My good buddy Rob recently shared his stunning brushwork for the Spanish Regimiento de Dragones de Almansa with a few of our fellow painter/collectors. Yellow coated Spanish Dragoons really are a must for any Peninsular army, so I asked if I could share his work on my blog. Rob did an extraordinary amount of customization and prep work on these. In his own words:
"I’m not sure but I believe they were okay, but not great, copies of [sic Hinton Hunt] BN/206 (the muskets were crap which was why I definitely wanted to replace them). The horses all had ‘swallow-tailed’, light cavalry, shabraques but no idea of the code for them – the exception is the officer’s horse which was, I believe, a genuine HH French officers horse, again don’t know which one. Pistol holsters are solder with holes drilled for steel wire pistols the butts being topped off with some ‘5SecondFIX’. The trooper horses had the shabraque tails cut/filed off and the edge restored with some Green-Stuff – their rolled cloaks were filed down to better fit the riders as I didn’t think about the fit when adding the longer coat-tails to the riders and was not going to re-do those again!
All the figures had lost their swords so I added new white metal ones. I have some old white metal spears in my bits box and these are squashed with plyers to get a flat section which is cut and filed to shape (an easy job). The hand is then drilled and the sword inserted and glued – too frail to put a soldering iron anywhere near it.
The musician has his right hand cut off and his sleeve drilled out then a new hand and trumpet added from Newline – the arm being filed to be thin enough to be inserted up the ‘sleeve’. The trumpet banner is just aluminium foil super glued on.
The coat-tails are solder with, for the rank and file a final finishing off using Milliput as it’s easier to get them looking similar that way than just using solder.
The command figures had their plumes extended with solder and filed to shape – the pictures I have show the plumes long or short so went for showier plumes for the command figures. I also gave them gauntlets – the rank and file having bare hands as they want to use muskets on foot – this was also the reason for filing the boot tops down and using a bit of green-stuff to build them back up as gaiters.
Finally, which delayed things a bit, the manky horse bases (very irregular in shape) were built up with some Milliput to look more like HH bases.
The muskets were from that very helpful chap, Sean, at Newline, God’s gift to 20mil convertors. The cross belts for the cartridge box (that was added with solder and filed to shape) and musket are Green-Stuff and added after the muskets were glued on (Super Glue). I filed a bit of a groove in the backs of the figures for a good join for the musket and so it wouldn’t have to curve to follow the figure’s back."
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| I was never happy with my 3rd Battalion of the 6th Legere, it being a mix of Der Kriegspieler, Alberken, and Hinton Hunt miniatures. I have decided to reorganize what was the third battalion into smaller skirmish units, as if the whole regiment of three battalions had combined their elite companies. |
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| I retained one unit of these wonderful Alberken figures painted as Chasseurs, but if you ever see any more let me know as I would love to add another skirmish unit or two of them. |
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| I'll be adding a new skirmish unit of 9 Voltigeurs in busbys of course, because they just look so cool! The bugler is one of my all time favorite figures so I was very glad to find one to add to this unit. |
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| The Carabiniers will act as a reserve along with the Colonel and standard bearer. |
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| These fine looking chaps will be my own attempt at some Spanish Cavalry, Caballería de Línea Regimiento del Rey, made with Minifig S-series figures. Despite being intended as British Dragoons, these figures work almost perfectly as Spanish cavalry and almost no modifications were needed. |
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| This fine chap is another S-series Minifig of a Spanish General. Thanks to Terry Webb for the gift of him as he will lead the regiment to glory on the field of Talavera where the Caballería de Línea Regimiento del Rey made their mark routing the attacking French columns. |
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| These gents are currently on the painting table and will be the first to be featured when finished. The French 1st Hussars were originally painted by Dick Tennant. I have cleaned off ~40 years of dust, made structural repairs, and will be repairing chipped paint and adding some depth through shading and highlighting before giving them a nice glossy protective coat. There is one interloper from the 2nd Hussars mixed in who will also be getting a new jacket. Have to love the officer with the red shako and trousers! |
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| They will be led by a new addition to the collection, a magnificent Colonel of Hussars from the Franznap line. |
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| Thanks to Wellington Man, this battalion of Lamming Grenadiers will be coming soon, as I will need them for my next planned historical battle, the attack on Vimiero Village itself. |
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| And finally I have some original Hinton Hunt Chasseurs a cheval from the dismountable series, but who are unfortunately seated on recast FH 7 horses. When I purchased these I did not realize the Hinton Hunt horses had been replaced with what could only be described a steppe ponies. Fortunately I eventually remembered I had received some elite company chasseurs as part of a larger lot, that were recasts of OK quality (probably the same source as Rob's Dragoons), but I too will be doing a lot of work on the bases to fill in all of the gaps. |
Well that is quite enough to keep me busy for awhile. With any luck I'll have them done by the end of Summer. Till my next post, hope you all have a remarkable and joyous 2023!
