French Husssars of 1845 - 45mm Flats

Here's another set of antique Heinrichsen flats, # 6023 which was first issued in 1845.  They're from the 60mm range but as all the horse I've gotten in this size are undersized relative to the foot (which are true 60mm, I think that's good thing because they match other figures I already have.

The castings were clean but the detail was a bit understated, so care had to be taken not to put down the paint too thick.

Researching the uniform colors was fun.  I relied heavily on Lienhart & Humbert but as mostly the saddles are depicted as the sheepskins, it took some digging to find the shabraque. I eventually found an image for the 7th, so that's how I painted them.

With plenty of detail to paint, they took me several weeks to complete.

Wooden Flats - Part 2

In the previous post I shared with you my discovery of wooden flats from Russia.  Now we can look at cavalry and artillery as well as further evolution of the designs to include outlining.

These lancers are quite nicely animated.  However, the targeted scale of 45mm to the eyes was overshot as the calculation for the cavalry didn't take into account that a charging rider wouldn't be standing straight in the saddle.  The figures are closer to 1/35 and wouldn't look out of place in a 54mm army.  So I just test painted a figure as the 17th Lancers.

As with the French infantry, the figures are blanks and thus also where and how to paint the details is up to the painter.  In this case I chose to rotate the rider's torso somewhat.

For the next order, I asked Yevgeny if he could add plumes to the lancers for a bit more of a Napoleonic look. He obliged by not only doing that but adding outlines to the figures as well as posing them differently.  And we downsized everything to 42mm in order to match up better with the Nowikoff home casts.

  

The rider has been reduced in size but to my eyes the horse came out a bit elongated. Or perhaps it's the shabraque, or both ?   Regardless, it's still a vigorously posed and pleasing figure.  The outlines definitely simplified the painting (or would have had I not chosen the gaudy Red Lancers) although how much or little detail to give the horse is still up to the painter.

And lastly, Russian styled artillery for the Kingdom of Novgorod.

I quite like the design of this cannon as the three part assembly of gun barrel and wheels adds a surprisingly good illusion of depth relative to a completely flat gun.

Hope you enjoyed viewing these.  The painting has been challenging but quite rewarding.

Wooden Flats - Part 1

Here's a unit I recently finished.  These wooden flats are from Russia, 45mm to the eyes.  They're for my imagi-nations war of ca. 1820: Celtican infantry, le 7eme de Ligne.

The figures start like this.  Wooden blanks without detail.  Thickness is 4mm at this scale.  Definitely a painting challenge as where to place the details is a matter of estimation.

And painted.

I did a bit of shading but not at the edges.  As the thickness means they're almost semi-round when viewed at an angle, edge shading does not work as it does on a conventional flat.  And I gave them toy soldier faces from the front.

Next up, cavalry and artillery.

Heinrichsen Infantry - 45mm Flats

Finished painting this unit last week. Antique Heinrichsen flats, 45mm to the eyes. This is kind of a one-off set, purchased when Heinrichsen was cleaning out old inventory mid-2017. First issued 1840, they represent French troops ca. 1830.

For my 1820's imagi-nation of Celtica, I took a few liberties such as the ficticious grenadier flag. But they are plausibly French enough to sell as such when the day comes. 24 soldiers came in the box, I did not paint the extra sapper and trumpeter.

As you can see from the command figure grouping, I almost completely dispensed with the shading. Started out that way, but they are so slender that shading only accentuated it in a bad way, so I painted them more in straight toy soldier fashion.

And in closing, a rather comical stylistic mismatch with some wooden flats which I am currently working on. More about this latter to follow soon.

Heinrichsen Flat Cavalry - 45mm

Here's a squadron of cavalry I just completed, 45mm flats. Heinrichsen set # 6017, Pruess. Reitende Artillerie 1830. The designs date to 1845. Nominally they are supposed to be 60mm. But with these old figures, the cavalry are smaller than the foot. Suits me fine because they fit my ca.1830 project perfectly.  Stylistically, as you would expect from their antique nature, they are somewhat toylike. But to my eyes all the better for it.

It's interesting that they're sold as horse artillery, but as there's a corresponding set with caisson & gun, perhaps they are meant to be outriders ? Practically speaking they work fine as any light cavalry, and the painting guide also shows them as Englische Dragoner. I painted them as Prussians, but they'll serve quite well for the bellicose army of der Grolshken Reich.

The command.

Sample troopers.

And a parting shot.

There's also another trumpeter which I did not paint.  I'm saving him for conversion to a standard bearer, although soldering will be required.  Something I have no experience with, but then how hard can it be ?  😉

Renaissance Flags - 30mm Flats

Let's take a look at two standard bearers which I have recently completed.  They're for my formations of mercenary reiters and later landsknechts.   I entered into this phase of the project with some trepidation as painting flags can be tricky.  My period for these is ca. 1550-1580, give or take a decade.  That aligns with the French Wars of Religion and first half of the Dutch Revolt.  And there's always the option of imagi-nations, but getting too fantastical will decrease the appeal of the figures should there be a reason to sell them later.

It seems that while the Imperialist, Spanish, Dutch, and for France the Royalist & Huguenot flags are at least somewhat known, for mercenary Germans of this period, I have found almost nothing.  Thus my avenue of approach.  One source could be the Triumph of Maximilian which illustrates a number of banners.  And while the old Dover edition of b&w woodcuts is a work of art in its own right, the colored version is absolutely glorious to behold.

 

From this illustration I copied the goat rampant, hoping to at least avoid having him turn out like a crazed rabbit.  And the red banner was used previously for the 45mm landsknechts, I got good mileage out of this page. For the infantry, this German flag card from the 1930's served as the basis for my design.

Taking on the diamonds would have been madness, but the stripes ?  Okay, let's do it !  On my figure, the flag is very close to 40mm in height where it attaches to the pole.  Thus eight stripes of 5mm each would work out. The thought of how to pull this off credibly with a flag that's tapered from the "front" side of the figure was intimidating. In the event, things went well enough but it was one of the harder things I've attempted.

So how did they turn out ?

I'm happy with the result.  On the landsknecht flag, I didn't bother with attempting full-on connoisseur ripple effects as he's meant to serve as a fighting soldier with no aspirations of  being a modelling contest entry.  And one final "action" shot.  I didn't paint all these figures, bought some already painted on eBay.  I doubt I'll bother trying to rework them, whoever painted them did a nice job.

 

In parting, I wonder about these giant banners. Perhaps the size is exaggerated for effect, but from period illustrations they do appear to be quite large.  Even though probably made of light weight silk, the effort of holding all that mass aloft one-handed with a metal spike atop, it must have taken a strong man, particularly on a windy day.  And how did they keep it from getting tangled amidst the forest of pikes ?   Perhaps a Renaissance warfare expert can weigh in.

Semi-Flat Landsknechts - 40mm

Finished painting the first group of  Italian Wars era landsknechts.  The castings are Russian, made by the Three Heroes company.  I bought three sets of 8 each from Soldatikov.net.  One "Swiss" one "Mercenary" with the third being Spaniards.  Prices were quite fair,  ~ 100 rubles a figure works out to $1.50 US, not bad at all for a hefty hunk of metal.  Shipping charges were also reasonable and proprietor Maxim Latsin, very fluent in English, was a pleasure to deal with.  There are also "extra" sets of 4 figures each for these groups, so 36 in all, but none of the latter were in stock.

So let's take a closer look.  Some of the the castings are a little on the rough side, you might even call them crude.

Nominally 40mm scale, they're a bit larger than true 40mm figures.  And you'll notice some size difference in the two figures below, but within the realm of normal human variation I'd say.

Stylistically they match up pretty well with Meisterzinn.  Unfortunately,  I have no direct comparison shots for you.  My sister-in-law was asking for some painted figures and I gave her my painted Meisterzinns. I feel rather like the guy in the insurance commercial who throws his wallet into New York harbor to emphasize a point about wasting money and then says to himself, "Wish I hadn't done that".  But the mold image below at least gives an idea.

How flat are they ?  Pretty darned flat.

"Sire, the enemy advance and we can't hit them !"

And a few more shots of the completed figures.  I painted a mixture of the Swiss and mercenary groups, as unless you take into account the rather high ratio of halbardiers, there's nothing particularly Swiss about any of these. 

Too bad there's no cavalry.  Three Heroes also produced some 30 Years War cavalry in a similar style, so perhaps something could be done there, although the visual gap of 100 years in military evolution would be a little jarring.  And I'm not entirely sure the figures are currently in production although it would be easy enough to find out.

To sum up, I'm pretty pleased with them.  I think anyone wanting to game the early 1500's in 40mm who has been relying primarily on casting and modifying Meisterzinn figures would find these a useful option to pad the ranks of infantry with more variety.