Weekly News: Introducing the Headless Horseman

Last weekend was very special. Instead of whirling the brushes I took my camera and visited some fellows to hold an extensive photo shooting. It was great to try out different configurations of aperture and shutter speed to influence overall impression and depth of field. I took more 60 pictures and haven't sorted them all until now. Mayby I'll come back to this topic next week and present some of the pictures.

Yesterday evening I spent some tim at the workbench. I continued to paint the highlanders and found out that there are two or three things I really hate at those lads. It's not the kilt as you might have guessed, but those bloody checks on the socks and the hatband as well as the ruddy white loops all over the british jackets.

After I had enough of those tiny things and my smudgy tries to paint them tidyly I turned my attention to a new project which fits in my hussars (which still have to be finished...) very well:
Some time ago I was looking for some British command figures for my (very slowly) growing collection. Unfortunately there are only a few options besides Wellington, Picton and Uxbridge which are made by nearly every manufacturer. Since I needed a rather universal Hussar general I decided to try a little conversion. After some research I discovered that Col. Heymes from the Perry set of Ney's staff (here) should work. The horse furniture and blanket are fine for British horses and the hussar uniform is rather universal to. There are only three outstanding things to correct: Heymes head and his arms which have a noticable embroydery near the sleeves.

Here's how I prepared him yesterday evening:

Colonel Heymes lost his head, but he'll gain some parts of the British plastic hussars.

Once finished the guy shall personate Major General Sir Richard Hussey Vivian who commanded the 6th British Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo. I got inspired by this picture (link) and want stay close to it. Since it is said of hin that he lead his brigade to the deciding charge against Napoleon's Old Guard very fierily I thought that Heymes' aggressiv pose should fit very well. There are two minor mistakes which I'll leave because I'm not skilled enough to redo them: The ammunition pouch is a bit unusual for a British general and most of the time they are shown with leggins and hessian boots rather than with overall trousers.

What do you think of the plan?
I'll try to get the conversion done while I'm still on the highlanders and then paint him together with the hussars and his ADC Capt. Edward Keane of the 7th Hussars. Hopefully they'll make a nice command base for my British light cavalry or a mixed cavalry brigade until I finished more units...