an interesting challenge.

Lilliputians on lollipop sticks.

The foreground three rows here are all Nebelwerfer crews. If anyone knows the name of the brand of the figures nearest the camera, please let me know. I've forgotten who I got them off at whichever Salute it was a few years back! Rows two and three are Esci, rebranded as Italeri. Also visible are some Caesar and Dragon Panzer crewmen, and some Milicast SPG crew.

To the left of the previous pic are these guys. Too many brands here to list! But a lot more green in evidence. Some of the more basic figures, esp. the Airfix ones and similar, are getting the early-war look, with grey trousers and green jackets. But there are also plenty that I'm doing as mid- to late-war, a good few of whom will get some form of camo.

At the very rear are another brand currently unknown to me. Very chunky figs, but nice nevertheless, benefitting from good active poses. They appear to be in winter-sheets style get-up. But I've opted to paint them in grey greatcoats with camo smocks and helmet covers. I dunno, perhaps they might even get an unusual/unofficial (i.e pillaged from some non-German source) camo colour scheme - the Italian pattern, perhaps? - for a bit of interest.

On this latter thread, there's a great pic in the Blandford Uniforms of WWII book I'm using  for ref., of a German soldier in baggy Italian pattern camo. There's also a very interesting post on this topic here [http://souvenezvous44.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/camouflage-petits-pois-contre.html?m=1], showing that this pattern was used in theatres other than Italy itself.

Even closer in on the Nebelwerfer crews. I think I took this so I could see their back-packs/gear better!?

13/5/'16 I worked into one of the camo schemes on some of the figures today, as pictured below. Still in the 'blocking in' phase... slowly but surely! It's hard work, this four-colour pattern. 

There are a few subtle (i.e. barely discernible) differences in amongst these various groupings, where I've tried different combos of colours, but in search of the same overall look.

I do wonder how best to get the right effect, taking the small scale into account. Obviously the pattern is going to be much simpler, and is - I have to confess - very slapdash and approximate; I'm still essentially experimenting. The next step will be the various coloured dots. And then belts, heads, faces. Weapons, ammo, etc.

I really have no definite plans as yet for shading or weathering, etc. One thing's for sure tho': with the volume of figures I want to paint (and I really need to get back to my Napoleonic hordes!) I can't be too fussy. And I think with the advancing years my eyes tire quicker than they used to. Hey-Ho!

14/5/'16 - Update:

I decided to look into the subject of German camo patterns, and find out what it was I was about. I discovered that I'm gravitating to two particular types, one called (I think?) flittertarn, and another knows as Dot 44 (and numerous other things!). Pictured below is a reproduction jacket in the latter pattern, made by Epic Militaria. 

Above is a snapshot of my slow progress towards this pattern, on some of my Panzer crew figures. At such a reduced scale the pattern is both very random, and vastly simplified. But I think it's headed in the right direction. Needless to say, it's driving me, er... dotty.

15/5/'16 Today I went pretty dotty, painting little dots. Originally I separated out a bunch of figures with the intention of concentrating on some erbsenmuster  (the Dot 44 or 'pea') pattern. But then I started to work further on some figures I intend to have in splittertarn or splittermuster style gear.

In the pic immediately below the top row (Nebelwerfer crew) have splitter (splinter) patterns, the next row down (Panzer crew) are in erbsen or Dot 44. Then there are the Dragon Tiger Aces figures, in what was also originally meant to more Dot 44, but went a bit more 'Dijon Mustard', and now looks more like platanenmuster herbst, or the Autumn side of the 'plane-tree' pattern camo'. Not sure yet which way to go with the other Nebelwerfer crew, down at the bottom!!

A slightly closer in view of some of the latest camo' work.

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NOTES:

[1] It's odd: I only have two or three Revell enamel tinlets. I used one - a kind of grey-blue - on a lot of the helmets... and no probs. But when I tried the grey-green, for jackets, etc., the enamel reacted horribly with the Tamiya basecoat... dissolving it, in fact! 

Film Review - Waterloo (1970), Sergei Bondarchuk, Rod Steiger et al

My DVD uses this decidedly Anglo-centric poster artwork.

The film itself

Having watched this film at least six or seven times now, I thought it was high time I took the opportunity of recording and sharing some thoughts about it. 

First off, Napoleon is a subject that has attracted and yet frustrated the movie industry for many years. From Abel Gance's experimental silent-era flop, in which he blew his entire budget on the first of what were meant to be six instalments, to Kubrick's abandoned movie project, abandoned, apparently, because the film under review in this post didn't do as well as had been hoped.

Directed by Sergei Bondarchuk (his epic Russian version of War & Peace, in which he also starred as Pierre Bezukhov, made him perfect for this role) the film starts at sea, as Napoleon leaves his Elban exile and makes a dramatic return to the throne of France. His triumphal march north and resumption of power is delivered in a very quick/truncated manner, swiftly followed by the realisation that war will be inevitable and unavoidable (there's a great scene relevant to this thread with Boney steaming in the bathtub!). 

Shortly thereafter French troops cross the river Sambre into Belgium, and before you know it we're amongst the strutting peacocks and popinjays at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball.

A rather different poster: for the French market

it's an Eagle silhouette, rather than British flags!

Napoleon advances on foot to meet Ney's 'Royalist' troops:
Napoleon - 'Soldiers of the fifth. Do you recognise me?
[pause] If you want to kill your Emperor? Here I am.'

Müffling arrives at the ball, Wellington makes his plans (and we get the famous 'humbugged' lines), and afore ye know it, the troops are deploying on the battlefield.

The movie dutifully (and spectacularly) covers most of the major actions: the opening 'feint' against Hougoumont, D'Erlon's massed infantry attack, with the British/Allied cavalry charge riposte, many bombardments of the batteries (Bondarchuk seems to have had a 'thing' for artillery scenes!), the French cavalry washing around Allied squares, the arrival of the Prussians, and the final attack of the Guard, etc.

The scale of the production is truly amazing. Legend has it that for the duration of the filming of the battle scenes the multinational multilingual army assembled for the film was amongst the largest 'standing armies' in Europe. The bulk of the extras were Russian soldiers, and troops were drilled according to contemporary 'evolutions'. The battlefield was recreated pretty meticulously, in the Ukraine.

Yet another different poster in English.

The cast is pretty stellar; Rod Steiger's Napoleon is actually very good. I must admit I didn't like him in the role instantly. But the more I watch the film, the better I think he is. Christopher Plummer is great as a very charming if somewhat clichéd aristocratic Wellington, and many of the supporting roles are well cast/played (the actor playing Blücher looks exactly right!). 

Bondarchuk's direction is, on the whole, excellent, and clearly no expense was spared staging and filming the amazing battle scenes. Appropriate use is made of contemporary martial music, and the stirring menacing score, which helps build tension as we approach the battle, is also worthy of mention. 

Sadly, despite all that it has going for it, the film didn't do as well at the box office as was anticipated, and that's not helped Napoleon reach the big screen (or little screens either, for that matter) in the years since. How different the situation is on the literary front, where there's a seemingly inexhaustible Krakatoa of works that continually belch forth on this perennially popular subject!

Would that someone with pots of of money might take the whole era on! My dream team would be: Spielberg, Jackson and Scott, sharing roles as executive producers, and  poss even as co-directors, with Scott (his film The Duellists is one of the most beautiful depictions of the Napoleonic era) as production designer. And they could use Kubrick's researches, so he could get a credit as the ghost in the machine!

[pic]

Historical accuracy

On the topic of historical accuracy, here's a link to a site dedicated to listing movie bloopers and the like, which has an entry on Waterloo. Near-miss trivia nuts might be tickled by the fact the movie is catalogued as entry 1813. What a pity it couldn't have been 1815! There is also a list of historical inaccuracies at the Wikipedia entry for the film. And the website TV Tropes has a slightly different angle on this whole area, which is interesting. 

Given that all this info's already out there, I'll leave it - more or less - at pointing people towards those links. I will, however, mention just one or two things: the famous ball on the eve of the battle was held in a coachmaker's barn, so probably didn't look quite as grand as the candle-lit ballroom of the film. In attempting to recreate the famous painting of the charge of the Scots Greys (Scotland Forever, 1881, by Lady Butler), we're given a very cinematic vision of a cavalry charge. Woe betide any plucky highlander foolish enough to try hanging onto the stirrups of those thundering steeds! And lastly, given how much artillery action we're treated to, some consistency would've been good; as it is the cannons sometimes recoil, and sometimes don't. 

[pic/video]

But, for me, although there are many fine moments, there's one single shot of such extremely evocative magnificence - French troops of all the main arms, cavalry, artillery and infantry, cross a river (I assume the Sambre?) in the rain; the camera starts with an aerial panoramic view, pans across the bridge, and ends on an under the bridge view of troops fording the river - which snuffs out any such quibbles. To see the military splendour of the age of the 'big battalions' so wonderfully realised is, frankly, priceless.

And another poster variation! This one for

the Prussian, sorry, the German market.

An extended director's cut?

There has also been speculation about whether a longer version of the film exists, with some suggesting (over at TMP, for example), that there may have been a four-hour long Russian 'director's cut'. I took the bit between my teeth, so to speak, and wrote via email to Mosfilm, and received a rather disappointing reply from a lady named Elena Orel, of the Mosfilm International Relations and Distribution Dept:

'Please be advised that Mosfilm holds the right to the film WATERLOO, 1969,

director Sergey Bondarchuk, for Eater [sic] Europe territories. I should inform

you that there is only one version of this film of 2 hours 17 minutes.'

I don't hold that this is necessarily a final and definitive end to the quest for a longer version [1]. But it doesn't exactly fuel hopes!

One of the intriguing publicity stills that suggest certain scenes were cut.

It would seem that there certainly were scenes that didn't make the final cut, some of which exist only thanks to press-photos. Thanks to the TMP discussions on the topic I can post a link here to Deadhead's gallery of tantalising stills of some of these potential lost scenes.

The picture I reproduce above, showing Napoleon on horseback, comes with an interesting anecdote; Steiger was terrified by the skittishness of the white horse he was sat on. Justifiably so, as it turned out, as it bolted with him still in the saddle! This in turn links neatly to one of the worst aspects of the film, which are the several scenes where certain characters, e.g. Steiger's Napoleon, or Michael Wilding as Sir William Ponsonby, are filmed clearly pretending to ride a horse, very unconvincingly.

More photos like the ones linked to above,  including several of the same, can be viewed here: David Hurn's Waterloo film production photos (1969)

A Spanish language poster for the film.

And finally, try and avoid the 'pan and scan' version of this beautiful film, which spoils the visual glory somewhat by zooming in and slipping and sliding around the picture space. I don't know how you could tell this in advance. I only know that my version (part of a four film Orson Welles set*) is the original and best format, and that a version I watched at a pal's was the mutilated one.

* I'm glad they bundled this film in with the other movies in that collection, in which Welles is the main star, despite his role in Waterloo being little more than a cameo!

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NOTES:

[1] In my researches for my monthly classic album column, Recycled, for Drummer magazine, I often found that major labels had little or no idea about some of their older and more obscure catalogue items. Mind you, Waterloo is hardly obscure, even if it is now quite old (it's only very slightly older than me!). But what I'm getting at is that Mosfilm may be wrong, and there may be a longer version out there somewhere, even if not in their archives. That was how Kevin Brownlow was able to eventually cobble together Abel Gance's Napoleon, thanks to prints in the collections of unofficial sources.

Book Reviews: Albrecht Adam & Faber du Faur - Visual Memoirs of Russia,1812

Napoleon's Army In Russia, The Illustrated Memoirs of Albrecht Adam, 1812

Riderless horse at Mojaisk, Albrecht Adam. This beautiful but rather sad oil painting is not in the book under review!

Albrecht Adam was a German artist, born 1786, in Nördlingen (Swabia, Bavaria), who started out training to be a confectioner, in Nuremberg, before switching to the Academy of Fine Arts, and taking up painting. He was somehow involved in the Austrian campaign of 1809 - in what capacity and on which side, I don't know - before settling in Vienna, where he caught the eye of no less a personage than Eugène de Beauharnais.

Napoleon's stepson appointed Adam as his court painter, and in 1812 he was given an officer's commission, and attached to the Bavarian contingent of Napolon's Grand Armée as an official war artist for the invasion of Russia. He would later publish the resultant artworks as a memoir of the campaign, comprising 83 images. He worked to a ripe old age, mostly painting battlefield or equestrian scenes, often helped out in later years by his sons, eventually dying in Munich in 1862, aged 76.

Albrecht Adam (photo: Franz Hanfstaengl, 1850)

Enchanted and fascinated by the tiny but tantalising reproductions, usually in monochrome, of the illustrated memoirs of Albrecht Adam and Faber du Faur, frequently reproduced in the numerous books on Napoleon's 1812 campaign I've been reading, I was thrilled when I discovered - at a Salute show several years ago - that both have been lavishly reproduced, in landscape format hardback. And what's more, both were selling at slightly reduced prices. So I snaffled them both up!

The only downside to Adam's account is that he left the campaign early, meaning that, unlike Faber du Faur, he doesn't document the slide into bedlam that was the retreat. But, in fairness to Adam, although one might well wish for more, that's because what there is is terrific. Whilst du Faur was with the artillery of the Wurttemberg contingent p, in Ney's III Corps, Adam - the former apprentice baker! - was with Eugene's IV Corps; hanging out mostly with the Italians, judging by all the Italian troops in his pictures. Actually, as already alluded to above, he was actually attached to the Viceroy's staff.

Dokzice. It should be remembered that Adam's images are from the advance, not the retreat!

Like the Faber du Faur volume, and despite the two books appearing under the aegis of two different publishers, this work is superbly edited and translated by the very erudite and capable Jonathan North, who prefaces both accounts with short but comprehensive synopses of the whole 1812 campaign, also placing the authors within their particular contexts.

As mentioned above, Adam's narrative concludes early, in Moscow to be precise. At which juncture, thanks to a certain independence in his position, he's able to get leave to depart, before Napoleon and the army as a whole cave in to the seemingly inevitable, and turn for home. But, as most accounts, - including this one - make clear, the first signs of the Grande Armée's descent into ruin are apparent long before this point.

A guard tends the bivouac at fire at Eugene's HQ. I think the version of this in this edition differs from this version.

Eugene's Corps crossing the Niemen.

Adam supplies an epilogue outlining his return journey, and some reflections on the whole experience. And, unlike Faber du Faur's book, there's even a self-portrait, amongst the superb artworks collected here. All this serves to really flesh out the humanity of the story, and of Adams himself, who comes across as a very likeable character. When relating his meeting with friends and companions, old and new, including, in the quote below, some itinerant Jewish salesmen he meets on several occasions, his humanity comes across wonderfully:

'It may have pleased them that I showed none of the prejudice that is generally shown in society to the Jews. This was not hard for me; I have always seen only the human being in a man, without regard for religion, nationality, or class, and have always found it easy to make friends as soon as I recognise a good heart and fine feelings in anyone. This policy has never let me down.'

With that kind of reasonable outlook, it's no wonder he got out of the madhouse when he did!

Near Pilony, by the Niemen. The cost in horseflesh was catastrophic, both for France and her future war-readiness, and for horse-lovers, like Adam.

Approx 28cm x 22cm, this is a somewhat smaller book than the Faber du Faur volume, and has only 72 plates compared with the latter's 92. Print, paper, and binding quality, like the artwork and written content, are of a uniform and very high standard: brilliant stuff!


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With Napoleon in Russia, the Illustrated Memoirs of Faber du Faur

Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur, was, like Albrecht Adam, a German artist. Born in 1780, in Stuttgart, he initially took up painting, before becoming a soldier. It was in the latter role, as a lieutenant in the 25th (or Württemberg) Division of III Corps, in the Grande Armée, that he took part in the 1812 campaign in Russia.

The  sketches he made on campaign were exhibited (in 1816), and later re-worked as prints, eventually being published, circa 1831-44. Staying in the profession of arms he ultimately attained the rank of general (1849), dying in Stuttgart, in 1857, aged - as was Adam at the time of his death, by a curious coincidence - 76.

From the sublime: Napoleon and the Grand Armée At The Kaluga Gate, Moscow.

To the ridiculous: title...

As I mentioned in relation to Adam's illustrated memoirs, reading widely on the disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, I'd become aware of the works of Albrecht Adam and Faber du Faur, their illustrated memoirs frequently supplying such books with evocative imagery. I remember frequently thinking, especially whilst reading Zamoyski's gripping account of the campaign, 'wow, I'd love to see more of these pictures: I wonder if they've been published in book form?'

Well, fortunately for us they have, and both books are superb. As already noted, Faber du Faur's has a distinct advantage over Adam's, which is nonetheless wonderful and well worth having, because, unlike Adam - who, we recall, rather wisely opted to head home before everything started falling apart - he saw the whole campaign through, from it's glorious beginnings to it's abject end.

Crossing the Niemen.

Wondering why they ever crossed the Niemen.

As a result du Faur's work has the fuller coverage, including, as it does, the descent of the Grande Armee into a crazed rabble of patchwork harlequin scarecrows, caught up in a tragically apocalyptic farce, humanity running the full gamut from the heroic to the horrifyingly brutal.

The artworks are really phenomenal, and Greenhill Books has printed the book beautifully: it's large format (in landscape orientation), and Jonathan North's translation of the text reads very well. Such specialist books can sometimes suffer from poor editorial quality control, or slightly odd or even just plain poor, writing. Thankfully the synopsis of the 1812 campaign given here is very good, and there's a decent map of the theatre of operations.

And, this bears repeating, the artwork itself, the heart of the book, is just fabulous.

A beautifully evocative image of Cossacks attacking the straggling French and their allies as they retreat through a misty snowbound wood.

The sad fate of much of Mother Russia, where almost all the buildings in 1812 were wooden.

So many aspects that simply reading about this fascinating subject can't quite convey are brought vividly to life: the realities of life on campaign, mostly spent travelling, camping outdoors - more often than not unprotected from the elements - foraging, bivouacing, eating, etc. The landscapes, the architecture, the importance of logistics - the sheer volume of horses, wagons, and such like is wonderfully evoked - and dealings with the native inhabitants - commerce between the Grande Armee and Russian Jewry is a noticeable feature in both Adams' and Faber du Faur's books - all are depicted.

Almost all the books I've read on this subject, from those written now to these two much older sources, stress how things went terribly wrong right from the start. But visible manifestations of the harrowing descent into a motley bedlam, despite this, only really start to become strongly apparent on the retreat. The haggard, skeletal, fancy dress scarecrows, amidst the appalling squalor, suffering and sheer dehumanising brutality, make for compelling characters, in this excellently draughted material.

I love the logistics of large campaigns, and it's great to see this oft-overlooked aspect depicted.

Another classic image of the retreat.

A stunningly beautiful and well realised edition, this is a classic document of Napoleon's hubristic over-reaching, the pivotal moment, where over a million lives were grist to the mill of what proved to be his unrealisable imperial ambitions. The French and their allies, having rapaciously looted and laid waste to much of Russia, would soon be jettisoning nearly all the booty, in the scramble to survive.

Fortunately for all concerned, this jewel of a book is one of the only real treasures to come back to us from the campaign, and I really can't recommend it highly enough.

As a little footnote: whilst doing picture research for this post I discovered that Bonham's auctioned an original edition (sadly the info on the lot doesn't indicate the date) of this set of artworks, achieving a sale price of $50,000! So, if you can get this for anything under £20-30, I'd say it was a bargain! The info on that sale was illustrated by the rather idyllic looking bivouac pictured below.

Join the army, see the world; the Russian 1812 campaign doesn't look too bad, in a scene like this.

Skirmishing in the suburbs. Fabulous reference for the wargamers or modeller.

Trying to get the artillery uphill... In knee/axle-deep mud!

Joining battle.

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Taken together these two handsome volumes make for a marvellously evocative depiction of the Russian campaign. Whether you were to acquire them singly or together, no matter; if you're remotely interested in Russia, 1812, just get 'em!

1/72 & 1/76 WWII German Figures

Circa 115-120 little Germans...

I decided to start painting some figures today, to go with all my German vehicles. 

As can be seen, there's a real variety of manufacturers, materials, and quality/style. There's even a mix of scales, most being 1/72, but a few being 1/76. There are a number of drivers and tank crew, several self-propelled gun crews, some infantry, and a few odds and ends, like the AB motorcycle policemen, and artillery crews by Airfix, and Zvezda.

Other manufacturers/figures include Italeri (old Esci) Nebelwerfer crews, Caesar plastics (Panzer crew), Dragon's Tiger Aces, some Milicast resin tank and self-propelled gun crews, and some white metal figures I got a few Salutes back, by a couple of brands whose names escape me now.

Some of these are excellent, like the AB drivers and traffic cops, the Dragon Tiger Ace's, and the Caesar tank crew. Some are just okay, and some, like the very basic and rather wooden-posed older Airfix figures, are quite poor. 

The good, the bad, and the ugly!

The Milicast figures are odd, inasmuch as they have aspects that make them quite desirable/good - interesting outfits/poses - and qualities that are less winning - odd proportions and some rather awkward poses. The range of sculpted proportions across the various manufacturers is also very wide, from the most slender and naturalistic, to some really quite stocky fellows. 

Unsurprisingly it's the white metal figures that tend to be the more heavily built. Though the AB range, whilst heavier set than the Dragon or Caesar panzer crews, show that old-fashioned 'tin' soldiers can be just as pleasing to the eye as the best of their plastic brethren.

And of all the driver figures the two AB sets are hands down the best, both in terms of pose, but - and more fundamentally (unlike the Milicast drivers, which haven't fitted in any vehicle I've built yet - not even the two Milicast models!) they actually fit inside 172 and 1/76 vehicles very snugly.

One or two of these figures remain undercoated in black, as per my old method of painting. The bulk, however, after getting a coat of black, have had a coat of Tamiya Dunkelgelb. 

So, all in all, a very mixed bag!

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Bang!

Sadly, time for modelling and painting ran out, and I only got as far as two undercoats! But I was at least able to console myself with a bit of Sharpe on the box whilst eating dinner.

Kit Review: Masterbox 1/32 French Hussar

Teresa has been on at me for ages to start making bigger models, or collecting bigger figures, or whatever. And, rather handily, this chimes with a long held desire of mine; as a kid I'd always wanted to buy and build Historex Napoleonic figures, but, for a whole heap of reasons I won't bore you with, never did. When I spotted these Masterbox cavalrymen at this years Salute, I just upped and grabbed 'em.

A couple of days ago I cleaned up and assembled the horse. It's a nice model, but there are some parts where the edges don't join very neatly. So I got out the Superfine White Milliput, and did some filling in. It looks rather rough, admittedly, but I think it'll clean up alright. And by the time the model's finished and painted, I hope it'll look ok.

At the front end I had to tidy up the X-shaped part of the bridle, and fill a gap along the left side of the neck, just behind the rear-most part of the bridle.

Another area of non-alignment was at the horses rear-end, on the saddle and the nags rump.

Then today I made a start on cleaning up all the bits for the rider. The model allows you several options, such as a cloth or sheepskin shabraque, and the choice of pelisse worn, or over the shoulder, busby or shako, and several weapon/pose variations. I opted for the classic dashing beau sabreur look, pelisse slung over one shoulder, sabre resting nonchalantly on the other, the shako - for full tassel and plume effect - and the carbine slung along the right leg.

In this pic I'm making little bosses for the fish-scale chin straps, as the model doesn't have them.

The shako bosses in situ, with the rider in the saddle. I also had to add some detail to the braid and tassels on the shako.

And I made a tassel for his right boot, as the moulding on this leg was rather lacking in form, in respect of that particular detail.

I took this pic to show, the huge gap between the back and front parts of the carbine strap, which I filled with Milliput.

I decided to make the rider and his horse separately, so as to be better able to paint them, prior to final full assembly. Next step, undercoating. I might well try to paint this model entirely in acrylics, as I've never done a model that way yet, having thus far preferred Humbrol enamels.

Assembly completed, aside from actually mounting the rider atop his trusty steed.

Doh! Just spotted that my hussar's left arm has the furry trim of the worn pelisse around the wrist. So, what to do? Chop off the arm and replace it, or attempt to sculpt back to the piped sleeve? Hmmm!?