Last varnish experiment before settling on a 'standard' way to apply the varnish.
A few bases of Garde Grenadiers and supporting Garde Jaeger. (white plumes for the Guard - line Grenadiers have the black plumes I believe).
Whilst on the subject of massive plumes, note that the officer is white over black with silver shako fittings, and NCOs are black tip over white with gold shako fittings. Privates are all white with white shako fittings, and a silver Garde star.
I don't really know whether that is 100% correct for the given campaign .. any comments on that ?
Jaegers operating in pairs, as they should. From what I can tell, the only difference (worth painting at this scale) is that the Garde Jaegers have the little 'Lintzen' stripes on the collar and cuffs. Probably a bit of extra lanyard as well for the marksman award.
If you can dig up a more recent East German DDR braided lanyard - they are almost identical to the 1813 model.
Extreme gloss finish for the Gardesmen - slightly OTT perhaps, but they do stand out on the table.
Ausgezeichnet!
ReplyDeleteAlso part of my own 1813 project is a unit of these self-same Garde-Grenadiere, also with the white "busch" plumes. I am pretty sure they weren't worn on campaign, but they're such a prime bit of "bling", you just gotta have them in the plumes... besides, otherwise, it is all but impossible to tell them from Line units aside from the Guard star and the Litzen. Like many of my 25mm Prussians, the Guard are Minifigs... just about the only 25/28mm manufacturer that I know of that does them in the big plumes. My friend Joe was aware I was looking for them and spotted them at the Flea Market at Historicon one year - SOLD! Now, if I can just find the command figures to go with them....
You're correct, the Grenadiers had the black plumes and the Guard the white. The Officer and NCO distinctions are the same in the Guard as the line, IIRC.
Oh, and I definitely like the "full gloss" look for the Guard; a "spit and polish" kind of thing.
Cheers mate. And you are right about the busch plumes - it would be a tragedy to remove them for 'campaign' .. thats just not going to happen. Parade ground look it is !
DeleteNext order I put in to warrior, I will grab some 25's as well, and see what their Prussian Grenadiers look like. I guess they will have bushy plumes, being the same sculptor and all that Not bad for 50p :
http://www.warrioronline.demon.co.uk/25mm/25prunap.htm
I have another order going off to Lancashire Games soon as well, so I will grab some of their 25's too - nicely animated line of figures there. Here are their Prussian Grenadiers, again at a good price :
http://shop.lancashiregames.co.uk/cubecart/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=1681
I am just painting some of their new 15mm Revolutionary French at the moment, and they are incredibly good figures. I know there is a tendency when you are painting to think of the last figures you worked on as being the 'best eva', but these are actually really good sculpts. Bit of a mixed lot, but 1 or 2 of the command figures are some of the best sculpting I have seen in any scale. I will get photos of them up as soon as Ive painted them.
Thanks, Steve. Not familiar with either of those lines. The sculpting on the 25mm Warrior figs seems pretty crude in all honesty, but then again they probably look a lot better with some paint on them!
ReplyDeleteThe Lancashire figs look better. Both are quite reasonable in cost. I may well order the Guard command figures and maybe a few others to go with them. Any idea what either like are like size wise?
Peter
Not sure how they are going to look yet, or what size they are.
DeletePackage should arrive next week or so, so if you can wait till then, Ill post the findings online.
Cheers.
Interesting - I always thought it was Bushy white plumes for line grenadiers and thin black plumes for the guard grenadiers - ah well
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteIm going off the Osprey book for this lot, which is quite heavy going to get through.
I think with the thin plumes - that may be with the later uniform, where the Prussians planned on adopting something that closely resembled the Russian uniform ... even the new shako looked a little like a kiver.
Not sure that that 'new' uniform managed to make it onto the battlefield though.
End of the day though - none of use were there, and there is no photographic record. I for one tend to play it pretty loose when it comes to modelling units in this period, as I dont believe that the often stylised portraits of perfectly dressed troops is even remotely accurate. I even take definitive works like Osprey with a skeptical grain of salt sometimes.
Even in modern day operations, there is the official uniform that is issued to units, and there is what the guys are actually using in the field. They don't always match ! Not unusual to find a soldier on today's battlefield equipped with stuff he accumulated off ebay for example. Its quite common today, so imagine what it was like then ?
Any figures that anyone paints is therefore a personal interpretation of what they are modelling. What matters most (to me) is the care that goes in to that work. Given that accuracy is impossible to measure in this situation, care beats accuracy any day.