Converted Cuirassers Sieze Town Bridge

Here are a few of the much described and discussed cuirassier conversions (Revell SYW Austrian musketeer heads on Zvezda Napoleonic Saxon cuirassier bodies), taking control of the recently constructed town bridge. For the time being, these guys are in the rear of the painting cue. For one, I've only converted about 8-9 figures. That and I've got a regiment of dragoons to paint first, followed by the recently acquired RSM 95 figures, which will be painted to resemble the famed Erbprinz Regiment (light blue coats, red small clothes, breeches, facings, and turnbacks). However as you know already, my regiment has already been granted its own title: The 1st (Grand Duchess' Own) Loyal Grenadiers in honor of my lovely and amazing wife, the Grand Duchess Sonja.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

These fellows look great going over the bridge.

-- Jeff

9:53 PM

Anonymous said…

I do like that bridge with it's gateways.

Very nice.

4:30 AM

Anonymous said…

Very nicely done. How difficult are conversions like that? What's your preferred material for ensuring your temporarily headless horsemen don't return to that state after attaching the new heads?

2:39 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Thanks for the positive feedback on the cuirassiers guys!

I pin the heads to the bodies with the long part of normal old office staples, trimming the two shorter end pieces with a small wire cutter. I use my pin vise and a tiny bit to drill holes into the heads and bodies, before checking the fit, making any necessary "ajustments", and gluing everything into place with a cement made for soft plastics.

I do the same type of "joint strengthening" between the rear ends of each figure and the horse on which they sit. Presto -- SYW curiassiers wearing breastplate only!

5:09 PM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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