At long last I give you the...
1er Régiment de Chevau-Légers Lancier de la Garde Impériale (Polonais).
The official start date for the painting on these was May 14th 2024, so a mere 4 months and 29 days from start to finish for the painting. Of course, if you include the time prepping the figures (they were a bear to prep), you might as well round up to 6 months!
The figures are Hinton Hunt for the most part. I had to sneak in one Der Kriegspieler trooper, and Count Krasinski is an Art Miniaturen sculpt.
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| I love this dynamic pose, but the weight of the figure was too much for the back ankles of the horse to be steady, so I put in a support post and disguised it as a bush over which the horse is jumping. The Art Miniaturen castings are somewhat rough, but sizewise they fit very nicely with the Hinton Hunts. |
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| 15 troopers, a major, trumpeter and eagle bearer complete the regiment. |
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| Prepping the figures was a real challenge as the molds had clearly deteriorated by the time these were cast, and there was a lot of flash and undercuts that had to be cleared. Facial detail was also quite rough. |
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| Probably the worst casting flaws were in the belts holding the ammunition pouch and carbine hook. I did my best, but what is there is almost all paint, as the detail was either gone or so rough to not be helpful. |
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| The eagle bearer is a converted trooper whose lance had broken. His carbine was removed and arm repositioned to hold the guidon. |
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| The white kurtka of the trumpeter was probably never worn in the field, but I couldn't resist the temptation to paint him in full dress! |
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| The guidon is a hand painted paper flag, stiffened with white glue and then varnished. They end up being quite robust and it allows me to paint the flag initially on a flat surface and then just fold it around the pole. |
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| The troopers! I tried to accomplish most of the shading with a black-brown ink wash ala Alastair Morrison. The horses, being brown to start with had a black was for shading. |
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| So much fiddly detail on these lancers! |
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| General de Brigade as well as Colonel of the regiment, Count Wincenty Krasinski. I'll be painting Major d'Autancourt as well, who will be the acting Colonel, allowing Count Krasinski to fulfil his roll as GdB. Hopefully the Regiment of Dutch lancers will join them in a year or two to complete the Brigade. |
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| Quite a fancy lad! |
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| The troopers view of their Colonel leading from the front! |
Up Next - British Light Dragoons and a few odds and ends including more riflemen, and a Bavarian ammunition wagon with team.
In closing I will leave you with some work in progress pictures of the backdrop for the wargames table. Still lots of work to do, but the basic design and colors are there.
