Emhar Franco-Prussian War French Infantry

For me, these are the classic French infantry—kepis, red trousers, white gaiters. They are good looking figures and paint up well. I do agree with PSR's assessment. The straps and detail are too shallow and paint hides a lot of the relief. Yet, they painted up easily and quickly.

The Zouaves are a different story. Painting one of them is enough for a lifetime. Anyone the wargames FPW or ACW and paints of battalions of Zouaves, well hats off to you guys.  Two Airfix WW1 Germans are filling in as Prussians until I can get my hands on Emhar's Prussians. I'm not a fan of soldiers swinging rifles at the air.

 I believe one of this blog's followers, a decent cross-state chap in Kansas City if I'm correct, is a fan of the Franco-Prussian War. Cheers if you catch this, enjoy.

ESCI / Revell British 8th Army

Okay, unlike most WW2 fanatics, I've never been a fan of the North African desert battles, preferring the British/German duels around Caen. (Must be a lingering affect of my WW1 Western Front fascination.) 

But after seeing a documentary on El Alamein and another on Italy's attempt to take North Africa and Germany's intervention, I decided to dust off my 8th Army figures. Now I'm eyeing Armourfast's new Crusader tank and upcoming Valentine. It never ends! 

I originally bought these to paint as the Indian 14th Army in Impahl-Kohima. Oh well, I still have Matchbox and Airfix Australians to go. You may notice Revell's 'Scottish figures' from this set are missing. They will be painted as D-Day British Commandos.

HäT Napoleonic Bavarians. Finally!

At long last and with apologies for the wait—a full arms treat of Bavarians. 

Oh my, there's been a lot of turmoil at home interrupting this project, too many to list, but I finally based them last night. 

There's figures from four HäT sets here—cavalry, artillery, infantry and their latest fusiliers. 

One would expect the newest fusilier set to improve upon the previous infantry (which are actually grenadiers I believe.) But I was disappointed in the newest set. The belts, straps and cuffs were not as sharp nor well defined and a lot of the painting buttons and cuff are just guessing. That attributed for some of the delay. I did not find them a joy to paint (though I love the cornflower blue uniforms and yellow/red facings.)

On the left are two infantry painted as grenadiers (cornflower coats, red plume)

HäT Bavarian Infantry (8028) painted as jägers.

Bavarians Work in Progress

Here's some pic showing the Bavarians where they are. Some are further along, some look like they've been painted with a housebrush! The jägers are finished so that is a "sneak peak!"

Zvezda French Voltigeurs

Oops! Okay, before you all start commenting, I noticed after I posted these that I got a smidge of red on the flugelhorn (or loop-de-loop horn or whatever its called) while repainting the plume from green to red. Yeah, that's on oops on top of an oops.

The red's bugging you now, isn't it?

Not sure if I'm a fan of the macro lens. It shows that my painting can be pretty slap-dash at times.

So this is what my 'kleine Prussische soldaten' see coming out of the woods on their right flank!

Hey, where's the Lithuanian Dragoons I painted a while back! 

Painted the first figure about a year ago, finished up the rest just a up couple days ago. These are painted as Light Voltigeurs (Vaulters, heard they were intended to be ridden into battle in wagons alongside the cavalry, leaping over the sides like the famous photos of Germans hopping out of Hanomags. Napoleon was quite the visionary! 

If I get around to it, I'll do up a set as Line Voltigeurs (white pants.) I think these same figures can be painted as grenadiers—white pants, red plumes and epaulets. Considering Zvezda's scale-creep, they may be better served as the taller grenadiers.

These are basically painted to the box art. A whole box of them painted up would be a stunning display. Unfortunately, the average life span isn't long to accommodate painting a box of Voltigeurs. Or at least, not at the pace I plod through them. Not only that, but it looks like I have Bavarians to get started on.

Enjoy.

ESCI U.S. Special Forces—Viet Nam

The scene here is a classic firefight as a patrol moves up a road toward a firebase. The running figure and man firing the grenade launcher are probably my two favorite ESCI poses, ever. The 'Rambo' character is probably my least ESCI favorite. Ever. I'm not a fan of soldiers without headgear. Unless wounded.

A view from the other side. Here is a fig without headgear, but he's wounded. 

A classic ESCI pose but this is one of the best realizations of it. 

Hard to see but these figs are painted as 1st Cavalry.

A view from the chopper.

As I'm going through and painting poses in my collection that have never been painted—I'm no expert nor really interested in Viet Nam, why I even acquired these I have now idea—I realized I have a ton of ESCI! I think I bought almost everything they had except Ancients just because they were all that was new at the time. I was never a true fan like I was with Airfix but they are easy to paint and to ESCI's credit, their troops put on a good show. 

The palm tree is from Pegasus and is a nice, convincing kit. The tall grass is fake fur, cut short and scrubbed with Testor Interior Green. I quit working in oils but that's the only paint that'll adhere to fake fur.

Emhar World War 1 British

Poor commander's a goner poking his head up like that.

Note the HaT Australian in the tin hat. He's making his second appearance.

I made one wire holder for the barbed wire—just in front of the Australian. It was a fiddly affair attempting the pigtail curl with two pliers. One's enough!

Two shots of basically the same view. Note another HaT Australian in the center.

Some of the figures — officer with map and gunner with the Vickers were painted years ago. I hadn't upgraded them yet and hence the lack of a good view of the Vickers. I spent more time putting together the base—vowed I wouldn't spend time on the display, just the figures, but WW1 figures demand a trench and I wouldn't allow myself to do a slapdash job on the trench. Of course, I still need to make duckboards and have a few Airfix figures I want to sprinkle in for good effect. 

Between this and the Falklands post, I'm spending more time on the base. I still have WW1 French and Germans to go. Looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of time making trenches!

Matchbox NATO Paratroopers

Not quite the most accurate portrayal of the famous photo but considering the rarity of these figures and those remaining (the mortars are lost as are some others) I'm afraid to convert the radio man to a proper yomping pose. 

The men are painted in a mix of airborne (red berets) and Royal Marines (green berets.) I believe the Union Jack in the famous photo was affixed to the antennae after news of the Argentine surrender, so it's anachronistic to have the troops still fighting, but it's makes for a good show.

These are the best figures Matchbox produced, the faces perfect, the poses very natural. British camo is hard to paint, okay, I find all camo hard to paint. It has an arcing sweep pattern that's hand to achieve over folds and webbing. There's a few ESCI NATO British troops thrown in to fill these out.

This is also my first attempt at snow. Being the cheapskate, I tried powdered laundry detergent. (Bad idea) the drywall mix (too gray) powered sugar (ate it instead) and finally, settled on baking soda. I think it would be easier to do a full on Russian front snow. I don't know. Trying to mimic the wind-swept dustings and melted snow of the Falkland was hard. You never feel like it looks right. Kind of like camo pattern. You just work it till you're tired of it. I had to scrape the base a couple times and start over.

The rocks are chuncks of pink foam insulation covered with a thin coat of drywall mud then washed in layers of diluted black paint. I'm pleased with they way they turned out, while I was making them I kept thinking "I'm hack! Pink foam and baking powder!"