Napoleonic French Cavalry in 1/72

[Steve-the-Duck]

Well, here's some 'out-of-the-vault' stuff converted & painted the the best part of TWENTY years ago!
Initially, they were for a tabletop RPG set in the early Napoleonic period, starting with the Italian campaign. These figures are mostly Italeri, with conversion work done to 'back-date' them to the turn of the 1700s

First up, Line Dragoons of the 13eme & 19eme regiments


Cavalrie de Ligne, 4eme Regiment, converted from Dragoons and given HaT bicorn heads


Finally Hussars of the 7eme bis regiment in pre-1804 uniforms, extensively converted from later Hussars



Et finalment, not cavalry, natch, but Carabiniers de Leger in uniforms worn up to Austerlitz - converted from HaT Early Napoleonic French, extensively modified headgear - I think a couple of these are Italeri or Esci, not sure now though

 

[Tim Marlow]

Wonderful stuff Chris. Absolutely love Napoleonics en mass. Nothing better!
With the advent of modern hard plastic 28s of every persuasion it is very easy to forget how things we’re done “back in the day”. Great conversion and paint work on these. Even more impressive is the way you’ve kept the paint on soft plastics like that. My experience was thanks if you sneezed near them the paint came off

 

[adt70hk]

Very cool!

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

Thanks Andrew!
Hey Tim
The secret of my work with 'soft' plastics is first a serious clean, then a stiffening undercoat of PVA. When finished, a good varnish on top. Seems to have worked here but then the Italeri, and HaT, stuff is a bit stiffer to start with. Airfix figures were softer, more flexible, and distinctly greasy
Oh yeah, you look at some bayonets too harshly and the paint disintegrates!

 

[Tim Marlow]

I’ve heard that PVA trick, but it was after I could afford to swear off of polythene figures and went over to metals. I still have my earliest minifigs painted around forty years ago. Nowhere near as good as these, neither were the minifigs. I know Airfix were awful under Humbrol paint especially. Apparently acrylic paint is more flexible so is less of an issue. These look great.

 

[Mickc1440]

Some great looking figures Chris, back in the day I collected the airfix 1/72 waterloo figures

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

At one stage I was collecting every Napoleonic soft plastic set as they were issued. But then, I'd do a conversion job, and a new set of exactly those figs would be issued. Case in point, at the same time as these I vonverted some late Austrians, in shakos, to cap-wearing types for Italy, then Italeri issued Marengo period Austrians. Likewise, I used the same French infantry seen here to make artillery crews, about six months before HaT issued them!

I recently eBayed out my entire collection, except the painted stuff, which I'm testing for interest/bids too. I was never going to qaint them all... By far the best figures are those by Zvezda. Brilliant detail, interesting subjects, and a much harder plastic that takes glue as well as paint

So, I am, of course, now replacing everything with Perry, Warlord and Victrix plastic kit stuff!
Still, I might just get the Airfix RHA set again (again, again), as that limber and crew was brilliant

 

[JR]

Most impressive Chris, although enjoyable I found painting in this scale very hard, you've certainly mastered it .

 

[PaulinKendal]

These are bloomin' amazing! I wouldn't go near anything this tiny. But as Tim says, in massed ranks they look superb - not so easy to do in a larger scale!

Lovely stuff.