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.

Naval Artillery - 35mm Semi-flat

 

Just a quick post here to show an unusual figure I found on eBay recently.  It's evidently a home casting, as Roer's Bleisoldaten shows it on the Formenhersteller (mold manufacturer) section, "Ersten Weltkrieg von HDL".   As purchased, someone had crudely painted the sailor's head and nothing else, thus a simple matter to repaint it to my own standard.

Rather an appealing, toylike figure.

Next up, a battalion of antique Heinrichsen flats, French infantry of the 1850's.

SCAD Prussian Cuirassier - 40mm Semi-Flat

Here's a nice mold, SCAD's Napoleonic Prussian cuirassier.  Maybe the best deal I've gotten yet on eBay.  French eBay in fact, the new mold going for 10 euros with free shipping to the US.  Putting myself in the seller's shoes, the transaction can barely have been worth the trouble to pack the mold and drive to the post office. 

Here's the mold design. 

It casts nicely except for a couple of trouble spots, the scabbard casting short and the reins designed somewhat overly ambitiously in attempting to capture the full detail in thin channels out front of the horse. The scabbard problem I belatedly fixed by cutting a channel down to the base, the reins I'm not bothering to salvage so long as the main portion casts okay.

These molds all come with a painting guide.

And as completed and painted.

I neglected to post a head on view, but the casting is quite thin. For all practical purposes it's a flat although not engraved, but made from a sculpted master.  Stylistically it's closer to a fine miniature than a toy soldier and perhaps that's where SCAD missed the target a bit. 

I'd rather the rider had been sculpted in a more warlike pose with the sword drawn and shouldered, but at least the elegant horse is in motion, and the figure still of some use on account of the style of helmet and uniform being common enough in the early 19th Century.  So I'm pleased with it and plan to paint more in time.

Nowikoff Russian Infantry - 42mm Home Castings

Here we have some examples of the Nowikoff home casting figures. Similar to the Createc Napoleonics ?  Yes, identical in scale and style.  I can find almost nothing about these on the internet although likely there's a connection to sculptor Anatoli Nowikoff.  I welcome comments from any collector who knows more about the rather mysterious Nowikoff line of molds.

So far the only dealer I've been able to find is Berliner Zinnfiguren and although they've discounted the molds somewhat less than the list price for me, no question that at their prices these molds are expensive.  Of course I can always rationalize, there's some economy of scale as - the more you cast the cheaper they get, at least relatively speaking.

No matter, let's take a look.  This blurry photo gives the general idea. The material is somewhat harder than the soft rubbery Createc molds but the casting design is the same, with a simple straight pour into the shako plume and bayonet.  For some reason I haven't been able to get many full casts before the results tail off.  The weakness is incomplete casting to the middle of the musket, as you can see I've cut another channel there and perhaps I'll widen it.  Some experimentation with metal temperature may also yield improved results.

As you might expect, they're thin. Fine by me as it saves lead.  I think at this point it's pretty clear that for better or worse, I'm wed to the flat and semi-flat figure styles.

And as painted.  I do like the Russian uniforms ca. 1812, quite appealing.

I've ordered one more of the marching infantryman pose to speed up the casting process.  I plan to use these for the early 1800's imagi-nations project.  I'm going with historical Napoleonic uniforms to add resale value (when the day comes) but the flags will be imaginary. Next up, the results of my best deal ever on eBay.

Wollner / Sichart: 40mm Bleisoldaten

I hope everyone has emjoyed the holiday season, now winding down towards New Years Day.  For myself, it was great to see the family together again.  I also received something ordered from Berliner Zinnfiguren.  Two sets of 40mm figures: some antique Ramm flat castings (started painting these, more about which in a subsequent post) and the set of (pre-painted !) Wollner Austrian artillery shown here.  It's obvious to anyone following this blog that it's all about painting them myself, but I did think this was a charming set in the old semi-round toy soldier style.

The figures are nominally 40mm but very much on the smallish side of that rather elastic scale.

I also painted the last of the Sichart (except for the bandsmen) Austrian infantry.  I turned back the clock on these to ca. 1860 by cutting off the buttons, converting the tunic to the old double-breasted style and painted on the cross-belts.  Here's an example of one of the figures contrasted with the 1890's style which the figures were intended to be.

The flag is just okay, the raised detail of the Imperial eagle on the casting would have been more worthy of Josef Wagner composing a march "Under the Double Tarantula" as the resemblance to an eagle is approximate at best. I would probably have been better off just filing it off and painting from scratch but it's at least serviceable.

At any rate, this is all I have so any reinforcements will have to be via the mold-making process and I did save one casting for this purpose.  No rush about it though, the figures on parade with their slung rifles are a bit lacking in martial vigor so I think I can do better by the Austrian infantry from some other source.  Nice to have these as a fall-back though.

Next up, Spenkuchs.

PA Cavalry Conversion 2: 40mm Home Casting

Finally got around to painting the first casting from the modification of the Prince August cavalry figure.  Conversion on the left, original on the right:

The verdict ?  I have mixed feelings about this. The horse and the rider's coat show minor improvements.  But to my eyes, it looks like bulking up the hat was a mistake.  In the abstract, it wasn't a bad idea to fix the rider's flattish tricorne.  However I missed something when enumerating the figure's flaws:  not only the horse's head is too big, so is the rider's. What I did here only accentuated it.

Still an okay figure but I'm not excited about it.  May hold off for a bit to see what Prince August unveils in the new range of 7YW molds, hopefully some nice cavalry is in the offing.

PA Cavalry Conversion: 40mm Semi-Rounds

I had hoped to show more painted results of the latest figure conversion but had a setback in the mold making stage of the process, more about which later.  For now, the story begins with Prince August cavalry.  While we're relatively spoiled for choice with the infantry, there are four main cavalry trooper figures which can be cast.  First we have good old PA11 and the identical pose in its newer, more fully rounded version:

This seems to be the hands down favorite, and we also see a very similar figure as the mainstay of everyone's Spencer Smith cavalry arm.  I like this one but he looks very Swedish to me in style and the hell-for-leather charge was probably not the norm for most armies' cavalry doctrine of the era. And of course we have the pistol wielding PA48 and the nice, but rather static dragoon PA41. 

Both these latter figures certainly have their uses, but sticking to sword-armed cavalry it comes down to Molds # 11 or Mold # 935 painted in his "Wild Geese" livery in the top photo. # 935 seems to be not nearly as popular, perhaps in part due to difficulty in casting the sword fully.  Further, there are things about the figure which are not quite right. The horse's head looks oversized, the hind quarters a bit skimpy and angular, the pistols oddly mounted forward and too low on the body instead of up near the saddle.  But I do very much like the pose, so let's see what can be done here:

As can be seen in the comparison shot, what I have done to the rider is bulk up the flattish tricorne, also give him a fuller coat and cuffs.  I beefed up the sword a bit to get a stronger cast, with the intention of filing it after casting.  The horse and tack get some attention as well: among other things, filed down the head a little, added more definition to the hind quarters, amputed the pistol holsters and replaced with green ones.

So far so good, I think.  Last weekend I made a new mold with eager anticipation of casting and painting this new figure.  The first half came out fine. Unfortunately, had a bit of a disaster where a small portion of the second mold have stuck to the first despite the use of mold separation cream. Evidently I missed a spot. And this damage fell right across part of the horse, ruining the castings.  Why not just re-do the second half, you ask ?  Good question !  And I would have done so but for the lack of sufficient RTV compound. Rather than taking the sensible course of ordering more and waiting, I tried patching the 2nd half, would up cutting extra channels in the original half as a work-around and to sum up, botched the whole thing.  So we're a week or two away from seeing this figure actually painted.

In the meantime, I've also started on the infantry command figures. The standard bearer is finished, the drummer just under way. I'll soon show these in subsequent postings.  

Transforming a Swede to a Frenchman - 40mm Semi-Rounds

 

I've often wished that Prince August could have done better of creating a French infantryman than the Battle of Rossbach mold PA58.  Of course, there is also the "French Regiments of 1750" and "Wild Geese" series of molds.  But they are very much a case of old wine in new bottles, Karoliners sold with painting guides as French troops. Of course, I painted a regiment of these years ago. 

And a Swiss battalion Courten made from GNW molds.  A little better, but still essentially Danes or Russians in disguise.

 

In any case, following up on the previous post, it was time to try something more ambitious.  My objective was two-fold. First, I wanted a more convincing French infantry figure for my 40mm armies.  Secondly, I wanted it in the always useful "march attack" pose.  Did I have the sculpting talent to make one ?   Who knows, and what were the chances of creating a tolerably good figure the first time out ? 

Hedging my bets, I decided to use a PA casting as the base figure upon which to add green stuff to build up a suitable master.  For this, I chose the advancing musketeer PA14,  the hat company counterpart to the previously featured grenadier figure. 

Again, this is one of the older, flatter Eriksson molds without precise detail.   The idea was to substantially rework the figure, but take advantage of the good proportions and aggressive advancing stance.  I cut off the weapons, amputated his arms and filed down the coat to a bare outline.  I then started to rebuild the figure with green stuff. And here and there, I used existing bits from other figures such as the musket and scabbards.

My main worry was getting the arms to appear natural, hoping to hit a happy medium between T.rex and orangutan. That and just getting the general "look" right.  And the new master.

It looked pretty good to me, but the proof would be in the casting. My 1st mold went wrong when the master must have slipped somehow, resulting in an ugly seam down the middle of the figure.  The 2nd mold worked better but once I got castings out of it, I saw that there were a few things which needed to be tidied up on the master. The 3rd mold works the best except the bayonet scabbard casting short.  But by no means a deal breaker. In any case, this flow pattern is effective and the bayonet at the extremity casts fully every time.

And more painted figures.  It would have been preferable to finish more but I was eager to share it.

How did it turn out ?  Once done with something like this, after the initial delight of creation wears off you tend to see all the flaws.  I'm looking forward to reading any and all constructive criticism but I have to say I'm pleased with the result.

Backdating a PA Grenadier - 40mm Home Casts

Readers of this blog will know my mixed feelings of joy and frustration when it comes to the Prince August range of 40mm semi-rounds, as in this previous post: War of the Polish Succession.  Holger Eriksson's many excellent figures are a great tribute to the Swedes of the GNW, but not necessarily ideal for all among us with designs on using them for other armies both real and imaginative.  When it comes to toy soldiers and music, my tastes run more to the Baroque than the Classical.  Aside from the old-fashioned shoes/stockings and hair styles, the PA's remind me more of Frederick the Great's Prussians than WSS era soldiers.

And as the Irish Prince August mainly perpetuated more Karoliners with recent additions to the 40mm home casting range, it's high time to take matters into my own hands.  Quite belatedly, I have discovered the utility of Green Stuff, and even more recently - mold making.  I took the plunge last month and bought a hobby molding kit from Reb Toys.  It consists of a wooden mold making jig, two jars of Quick-Sil, "RTV jewelry molding rubber" compound, and a container of Castaldo mold separation cream.

My first mold-making experiment made use of a Spenkuch semi-round as the master.  The failure was comically bad: the poor fellow's lower body and legs cast nicely but his headless Swiss cheese upper body looked as if he'd walked into a perfect storm of grapeshot.  It was readily apparent that more pressure was required during the mold curing process and that's probably what those two wing-nuts on top of the jig were for.  For test Mold #2, I emulated Tony Bath in using a flat Zinnfigur as the master.  Not perfect but definitely better.  In the interest of maintaining harmonious relations with Germany I'll say no more about it when sooner or later a battalion or two of these guys shows up here on the blog.

Now that I'd established that I could indeed create a functional mold, it was time to move on to the objective of modifying a Prince August figure.  For this, I selected the grenadier mold PA20.  He is one of the older, flatter original Eriksson creations. It's a good and simple figure with the musket casting directly on the centerline.  As can be seen in the top photo, all I did here was to file off the turnbacks and bulk the coat and cuffs with green stuff.  My mold is nothing fancy, using very similar flow channels to the PA original.  The wing nuts on the jig soon stripped out, but I found the brutal expedient of setting a 3-ton floor jack on top of the jig during curing compresses the silicone rubber rather effectively.

Here I've painted the figure as an Austrian grenadier, suitable for 1700-1735.

And next to his original, more 7YW-looking cousin.

Soon to follow, a more ambitious and exciting conversion !