Steve, Paul, Steve and Steve, thanks very much for your interest.
Well I did manage some benchtime over the long weekend, and as luck would have it the film studio closed on Monday and Tuesday so I have had 6 days off!
I did have to spend SOME time with SWMBO,
but other than that I got a fair bit done on the Fusiliers.
First up is Fusilier 6. I filled and fettled all the various gaps with white Milliput, then added the various accoutrements such as cartridge box, non-regulation haversack from the spares box and water bottle (whittled down from a WWII German water bottle and a little thingummy jig from a long extinct 1-76 scale tank ). I found a nice furry pack with the
Airfix American War of Independence British Grenadier which I textured with the hot knife-in all this time I had forgotten how tedious THAT is….
I have tried to vary the packs and rolled greatcoats so I made a covered greatcoat from Milliput which will be painted white with fine blue stripes - when I eventually get back into painting mode.
I thinned down the epaulettes as before and now my phone doesn’t recognise my fingerprint…I am keeping the equipment separate for painting so I stuck the epaulettes to the cross belts. I filed grooves in them (and under the arms) for the pack straps which will go on last.
I made a cartridge for his right hand from a short piece of solder, and I pinched the end with pliers to represent the paper twist. Having decided to turn the head of Fusilier 2 I found that the original didn’t work very well so I have used that head for this guy, and Fusilier 2 will get a new one.
So all that’s left for Fusilier 6 is to make the musket sling and start painting.
As I said, Fusilier 2 gets a new ‘character’ head, which comes from my Bee’s Putty experiments on the World War One Figure I sculpted last year.
He’s going to be hatless but he will get hair when I break out the Duro.
I was never really happy with the posing of the Eagle Guard, and I wanted to make use of the expensive Historex legs so I had another look at him.
This is how we left him...
And this is what I’ve come up with.
Not terribly different but I wanted it to look more like he had just grabbed the standard from the fallen officer. I also decided to highlight the fact that he was armed with pistols. I made a substitute flag from adhesive foil tape to avoid damaging the beautiful pre-painted one I have been given. This foil tape is excellent stuff as used by heating engineers, and apart from making flags it’s very good for blocking light-bleed gaps on lit models.
I’ve given him a better head as well, from an
Airfix Cuirassier.
So that is where I had to leave things and go back to work. Let’s hope it’s not another year before I pick up where I left off!
thanks for looking
Neil