Rolling off the Painting Table

That I haven't posted anything on this blog for the better part of two weeks should not be construed as a lack of activity. Quite to the contrary, the frenetic pace of painting has prevented me from presenting complete units for display. 

The first unit I completed - two weeks ago in fact - was an Isabelino National Militia unit. I had completed the command stand for this unit a week earlier. This unit is the second of two militia unit that I intend to do for this collection.

No sooner had the glue dried on the bases of this unit than two significant orders arrived for the Great Crimean War Project. This included two regiments of Russian infantry, one of French, a Russian artillery battery and a regiment of Russian dragoons - in all 206 foot figues, six mounted and two guns. Then two days later another Crimean War order, containing another 72 Russian infantry plus another six dragoons and twelve hussars arrived. Unpacked from shipping boxes and repacked into a box that can be kept away from the eyes of one who might question why so many pieces of lead are in my study, they look a mighty array.

Now normally I am quite reserved in my purchases and only buy just what I can paint in a given period. Until now this "just in time" process has worked just fine, but this project has a deadline and that deadline is looming. Plus with BREXIT having such a dramatic effect on the value of the pound against the NZ dollar, I decided to take advantage of the situation to accelerate my purchases.

First off the painting desk were the last twelve Russian Infantry figures needed for the Dniper Regiment I started back in early July. I had made an error back then and short ordered these twelve, that meant that five stands of infantry have been sitting on the painting table awaiting the final recruits. Well here are the five stands, followed by the completed regiment.

Next I powered into the first of two full regiments of Russian jagers. Now I doubt that jägers carried standards, but since the Russians used their jäger regiments pretty much as line infantry the command packs come with standard bearers I decided to give them standards and live with this inaccuracy. This regiment, as with the other two (the second of which will be a line regiment) that I have on hand, are in the firing line poses as opposed to the march attack pose of the other four regiments already completed. The regiment is just needing its bases to be finished.

Next up was to be the French infantry in shako. I started to do these because I needed to work with some colour - the Russians in their dull greatcoats become very tedious to paint very quickly. But, having started painting the command pack, I noticed that the figures should all have separate packs to be glued on, but the packs were missing. I contacted the supplier and the packs will come with the next order of French in a couple of weeks. That shot down my plans to escape the tedium of Russian greatcoats. So I moved on to the Russian cavalry starting first with the Moscow (red facings) and then the Finland (yellow facings) dragoons...more greatcoats.

One of the pleasing things about the Russian cavalry of the time is that they maintained a consistency of horse colour within the regiments. The Moscow regiment has chestnut and the Finland black. I was tempted to do a regiment that had white horses, but thought better of it.

At the same time as I painted the dragoons, I worked on the Russian battery.

Next to be done were the two regiments of hussars, the Ingermanland and Kiev regiments. The former is painted (below), with just us bases to be completed and the latter should be completed by Monday night.

Then it is back to the Russian infantry. All of the Crimean troops that are finished by next Saturday, will have their first outing in a game on Sunday 14 August.

Still waiting in the wings are two units Carlist and two Isabelino infantry units that are unlikely to see any paint until September.