Saturday 7 August 2010

Getting There, slowly...possibly surely





Well, after four months of lying abandoned, half finished in my drawer, I've finally finished painting a miniature. Apologies for the slighty blurred photos although this is a bonus in my case, as you can't see how thickly the paint's been laid on. The crossbelts look especially chalky, for want of a better word.

When I promised in my last post that I would have a unit done in a months time this wasn't the intended one. I'd spent ages cleaning up a unit of Hessian Jaegers, but these fell victim to disaster while I was spraying on the undercoat (moisture in the air/using the dregs in the can/not shaking the can enough/spraying in a dark shed and not seeing that they were turning into black blobs -the last two are more likely, to be honest). The undercoat turned a streaky black/dark grey combination when I left them outside to dry.

The miniature I've painted is one of the 'semi-mythical' Frei-Regiment von Gerlach. A couple of TMP posters (David from NBA and Crogge1757) indicate that the unit probably didn't exist at all, but I had my heart set on the unit after I found the old cigarette card for it on the excellent Grosser-Generalstab website. The uniform card is below:


The reason there is only the one of them is that this was finished as a test. I was doing 6 in a production line but I wasn't happy with the triad I used on the musket stocks and satchel. I decided to finish one off to make sure I was happy with the rest of the colours I'd be using. With any luck I'll have the first company of 12 done only shortly after the end of the month-long deadline. I'm going on a pre-booked holiday in a week or so's time, but this is offset by the free time arising from ending of my contract in a week's time, so it's back to this for me.

Another book has been added to the list:
Memoirs of Field Marshal Leopold Count Daun

Edit: And I've just noticed I've missed a bit!

5 comments:

  1. Hello Adam

    I there is one thing that photographing my figures is bound to do it is picking out the bits I have missed, I'll be damned if I can find them when I go back to fix 'em! About the colours dont forget to take into consideration what they look like at table distance, as far as Im concerned it looks pretty bloody good.

    This unit is mentioned in one of my Pengel and Hurt booklets but not in any detail. P&H did do a great deal of research and even if dated and sometimes mistaken I find them a valuable resource. That said, so what, have a personal fantasy unit I'm putting one in my Armies.

    regards
    pp

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  2. Hello there Adam,

    Well, real or fictitious, the effect of the light-medium blue and the dark green is stunning! I might just have to do a unit of infantry in these colors in on of my mid-18th Century armies. Very tempting!

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  3. @paintpig
    Thanks for the nice comment. I'm with you, no harm in a fantasy unit. That's one of the brilliant things about this period; Imagi-units aren't just not frowned upon, they're positively encouraged! Imagine the fuss people would kick up if you plonked a ww2 German army down on the table, customised with rose-pink cuffs and trousers.

    @Stokes Schwartz
    There are a few nice combinations of colours to be found in frei-corps units which would be great for imagi-nation troops. These are a couple of my favourites:

    Freicorps von Favrat 1763 (black coats with yellow or green small clothes)
    http://www.grosser-generalstab.de/tafeln/knoe05/knoe05_07.jpg

    'Freicorps von Drais (?)' (bright yellow coats)
    http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=125732&imageID=90255&total=64&num=60&parent_id=120436&word=&s=&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=0&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&lword=&lfield=&imgs=20&pos=64&snum=&e=r



    I spotted an artillery unit that looked very nice on your blog, grey coats with green facings. I originally thought that Frei-regiment von Gerlach had grey coats. A bit like these:
    http://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/2009/04/reichsarmee-buchsenmeister-of-upper.html

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  4. Yes, the pictures are blurry but the rather fine paint job is easily discernable. Maybe the Regiment existed, maybe not? Either way, the color combinations are wonderful and I would definitely finish the entire unit. Historical wargaming is based on fact but lives in fiction anyways! If you get around to re-doing the photos, please edit the post for the pure inspiration factor for others. :-)

    Dave
    http://chargebayonet.blogspot.com/

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  5. Thanks for commenting, Dave. I do intend to finish the unit but with different miniatures. I'll be using the Perry AWI Hessian musketeers in firing line and charging poses to give them a real light troop feel. It'll mean that I'll have to paint the gaiters on but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

    Good luck with the new blog, mate.

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