French Carabiniers

Squadron painted as a straight paint job on the Lifeguard figures. So some limits to accuracy!

Firstly, already knew these are all officers as they don't have carbines. That light blue and white saddle cloth doesn't take a good picture!

Next, pictures I've got seem to show that the officers had plumes, rank and file didn't. So, again, this lot are all officers.

But... Carabinier officers seem to have have copper armour, rank and file brass - this lot are all painted as rank and file.

So, that's it - this lot are actually a very good match for Carabinier officers, just need carbines added and plumes removed  to make good rank and file. They'll do for me.

Prussian hussar

Continuing with my conversions, this one could (will?) finish up as part of a unit... just need to convert another 5 of them...

Although I'm getting on with one-off conversions as I start to put together future possibilities, I am also slowly doing a few other things - one Austrian gun and a squadron of carabineers are currently on the painting desk. It's mostly the run-of-the-mill infantry batallions I'm being a slow with.

A Russian Cossack

A bit more playing around.

Wandering around Looses Emporium in Norwich a few years back I came across one of my 'buy it and I'll use' things - a full set of the (basically Osprey) magazines from the Del Prado 'Napoleon at War' series. Number 42 'Russian Cavalry In Action'  has a picture of a 'Don Cossack, campaign dress, 1812-14' - and it looked like a simple head-swap-and-trim-pennant job on a lancer...

Very simple conversion matched by an equally simple paintjob.

No idea about horse furniture so I've guessed ared and black, same as the uniform.

For black I've just done everything black... it's always been a colour I've struggled with in painting figures...

Sherlock update

Because of limited interest shown I've cast 2 Sherlocks available on a first come first served basis - I'll simply charge £4 plus postage and send a Paypal request to the buyer. Remember that I don't save addresses so anyone wanting one will need to send their address to garrisonminiatures@gmail .com. Note these are large casting so there are imperfections on the figures!

Preparing an artillery park

Working on the assumption that the French artillery gun will serve reasonably for any other nation I thought it would make sense to put together enough to be painted up for all the different armies...

Neuchatel Battalion - artillery

Taken from the Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars, Jack Cassin-Scott.

Should only be one battery, did two anyway.

I thought the plumes were a bit more impressive than standard French artllery without plumes. In the book the uniform is a lighter blue than this but I've gone for a more French darker blue.

But then, to clinch the deal, the infantry battalion has yellow uniforms with red facings...

Funcken Armies and Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars

For the last 50 years or so I've been using Funcken, mainly the 'All Times' volumes. My recent foray into Napoleonics means that I'm now using the Napoleonics volumes as my main uniform source - and it's in French. There's too much there for continually having to translate so...

I've bought an English version off EBay. Should make life a bit easier.

The armies as they stand.

Well, except for the Bavarian gun. Suppose I could have put it in with the French.

I've set them up more to show possible setups - for example, how a battalion square works with this arrangement.

One thing that is obvious from these pictures - the French need more battalions.

The Old Guard

Second French unit finished... one more to go. Before then, though, I intend to do the Highlanders and, probably, some Prussian Landwehr.

I used a 3 man command group because I had 2 possible standard bearer options and didn't know which one to use.

So I did both. As the tricolour didn't come into use until 1812 I had to use the later style of Regimental flag. Well, I didn't really but...

Usual extra view without the command group hiding everything.

The two styles. One is a Grenadier officer with the tricolour, the other being a converted marching infantry figure. Garrison officers are very useful for converting to standard bearers! I do have an Eagles mould so could have given these figures Eagles. Just didn't.

The officer should have a longer sword but it had a nick in the blade so I cut it down a bit.

Sherlock Holmes

When I bought Garrison it came with very few of the 'larger' figures. However, one of these was a large figure of Sherlock Holmes (can't remember now if it was 60mm or 90mm).

Anyway, some time ago I passed one on to my son Steven and he's now painted it: I should ask him how big it is...

Temptation... Prussan Landwehr

The temptation came from here.

Freely admit it, mine aren't painted as well!

Figures still need to be touched up a bit and varnished.

The infantry figure is one I painted several years ago for the  online catalogue.

Officer and standard bearer both made from the marching infantryman.

Small example of the finishing needed - officer's cap.

The first French Napoleonic infantry regiment is finished...

After a lot of distractions due to work and some Russians they're finally finished...

The officer wears a bicorne for the simple reason I wanted an officer wearing a bicorne.

There are lots of sites where you can download flags - this one just happened to be from here.

Next, start on some French Imperial Guard.

Russian Napoleonic infantry

Re the query about Russian infantry, these are what I've got at the moment:

There are Guard and Fusilier marching figures. Bare figures don't photograph very well - definitely need a brown wash.

For me, just having the marching figure is not an issue as I prefer it to the advancing ones.

When I do paint some of these up I'm afraid I won't be able to do them to this standard!

There is a standard bearer for the Fusiliers but, sadly, I have yet to find an officer.

Russian cuirassier

Very rough-and-ready this one.

By snipping a few bits off the mould between the hilt and blade, and by putting a bit less pressure on the mould (accepting a bit more flash on the figure) I'm casting about one in three goes without breaking the sword. So decided to paint one up as a cuirassier...

Comparison with the Dragoon.

I think the cuirassier will look better once it has a gloss coat!

Perhaps happily the photo quality isn't as good as I would normally like.

The sword quality (?) is very clear here.

The horse is a Russian horse - though don't know what is supposed to ride it!

So the result is a figure I quite like but... that sword is very rough and ready, but I daren't try and tidy it up much - it would just snap!

At some stage I think I'll cast half a dozen and paint them up as either Dragoons or Cuirassiers. However, I haven't the faintest idea what to go for but doubt it's viable time-wise to do both.

Russian Dragoons

This one is more of a repair job than anything else. The figure exists on an old mould and I don't think I've ever managed to cast a 'good' figure. The main problem is the sword - it's so fragile it always breaks!

It seems to be quite a neat figure with it's 'new' hand.

The new hand came from an infantry officer.

The basic could be used as a cuirassier and possibly serve in the Austrian or Prussian armies.

I have two possibilities. One is to try and alter the original mould so that the sword is a bit tougher - not sure how that would turn out. The other would be to find space on any future new mould. This will depend on whether or not I start up any of the relevant armies. The base figure itself, with appropriate head swaps, also looks promising.

Napoleonic Bavarians - some test conversions.

Sorting out a few conversions some of which may (may) finish up on a mould.

I've started with Bavarians. There was one Bavarian figure I found - BA4 - but not on anything that could be considered a production mould. One main weakness of the current range is a lack of artillery figures, so again artillery crew seemed to be a good option.

Simply used the standard French 12 pounder as the artillery piece.

The crew are simply the British artillery crew with a head swap. No officer because I haven't made any yet!

The portfire figure doesn't have his portfire because it broke - which is pretty normal.

Sadly blurred picture showing the original unpainted BA4 next to a marching conversion - this time I put the head on a French infantry figure.

It is unlikely that the artillery crews will ever appear on a mould - I'll probably only need 4 of each if I do Bavarian and Wurtenburg crews, nowhere near enough to justify mould space, easier just to convert them. However, both infantry will probably be made - say 150 or so figures (?) would justify their place.