Saturday 21 October 2017

1866 - A Few More bits and pieces

At the risk of my blog turning into an S range remodeling site, here are a few more prototypes for my various 1866 states.

Bavarian Cuirassiers

My first thought was to use a French Carabineer to get the 'comb' on the helmet, but looking at it I thought it was too tall.  So I stuck with swapping a Prussian Cuirassier's head for a Bavarian Gunners.  Could have use a Bavarian Light horse head, but I didn't have any available!  The comb isn't quite right but they look colourful.





Now onto some incomplete units and painted prototypes


Hessen Kessel
As I mentioned in my last post I made a standing firing figure for the Saxe Coburg and then changed my mind.  This left me with a number of standing firing figures and it seemed silly to just leave them lying around.  So I decided to paint some as riflemen and others as Line Infantry to see wht they looked like;

Gave them a bugler based on the CW Caucasian figure



I think I can live with the different style, maybe the standing firing should be reserved for the riflemen but I'll see.  I used a darker green for the riflemen rather than the lighter green I used for the Saxe Coburg troops, on reflection although not right I think the lighter green was actually better, allowing more distinction between the two units.

Brunswick Jager

This is a French Chasseur's head on an ACW body. Easy paint job as they are all in black but they do look sort of Napoleonic, particularly when you come to the line infantry in Shako.  The CW British Albert Shako with the back 'flap' trimmed makes a fair 1866 Shako for the line infantry.






Austrian Hussars
I have been playing around with the bits I have in my spares box to see if I could come up with a passable Austrian Hussar.  The pictures I found are from 1859 Franco Austrian War period.  The first thing to say is that there seem to be at least 3 potential forms of head dress from a short low fur 'busby' for want of a better description to a Prussian Jager style


  
 to a short of brimmed hat.  For someone who can only really do head swaps this left me with either the Jager style or the  sort of brimmed hat.

I had a couple of British Hussar Officers and CW Zouave heads in turbans so I thought I would see what they looked like.  The sabre tache will need to go.  Forgot when I was making this one.




Same figure painted as the less colourful Jaczygier Volunteer Hussars(?).  







Not right, the 'hat/turban' isn't jauntily placed to the side, but they pass the 'other side of the table test' for now.  Need to try the 'jager' head dress style to see if it works out better.

6 comments:

  1. These are all terrific in my eyes! You have a truly dab hand for converting the various figure you have used so far. Inspiring work to say the least.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. Thanks Stokes, Glad you liked them. There seems to be no end of fairly simple conversions that you can do to these figures once you start looking.

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks for taking the time to post Matt. It is always appreciated.

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  3. Replies
    1. Hi Jonathan, lots more ideas for other 1866 states and both earlier and later conflicts.

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