French Infantry of 1845: Old 40mm Flats

 

I'd mentioned in the previous post that this one would cover Spenkuch.  And so I'd intended, only to find the in-progress photo of the castings I'd modified to be unacceptably blurry upon uploading. More about those soon, but in the meantime, here's an interesting small group of antique 40mm flats which I found on the Berliner Zinnfiguren Flohmarkt.

BZ attributed the editor as Ramm of Lüneburg.  This venerable 19th firm seems to have gone under ca. 1904 with the death of Johan Friedrich Heinrich Ramm. While stylistically they seem a bit different than most of the Ramm offerings, there's no reason firm reason to doubt it. 

The section about Ramm on the Zinnfiguren-Bleifiguren site offers this critique: "Alle diese Typen sind ziemlich ungeschickt in der Stellung und zum Teil auch im anatomischen Bau", which Google translates as "All these guys are pretty awkward in the position and to some extent in the anatomical structure."  That nicely sums it up, although I must say these particular castings look good to my eyes.  At a casual glance they appear a bit ungainly and long-waisted, but upon closer examination I think it's due to the long frock coats and quite baggy trousers.

How to paint them ?  One guy had no shako decoration, so why not French infantry ca.1850, he could be a center company figure and then of course we must have voltigeurs and grenadiers to balance it out.  Thanks to Grosser-Generalstab.de the Humbert & Lienhart plates come in handy.

And the painted result:

Not bad. The "eyes right" pose is always a nuisance with flats because painting the faces frontally is harder than the standard profile. I'm afraid I made a mediocre job of the faces here but they're at least tolerable, and if I can copy the figures successfully, I'm sure to pull off at least a few good ones within a battalion.  Other than that, I think they're well-posed and appealing once the paint goes on.  No copyright issues in play so I've reserved the three castings shown above to try making molds of.

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.

Old Heinrichsen French - 28mm Flats

The Risorgimento or Italian wars of 1848-1866 have been of interest to me for several years now, since first reading about these battles of which I had previously known nothing virtually nothing.  I've been looking for flats depicting this era off and on and the pickings seem to be slim when it comes to figures currently in production. However, the antique flats do appear on eBay and the Berliner Zinnfiguren Flea Market from time to time.

That's how I acquired this old set of French infantry.  Actually it took about 3 purchases of smaller groups to scrape together a minimal battalion of 21 foot plus a mounted commander.  As you can see in the first photo, the factory paint has seen better days. As indeed you'd expect given that the figures were probably produced when battles like Solferino were current news.

First of all they are small:

Nor have even the Germans been entirely consistent in scale over the years.  From left to right, old Heinrichsen 28mm & 30mm, Keiler, Rieche Brothers.

 

How do they look when stripped and repainted ?  Not too bad, I think.  Somewhat crude compared to the newer flats but they do appeal.  As you can see, the pose is the same but the men in overcoats are executed in a different style from the guys in tunics.  Judging by the shakos, they predate the Franco-Prussian wars. 2nd Empire experts can help me out here, but I'm guessing ca. 1855-1860 is about right. 

And on the plus side, their simplicity and diminutive size makes them the fairly easy to paint.  I'm painting them five at a time in assembly line fashion and should finish the battalion within three weeks.

 

 

Checking In

 

 

After an exceptionally long hiatus, I'm pleased to report that I'm painting again.  If there are actually any followers left, I salute your patience. 

A few examples to start out.  First, the other side of the 30 Years War reiter.  This is actually the companion figure to the other of Gustavus Adolphus getting shot out of the saddle at the Battle of Lutzen.  He is part of the Heinricshen set Der 30-jährige Krieg, produced in 1883.  These are nominally 40mm, but more precisely they are 35mm.

And a few of the Heinrichsn 45mm Ottoman infantry of 1877.  The originals were issued at about this time. 

And now just a couple years short of retirement, I've had to put some thought into what I collect and what must be trimmed.  As my wife and I will most likely be downsizing our living accomodations considerably, I think it's practical to assume that just about everything will have to go except for the flats.  So I'm painting those for now, the figures shown here with no particular project in mind but just to get the juices flowing again.  And I promise not to wait 6 months for the next post.

In a Slump

Blog followers, you may have been wondering what’s going on with the lack of activity at Castles of Tin.  Indeed the blogosphere is studded with blogs started fired with enthusiasm only to halt with some random post, leaving you wondering why the blogger just walked away from it. 

The truth is, I’ve hit the wall.  I’ve painted hardly anything for weeks, finished some of the Deetail knights but couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to photograph them. I haven’t looked at my blog nor anyone else's. In hindsight, it wasn't a good sign when after designing and casting a nice 40mm French infantry figure, I couldn’t summon the motivation to finish even a battalion of them.

I look at the accumulated clutter of half-baked projects in my hobby room, try not to look at unpainted piles of lead and plastic, games & rulebooks stashed here and there in the closet or the garage, thinking of the money I’ve wasted over the years.  I won’t say wasted the time because I enjoyed nearly all the painting.  Hence there is a legacy of a sorts, although an unfocused one.   

The thought of trying to recoup years of hobby indulgence in small transactions on eBay is nearly grounds for despair.  One step at a time I know, but I just don't feel like dealing with it at the moment.  Although I know that sooner or later I must.  I'm resisting a nihilistic urge to hurl everything into the trash: simple and cathartic, but too wasteful and ultimately selfish to send things that others might enjoy to be bulldozed into landfill.  

Where to from here ?  I don’t know.  I’m hoping the recapture the muse sooner or later. For the time being, I’ve fallen back on building some 1/32 race car models, still something to do with the hands and relax the mind. Castles of Tin will resume at some point, although I can’t really say when.

Strategy & Tactics Magazine # 287

 

No doubt most of us started off playing board games. I was no exception.  My dad was bitten hard by the Avalon Hill wargaming bug in the late '50's.  Many is the time I was drafted for duty as cannon fodder in Tactics II when I would have rather been outdoors playing baseball.  But some of Dad's enthusiams eventually rubbed off on me. 

Up until the last few years, I continued the occasional board game purchase when I really have no opponents or can't muster the enthusiasm to actually set things up and have a go at playing a two-player game in ad hoc solitaire fashion.  For instance, I have a beautiful game Age of Conan with all the pieces still in plastic bags.  That was about the last as I wised up and stopped buying games that I have little probability of actually playing. But, this upcoming issue of S&T has really piqued my interest. 

Why ? Solitiare !  This will be S&T's second version some may recall the old Flight of the Goeben in S&T #21. It was subsequently released as an SPI board game in 1970.  This new game looks quite enticing:

The thought of being able to have another go at the enthralling story of the Goeben in solitaire mode makes it look as if I'll have to break my self-imposed ban on buying more board games. Also there could be some WW1 Mediterranean campaign potential in this map, as well as the possibility of playing out the battles with ship models.

Still plugging away at the Deetail knights. I took a short vacation this earlier this week so painting time has been a bit limited.

Tradition Knights - 54mm

It's past time to put something new up here. I finished the paper model T-72 but haven't gotten around to  photographing it yet. I wanted to make a few outdoor shots but it's been pretty soggy out there for the last week or so.  Anyway, as no doubt blog followers here are probably used to the abrupt changes in subject matter, on to something completely different.

I enjoy painting 54mm knights.  Over the years, I've collected them off and on and probably have enough to start thinking about some 54mm skirmish gaming with them. Rules recommendations, anyone ?  They are mostly plastic but also some metal figures are in the mix.  These Tradition kits are nice and less expensive than most. The foot knights are rather static, hence not so good for gaming purposes, but I do like this one.  I've been experimenting with polishing the metal with steel wool and leaving it unpainted.

The mounted figures look to me to be more appealing on account of their more animated poses.  Here's Thomas de Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick. The Atelier Interactive acrylic paints work nicely on these, the color is definitely more vibrant than the wargames paints. The Tradition figures make for an easy paint job on account of the raised heraldry. 

Tradition's painting guide

I'm working on repainting some Britains Deetail knights at the moment and should have pictures before long, as well as of the T-72.