Thursday 15 August 2013

With a tow, row, row, row, row...

This morning I realized that my last posting was more than a week before. Actually that's too long but this week a very special unit attracted me and kept me at the workbench. You might want to use the Youtube-Link below before you scroll down. It's the sound that I've been whistling for the last days:
Without any doubt most of you know this tune very well: The unit I painted mainly over the last weeks is 16 men of British Grenadiers from the American war of independence:
With a tow, row, row, row, row to the British Grenadiers...
The miniatures are from the excellent range of Wargames Foundry and are beautifully detailed. Especially the faces and the eyes have so much expression that I tried to outline the details better than usual. Because they can rarely be spotted on the gaming table I refuse to paint them mostly. Anyway those brave grenadiers disabused me.
The commanding officer and two of his grenadiers.
But with the other things I stayed traditional. With only a few exceptions I used Vallejo Model Colours to paint the boys and afterwards I shaded them with Armypainter Quickshade (dark tone). As you have noticed probably I painted them with different facing colours because I imagined them as a combined battalion of the grenadier companies of different regiments.
The right flank.
Since the buff faced regiments used to wear buff waistcoats and trousers as well those soldiers stick out a bit. Actually I'm not too satisfied with the result of buff so I'm not sure whether I should paint buff faced regiments in the future.
The left flank.
On the other hand there are some green and royal blue faced regiments which I like much better. Even the black ones turned out rather well which I'll need as grenadiers from the 84th Regiment of Foot which fought during the Penobscot Expedition of 1779.

In a final step I'll have to finish the bases during the next days but the varnish has been a bit gluey still. But I couldn't wait to take the photos and write this post...

Apropos Penobscot Expedition:
The weekend after the next we'll have a very special club meeting. We'll hold the test match for our this year's Crisis presentation game which will losely cover the happenings of the Penobscot Expedition. Actually very losely since we'll be playing with much more troops and a rather freely refined progress of events. Anyway we'll have a really large battlefield and about thirty to fifty units which will be great fun I presume.
But on the other hand I'll have to finish some board tiles and maybe some more Scotsmen for the game so I'm not sure whether I'll be able to present you my efforts. But you'll see some pictures after the great game at the latest.

22 comments:

  1. Thanks Andrew.
    Actually it's not the facings or the waistcoat but I don't like the buff trousers. Somehow I didn't manage to outline the highlights properly...

    Cheers
    Stefan

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  2. They look great! Wonderful painting on some great figures. Try Foundry Buff leather which I think is excellent if your looking to get a nice buff tone. It's what I use and I'm pretty happy with it.

    Christopher

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    1. Thanks for the hint Christopher. What I don't like with the buff trousers is the lack of detail. Maybe I could paint it on but... Well on white I find it not necessary...

      Cheers
      Stefan

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  3. Fine work so far Monty, well done.

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  4. great work I love these sculpts have painted many myself
    Peace James

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    1. Excellent sculpts indeed!
      Although I'm a big fan of Perrys' AWI range I prefer the faces of the Foundry sculpts...

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  5. Very nice, love the period and have an excellent uniform book, but so far have never painted an AWI figure, every time I see a great post like this I am tempted, so much to do so little time.

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    1. Hi Dan,

      AWI is very interesting. There are some good Osprey books but for British uniforms C. E. Franklin's "British Army Uniforms from 1751-1783" is priceless I think.

      Cheers
      Stefan

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  6. Fabulous! The paint job is excellent, the faces, and the eyes, are amazing!

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    1. Thanks Phil.
      Usually I don't paint eyes because I'm only able to when they're sculted that excellently.

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  7. You have done an excellent job on these, good luck with the game

    Ian

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    1. Thanks Ian,
      the game will be a lot of fun I presume. Last year we had an even greater Napoleonic game and it was awesome...

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  8. They really are beautiful Stefan, what great faces!

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  9. Fantastic unit Stefan. I hope they do well on the table.

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    1. So do I. ;-)
      They'll have to storm some American siege works...

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  10. These look terrific, Stefan. With these combined battalions is always worth painting up the figures in different facing colours. I find 2 figures for each of the parent regiments is about right.

    Best wishes

    Giles

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    1. Thanks Giles, that was was exactly my idea. However I went for "three of a kind" since I didn't feel like painting yellow facings and I'll have yellow faced Sotsmen in another grenadier unit later.

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  11. Wow, I nearly missed these wonderful troops! Great job Stefan, I too, like the buff as it just helps to break the ranks up a little.

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