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Sunday, August 15, 2021

Completed British Division in Review - Plus a Manly Surprise

 At long last I have completed refurbishing and remounting an entire British division.  This is just one of what is essentially four divisions in the original Tennant collection, so there is still much work yet to be done.  Below is a sobering excel sheet showing the refurbished figures in the red box, and a daunting number of regiments yet to be given the shiny treatment.  A few bits and pieces from other divisions are done as well, such as some artillery, cavalry and skirmishers, but just a smattering at present.  At least most are already expertly painted by Mr. Tennant; only the three KGL regiments will have to be painted from scratch.




The last of the division's line infantry to be finished  is the 18th Portuguese Regiment commanded by Lt. Col. Sebastião Pinto de Araújo Correia.

Just enough room inside the regimental square for the two commanders.

Attack columns in echelon.

So happy these hand painted flags survived the journey across the Atlantic!

I did add the finial and crevat just to complete the beautifully painted standard.

The Portuguese battalions were in great shape and came together very quickly.  I only hope the French battalions are in as good a condition, as they will be next up.

For those of you with a strong stomach, you can try watching my attempt at a fly by over the division.  It is kind of like Sergei Bondarchuk meets Dollywood, as the camera appears to have been mounted on the world's most rickety wooden roller coaster.  I did at least learn how to make and embed a video into the blog, so I guess there is that at least...



 
Our son the electrical engineer was in town recently and brought along his soldering iron to install an LED lighting kit into my display cabinet.  The lighting upgrade was just in time.  The British Division will need to be housed here once again while I begin construction on the battlefield terrain for Vimiero.  I do need to get a couple of extra shelves though!

 And for a completely different manly surprise, I finally finished painting Conan the Barbarian!  The figure was a gift from my daughter which has taken me far too long to get painted.  I love to balance the Napoleonic painting with little side adventures like this just to keep things fresh and fun.


Staring down some skellies.  If they weren't undead, they would know better than to attack Conan!

At first his skin was painted over in a matt finish, but in consultation with my daughter, we decided he needed to glisten with sweat.

I wanted him to have a slight forward lean as if balancing on the balls of his toes, but from this angle he is a bit like the leaning tower of Piza!

Remind me to brush off my figures really well before varnishing.  Despite my best efforts I still ended up with some static grass stuck to his butt!

This is that forward aggressive lean I was going for.  I'm looking forward to getting him into a dungeon full of monsters and evil critters!

Thanks as always for visiting and hope you have enjoyed my journey into the world of miniatures.  Comments are greatly appreciated so if you made it this far, by all means drop me a line using the comment box.  Next up will be a few projects that have been on my desk for far too long; a 28mm camp for my Napoleonic DBN armies, and a few elements for a Russian contingent at the battle of Grunwald in the 15th century.


17 comments:

  1. Yaaargh, the motion sickness!
    Absolutely top draw in every way, David! What an amazing collectiop, which you've really proud.
    All the best
    WM

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    1. Hah! You can't say I didn't warn you!

      I must admit it is great to see the Division finally coming together like that. I'm excited about getting a division of French done now, especially as there were at least a couple regiments of Dragoons at Vimiero I believe. I also have a letter in to Phillip Haythornthwaite who I hope can help with a thorny question regarding the uniforms of the Legion du Midi. I will be painting them from bare metal using some DK conversions and they will join the Legion Hanovrienne at Vimiero. Both were part of Junot's army, but were not actually present at the battle so there may be a little bit of historical license in that regard...

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  2. All power to your elbow! They look great and the video came out really nice - I think it gives a better impression of what they they look like than the studio/light-box close ups. Not keen on dubbing in music though, I'd rather hear you explain what you're panning over. Have you thought about using coloured paper for the ID labels as they are quite bold?
    Wasn't quite sure what I would find as a manly surprise but luckily it was a great shoot of Conan in all his finely chiselled glory.

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    1. Hi Rob,
      I agree that the close ups give a distorted view of the figures, but is usful for showing all the detail. I always think the highlighting looks over-stated in the close-ups shot under ideal lighting conditions, but on the wargames table without the aid of magnification it is very subtle and looks great. I like the contrast of the labels though. I think I stole that look from Ian.

      I'll do another video with narration down the road. This one was mostly about learning how to do it.

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  3. Stunning stuff, David, The division is a work of art, beautiful overall and in particular. Love tge Portuguese, particularly the drummer. Is that a conversion tgat you made? If so where do you hpget your drums from. I have been using Musket Miniatures? The hand painted flags are glorious too.
    very motivating to open your post on a summer morning, including the fly past.
    Roy

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    1. Good morning Roy. Glad my post brought a little joy first thing. The drummer is likely a conversion of BN 12 or a DK command figure. You can see the likely candidates here: http://findthatfigure.blogspot.com/search?q=BN+12. The Portuguese were all originally painted by Richard Tennant, and he had the unfortunate habit of sanding the bottom of his bases smooth, so I can very rarely actually read any of the figure codes on them.

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  4. Beautiful toys David…
    I enjoyed the fly past…you should do another when you have your game…

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly. A pre-battle fly-by is a great idea and I will put that on the agenda for Vimiero.

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  5. Excellent fly past and well done with the collection, I find it inspirational and helps me push on my own 20mm collection. It certainly is a large project and a great collection. Look forward to seeing more.

    Paul

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    1. Thanks Paul,

      Just knowing folks are following the progress of this project really helps me keep it moving forward!

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  6. The collection is grand - as is your display case (very envious).

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    1. Thanks Matt! Still shocked that my wife signed off on the display cabinet. I got a good deal, but it is still solid cherry and custom made, so wasn't a gimme by any means.

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  7. I think you're are the shiniest bases I've yet to see!

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    1. Hah! - It's mostly the effect of the diffuse light box, but I did want them to look like shiny toys, so that works for me!

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  8. It occured to me while indulging in another viewing that if this is just one divsion out of five (counting cavalry and Spansh) then you're going to need a bigger table!
    You can see how cramped Grymauch's table is using 6mm figures for Talavera; scaling up by a factor of four will be huge (24'x15').

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    1. No worries Rob. By the time I have all of these based up I will be retired, having won the lottery, and have my own massive gaming facility with a 40' long table!

      In truth any large battle will have to be done piecemeal. Even Vimiero will have to be done in two parts, but that is really not an issue as it was essentially two separate battles.

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  9. Beautiful guys that you are rightly proud of. And a very snazzy display cabinet! Top notch!

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