More Russians and a Village to Defend

2 Battalions of Grenadiers, the St. Petersburg and the Pavlovski, march through a Russian village on the way to toss out the French invaders.  They are protected by a screen of jagers, who have already adopted their cold weather trousers, signalling the approach of General Winter.

My last attempt to photograph the jagers was an abysmal failure, but was able to get somewhat better shots of them this time, despite the sun flitting in and out behind the clouds.  I had a reflector placed to bounce some light on the front of the jagers, but the sun was only marginally cooperative.

Here we have the Russian forces arrayed thus far.  I am working on constructing the 1st Division of the 3rd Army Corp from the Russian First Army.  Next up will likely be a couple of line infantry battalions, probably Tchernigov and Koporski.  After that I hope I will have been able to find the remaining figures I need to model the Imperial Guard Cossacks.  There will also be some attached cavalry, probably a squadron of Cuirassier, and either dragoons or chasseurs, maybe even some more cossacks.  

The buildings you see are mostly by Pegasus Models, the big on is actually a pre-painted model they produce.  I must admit I was inspired by a post I saw some months ago, which inspired me to go ahead and paint up the smaller cottages and add the fire highlights to the windows of the larger structure.  The small log cabin on the far right is actually made with the Linka system for building HO scale plaster models.  You can see some other examples by clicking the Linka label on the left hand side of my blog.

 

The St. Petersburg grenadiers formed for battle.  These were a relatively simple touch up to make serviceable, but still required quite a bit of effort after all the little fixes were accounted for.

Up next will likely be some more scenic elements, a road and a small stream.  Before any more units are touched up for the Russians, I need to switch gears for a while and finish up a civil war project before a friend comes to visit this fall from England.  We will be recreating parts of the battle of Stones River, on the actual site of the battle in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

A Brief Interlude - Spain: Barcelona, Sitges, Cadaques

Miniatures painting took a back seat for a while as we got ready to head to Spain for a family vacation.  My daughter Carolyn got a travel grant to go, so we packed up the whole family and headed out with her.  It's been twenty years since I was outside of the USA, but I figured we better get out before "the Donald" built a wall of isolationism around the whole country.

Gaudi's Magnum Opus - the Segrada Familia.

The inside of the basilica was amazing.  Filled with light due to the soaring support arches modeled after trees.  It literally moved me to tears.

Looking up.  It is extraordinarily difficult to capture this in a way that shows the sheer scale of these arches!

Roman Amphitheater at Tarragona, south of Barcelona.

The Cable car to Mount Serrat.

The view from our room in Cadaques.  We stayed in an 800 year old home, literally a fifty yard walk down the cobble stoned street to the Mediterranean.  We had the top two floors and the owner had her painting studio on the first floor.  We could not have asked for a finer hostess or place to stay.

Carolyn outside the B&B with one of the many street cats.  The artist Dali lived just outside Cadaques and started a hotel for cats, that was just up the street from us.

A view of Cadaques from the light house

A happy family!

Thanks to Carolyn for providing the inspiration for the trip!

Snorkelling and Scuba (for Connor) from our base in Cadaques.  We came up from our dives into a hailstorm, but our guides kept us safe and got us back home in one piece.

Good think we had on the wet suits - those hail stones packed a wallop!

The final stages of our journey.  On the way back to Barcellona we stopped in Allela and had a tour of a fourteenth century winery.  Got to sip wine under the shade of a mulberry treee with a view of the farmhouse and the Mediterranean - simply amazing!

Just a neat house in Alella

Carolyn was able to stick with her vegan ways, even in pork loving Spain.

One of our best - and cheapest meals - was in Alella.  A fresh tomato salad and locally caught Mackerel for me.