Crossbelts and Turnbacks. . .

. . . and whiskers on kittens. These are a few of my favorite things. At least at the moment! The turnbacks were originally painted British Rifle Green, but examining a variety of sources on uniforms of the Irish Wild Geese regiments showed that many had, in fact, white turnbacks.

So, white it was, which meant carefully retracing the coattails of the figures with a #1 round brush and paint from a 10-year-old bottle of Ral Partha white, purchased from a gaming shop on State Street in my old stomping ground of Madison, Wisconsin during fall 1998. Amazingly, the paint has done well in that time with the help of an occasional few drops of water added to the bottle.

Then, it was onto the shoulder belts and sword belts around the waists of the musketeers. Contrary to my initial intentions stated here, I decided to make these white, which was indeed striking on the single crash test dummy, who received this treatment. Once again, though, referral to my Funken and various websites indicated that many Irish regiments in service of France had natural buff or tan-colored belts and webbing.

So, out came a bottle of Armory tan, which didn’t give quite the effect I was after on two test figures. Moving to another decade-old bottle of Ral Partha color, this time “Leather”, solved this little challenge nicely. If you look carefully, you might also be able to see that the brown musket stocks have been colored too.

So, you see before you the 1st (Colonel O’Malley’s) Most Honorable Grenzer Battalion in its current state. Unlike the rest of the unit, the Colonel, Adjutant, and senior NCO received white sword belts as a mark of their higher status. Next up, it’s on to the yellow hat lace for the men with gold for the officers and senior NCO, followed by musket straps, and maybe the two drums carried by the musicians.

And now, it’s time for me to open my umbrella and fly off above the rooftops of the city back to The Grand Duchy of Stollen, where I will dance madly in a mountain meadow above the estate and village, dressed in my cherished dirndl. The hills are indeed alive!