Monday 18 November 2013

Some 60th Rifles painted

These days I'm starting to work on a couple of 2nd Light Bataillon KGL figures for a Waterloo / La Haye Sainte project some THS fellows and me are preparing. Therefor I bought a bucket full of Alan and Michael Perry's excellent figures but I felt in need of some practice with green uniforms after so many redcoats. So I dug out the four riflemen which were part of their plastic British infantry set and used them as test subjects. But since each and every collector of British Napoleonic miniatures seems to have a set of 95th Rifles I decided to depict their sister unit the 60th Regiment of Foot. Although these men didn't fight in the Waterloo campaign the earned honour some years ago during Wellington's Peninsular Campaign and during the War of 1812. Additionally they're somehow a bit special and so I liked the idea to start a unit of them with those plastic figures.

With no more ado here is the result:
My first four riflemen on a reconnaissance mission.
This photo was kind of an experiment with my SLR and the Gimp image editing software. Next time I've got to use a tripod for the camera to get a picture with more depth of focus but actually it didn't turn out too bad.

Anyway back to the riflemen. As usual I used Vallejo Model Colours for painting them but this time I primed the figures black instead of white. The Vallejo colours are excellently pigmented and look really good to me on the dark primer. At least for this kind of uniform I'll stay with black. I'm a bit double-minded for redcoats...

Here are two close-up views of the boys which turned out a bit sharper:
Those men shall represent some guys of the 5th battalion. To be honest for no special reason except that I remembered it from Bernhard Cromwell's Sharpe novels. Some day I'll complete this unit with "Sweet William" Frederickson... However once again C. E. Franklin's uniform guide was my primary source for the uniform details.
Because I read that during the Peninsular Campaign different trousers and overalls were worn I painted two of the with the usual rifle green trousers, one with the later grey one and one with a pair of brown overalls. I wanted to have the a bit look campaign hardened and not completely equipped in mind condition.

I hope you like those figures. Actually I do so I'll proceed with some KGL men with similar colours but some other details of course.

By the way this evening I read Curd's appeal to his 4th yearly painting contest. Unfortunately all places are assigned already so again I'll be unable to join this illustrious round of painters. It's dangerous to be unobservant for a weekend... Whatever I wish all entrants good luck, good results and a lot of fun!

19 comments:

  1. great work on the riflemen, and I love your photograph great background
    Peace James

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    1. Thanks James, don't look to close or you'll recognize some telegraph poles...
      ;-)

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  2. Good work, and clever use of back drop, very fitting.

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    1. Thanks Scott. It was my first try with an artificial background but I'll keep improving it.

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  3. Great looking figures and shame you missed the Challenge!!

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    1. Thanks Ray. Actually I'd gladly joined the challenge but the list was full so quickly...

      Well good luck with the challenge, mate!
      I remember your fair sportsmanship from this year's challenge very well ! :-)

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  4. Very nice indeed. Over the hills and far away!

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    1. That's exactly what I thought when I edited the picture. ;-)

      Here's the song:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-Fy3tSim3to

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  5. Superbly painted and great photography

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  6. Wonderful work on the Riflemen Monty!!

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  7. They are brilliant Stefan, really very good. I would never have spotted the telegraph poles if you hadn't mentioned it to James - very funny!

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  8. Beautiful work on these Riflemen, love the pictures too!

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  9. I had to surch the telegraph poles directly when I read it! Found them! :-D
    Great work on these riflemen Stefan. I would use them for the Waterloo campaign anyhow! But for La Haie Sainte they all need grey trousers as KGL's. The 95th was in the sand pit.

    Greetings
    Peter

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  10. Very nice :-) great looking Riflemen!

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  11. They look very nice and love the backdrop photo!

    Christopher

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  12. Lovely stuff!

    Monty, drop me a note if you're still interested in getting into the Challenge. I may have a couple openings...

    curtcampbell at mac dot com

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    1. Hi Curt,

      excellent news!
      I would love to enter your challenge and will drop you a line immediately.

      Cheers
      Stefan

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