Another mostly epic week (Edited).

Edited Friday 30th September. 

No point making another post so adding photos of the completed Guard cavalry commission here. They were somewhat demanding as would be expected of such colourful soldiers, but the end result is most pleasing on the eye I think. They are matt varnished and the bases will be textured over the weekend. Now onto Prussians!

Warlord Epic Imperial Guard cavalry and horse artillery battery. 

I'm pleased to say that I have been asked by Dan at Warlord Games to write a guest feature for the Warlord community page describing my approach to painting epics and the Therapeutic angle of my blog which will also help to promote my painting service. Thanks to Graham for the heads up on this.

The Guard cavalry set for Tony 2 (!) are close to being painted, just the final 10 Polish lancers on the table for today and all are done, Dragoons, Grenadier a cheval, Chasseur a Cheval  and Lancers 80 cavalry plus a battery of 3 Guard Horse artillery guns. Given the nature of the Guard uniforms it has been challenging but they will certainly look an impressive bunch on the table! Quick shot here of the first 10 painted lancers with swords - correctly intended as second rank - in their finished but unvarnished state. I'll get pics of the entire set together on the table over the weekend.

With the Guard finished today I'll be taking it easy over the weekend, Friday I'll be painting seven additional 2mm bases for Geoff (who has been very patient and kindly agreed to do the prep and basing work for me so I only have to paint them to match those he already has).

For my own Epic Napoleonics I'm continuing to add metal command figures to all individual infantry bases. I now have over 20 units with command with about another 20 to do. I knew from the start that the lack of command figures was going to bother me and when I discovered the old Chariot 15mm range was an excellent match for the strips I took the plunge. Photos below show how well they fit with the 13.5mm epics. These are intended for my planned return to Commands and Colours and I want it to look spectacular. Nice quick paint conversion and addition of (plastic) command for the Nassau boys this week.

Next week I'll be painting more ECW's for Graham but also working in a couple of Prussian epic units for Tony2. These will be 40 figure battalions using half strips (cut down) so 10 figures on a 30mm x 20mm base. Additional command figures will be from Chariot Miniatures. As you can see the Prussians are part of a long term project for Tony and I think they will keep me fairly busy going forward!

Lots of photos below.

Lee.

Chariot metal command figures (centre).

Chariot metal British command.

Chariot metal command in greatcoats.

Plenty of Prussian based commission painting in hand. I do like the box artwork on these sets.

 

Epic Guard cavalry and adding more infantry command bases.

 I must start by wishing regular customer and friend Graham a full and speedy recovery from his operation.

This week has been mostly about epics, the Guard cavalry set for (New) Tony and the addition of more command figures for my own collection. I started with the Empress Dragoons and followed up with the Grenadiers a cheval and today I'll be painting the Guard Horse artillery battery of 3 guns and crews, next week will be the Chasseur a cheval and Polish lancers, I'm told the Dutch lancers will also be coming my way. Whilst I do have some reservations about the soft resin material these are made from they do paint up very well. The swords and horses legs are pretty 'bendy' but not brittle so should be OK with careful handling. These are going on the warlord supplied 60 x 20mm bases, by comparison my own cavalry are based on 60 x 30mm MDF which does help with the handling somewhat.

A question for my readers here who know more about this period than I do, should the trumpeters of the Guard cavalry be in the Green livery for Waterloo or the light blue coats? Every image I found showed them as painted below but a French chap on FB said they should be wearing green? I hope I'm right but can correct if required and the customer wishes.

As I wanted the black horses of the Grenadiers to pop a little, I tried something a bit different to my usual black with black grey highlights and used Vallejo Glossy Black highlights instead which once matt varnished still retained a nice realistic sheen, one to note! The blue coats do look slightly bright in these shots.

Having recently discovered that the old Chariot Miniatures 15mm range fit very well with the epics I am taking the plunge and painting additional command strips for my infantry bases. The lack of flags had been bothering me, especially for DBN, so this is the prefect solution. Plan is to paint just the front command strips then use existing flagless bases to create the rear ranks. They do look much better this way. I think that Magister Militum - who own the Chariot range - will be selling quite a number of the command packs judging by the number of people using smaller units and looking for a solution.

On a slightly different theme I came across these lovely old photos the other day of my Dad during National Service (on the right)  and family. I think this would have been around late 1940's as he is now a sprightly 93 year old, still driving to the shops and going out for walks! The other photo shows Dad (left, middle) and family members on a day out clearly. Kneeling in front of him is his elder Brother Alfred a veteran of the Normandy Landings, Uncle Alf never once mentioned this to me, as I only learned recently from a cousin he never talked about his experiences of that event. That's my lovely old Nan at the wheel with my Grandfather beside her, he died two years before I was born but I recorded his war service in The Buffs in a post here in 2018 (here).

Another busy week gone by!

Monday/Tuesday saw me painting a unit of 20mm French Dragoons for Tony, mounted and on foot. Really enjoyed doing these, the brief was for the troopers coats to be a duller red than usual with the officers resplendent in scarlet. We settled on Vallejo 'Red' (!) as being the most suitable from my range. The officers are the usual Irregular Miniatures command figures but Tony gave them stocking caps to match the troopers by adding plastic Strelets hats to them, a rather neat little conversion that works very well. Horses are the correct smaller mounts for Dragoons (see illustration). 

Wednesday/Thursday I painted another 80 figure Epic British Napoleonic battalion. This and the previous one will be shipping off to the US on Tuesday. I'm having a three day break to do some painting for myself - more Epics - and then on Monday I'll be starting on the Epic Guard cavalry regiments, 20 figure units of all the Guard cavalry releases plus the Guard Horse artillery battery of 3 guns and crews, these are for my new customer - another Tony - and I'm very much looking forward to painting these. I'll review and post images of these as things progress but if you have not already seen these lovely little figures Stuart Mack of Miniature Realms has put up a detailed review on his channel.

160 Epic British, you begin to see the attraction of the large battalions. (Just need to blow off some of the static grass!).

I had been looking for a solution to the additional command bases that will be required for the Epic commission when we get onto the infantry as Tony requested 40 figure battalions on half sized bases (30 x 20mm). After  a few questions on the Epic FB group the old Chariot Miniatures range was suggested as being suitable so I ordered a couple of sample packs and I'm pleased to say that they are a pretty good fit (see images) they are slender sculpts and about the right height, I'll be painting a test 10 figure base later today to see how they will look. 

   Below: Stuarts review of the new Epic Guard cavalry figures, made in the warlord resin Silocast.