Friday 21 November 2014

Austrian Flags

I found these while looking for pictures of generals. I may try to create some flag artwork using these, once I've finished all the French flags I need for Marengo first.

The last two are particularly interesting, and I wish they were in colour. The first of the bottom two clearly shows the Austrian eagle on the reverse of the flag.

15/18mm Napoleonic Comparisons - Generals part 2

While painting some of the new Blue Moon Austrian Generals I thought I could do a bit more browsing on the internet for inspiration, and I found some very nice pictures.

These were my favourites, from (I think) the Mollo Collection. I particularly liked the aides, so on my first Blue Moon base I painted the figures as these.

General


General Adjutant


Aide


Staff Officer of the Quartermaster-General's Staff


I also found these two images, that although they were possibly earlier than 1800, they are quite good reference pictures.
 
 So, here are my painted Generals and General Majors....


The sets above are Blue Moon (left) and Old Glory (right).

 
These sets are  Warmodelling (left) and Old Glory (right).


And here are the Blue Moon (right) beside Warmodelling (left). Those two brands match quite well in my opinion.

After painting the new generals and seeing them side by side with other makes they fit in really well, even though the figures themselves had looked smaller. The biggest difference that I now see when comparing the various makes is that the Old Glory figures seem too large and bulky, especially those massive bicorne hats. I think I may dump those figures as I complete the Blue Moon ones.

I still haven't decided who this base will represent, but here are a few more pictures to let you see how nice these figures are. I also think I need some practise on painting horses. I don't think I'm getting them quite right.

Wednesday 12 November 2014

15mm / 18mm Napoleonic Comparison - Generals

The postman delivered a nice bag of miniatures from Old Glory UK today - some Austrian German Grenadiers (a command bag and a bag of grenadiers), which was enough for another 32 man battalion, and also leaving me enough command figures to allow me to complete the last two Grenadier battalions when I get round to buying two more packs of grenadiers.

The other bag was the new Austrian Generals set. These were released along with Blue Moons French, 1809 British, Russian and Prussian sets, which include 10 generals and 10 horse each.

These are lovely little figures, which were cleanly cast and ready to paint with very little preparation (the Grenadiers had a fair bit of flash under their trailing arm - an issue that seems to affect all the Blue Moon miniatures). You not only get 9 different Generals, but also 9 different mounts. And very nice horses they are as well.


I feel that, as with the other cavalry figures I have from Blue Moon, the only issue with these figures is that they are very small, and seem smaller that their infantry counterparts. One based and on the table this may not be noticeable, but I've put together some comparison shots for you to judge for yourself...


These are, top row from left to right, an Austrian mounted officer from Old Glory, a new Austrian General from Blue Moon, a French General from Warmodelling, an Austrian General from Old Glory (I had thought this one was Battle Honours but I was wrong), an Austrian General from AB (this one is Revolutionary Period) and lastly, a French General (Murat) from Sho Boki Miniatures.

Here are the Generals side by side to give a better idea of sizes.


Left to right, these are from Sho Boki, Blue Moon, Warmodelling and AB.

As you can see the Blue Moon figure is a lot smaller, but as the horse is slightly larger than the other makes it may even out the overall height of the mounted miniature.

Sunday 2 November 2014

Skirmishers part 2 - Austrian Jaegers rebased

After posting pics of some skirmisher bases with 4 figures per base, it seemed obvious that the majority of comments were pointing towards bases of two figures. I'd been feeling the bases were too crowded with four per base, so a new size was decided on.

Next I had to pop the painted figures off the old base. I really couldn't face completely destroying the base on these but thought I could try and lift the textured sand off and use that on a smaller base. It was easier than I expected.


The sand and PVA held together perfectly and I only had to carefully snap the sand in half to get two sets of separate figures.


These even fitted perfectly onto the new size bases. I'll use PVA to re-glue the figures onto the new bases, and they'll need some new sand added to hide the damaged edges, but they should look as good as new.


So, next on the painting list will be a 12 figure Skirmisher unit.



The Austrian collection so far

I store my miniatures in a few sets of stationery drawers and the first one is now full of painted figures and it looks quite impressive. I'm quite proud of these and thought it would be nice to share...

IR52 Infantry Regiment Anton, 1st Battalion

It has taken a while to get on to these, and these deserved a bit of extra time on the painting, but as my first full battalion of AB miniatures I am very impressed with the finished unit (that's down to the figures, not my painting).

I'd painted a grenadier battalion, using Blue Moon figures, and the feedback was that the facing colour was far too light, so I tried a darker pinkish red on these. The colour looks a lot darker in the photos than in real life, but I hope its closer to correct.

The figures I chose were the early AB revolutionary miniatures, wearing casquet hats and side slung packs, but I used the 1798 helmeted command figures so as to bring the unit into 1800.


Here is IR52 alongside some German Austrian Battalions from Blue Moon...