Hot on the heels of my La Belle Alliance post, I've been working on two further battalions, plus the building just to the south of the inn - Trimiotou which is, in turn, just north of Decoster's house. One battalion is of Grenadiers, the other of Chasseurs.
This is very much 'in progress' and shows my way of working. The figures are a mixture of Hat, Schilling and Rose, with a few others. They are at various stages of completion so still look quite scruffy. Their common feature is that they will all be in campaign order, summer dress.
They are presently advancing in battalion column of companies, but will be in column of route on the model, when built.
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| An Art Miniaturen officer |
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| Unfinished pioneers, Hat and Schilling. |
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| Strelets and Kennington band at the front |
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| Franznap Drum Major |
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| The two mounted officers are Franznap conversions. The building is done in the same style as La Belle Alliance with the type of tiles commonly found in Belgium and shown on the Dighton picture of La Belle Alliance. The tiles are made from a corrugated card used for packaging. Trimiotou is, frustratingly, never shown close up and has to be imagined from the distant images that exist. |
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| Trimiotou has a barn perpendicular to the house - under construction. This will be shown with considerable damage and thatched. |
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| Some 850 figures |
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| Second band |
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| I like this General, think he's Legio |
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| The Esci casualty pair, converted to be a drummer |
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| A Falcata conversion |
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| Rear of the building, two officers use their telescopes. The infantry officer is a conversion from the Esci Russian Crimean artillery officer. The Dragoon is Italeri. The buildings are made of card and painted with acrylics. |
Already quite an amazing and impressive scene! The colors on the house look very accurate for weathered, aged plaster/stucco. Do you use balsa or heavy card for the basic structures?
ReplyDeleteBest Regards,
Stokes
Hi Stokes, heavy card usually, the kind you get in art shops. For stone work (not present in this building) carefully cut cork from wine bottles gives an excellent effect.
DeleteLooks amazing already! I'm curious as to your process for painting so many figures so quickly, presumably some are already painted from your previous diorama? A pic of your painting desk would be most interesting.
ReplyDeleteHi Stryker, you've got to remember that I've been collecting you 40 years so some are figures I painted a long time ago (although only 5,000 were on that diorama which I took apart in 1999 and there are now 40,000). I also occasionally buy second hand ones and touch them up, although I find ebay just too expensive. Then I pad out the gaps with completely new figures. I also do a lot of conversions. That is my work area (I tidied it up for the photo), although no work area lasts for long - I get moved on by the wife!!
ReplyDeleteEven in very much 'draft' form this looks most impressive!
ReplyDeleteI too like to mix figures in terms of manufacturer and uniform (for wargaming units rather than diorama in my case).
Your buildings are magnificent! Looking forward to further updates.
Thanks James, I find the trick with a big diorama is to deconflict the various makes of figure so that the quite substantial differences in scale and style don't jar on the eye. If sufficiently off-set, they can be blended quite well. Might take a couple of weeks to get this lot complete.
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