Napoleonic Frenchmen Of Varying Statures

Hello friends:

I've been terribly neglecful reading your blogs and updating my own.  September has flown by in a blur as work resumed.  The church is like school, it all kicks off in September and while I'm enjoying my work and the people I serve, this year I'm painfully aware that I no longer have youthful energy reserves to draw on.  Perhaps some of that has bled into my hobby time, though I have been working hard on some projects in my spare time.  I think often of retirement, it sounds more and more attractive.

I had a long conversation with my son this summer abour his experience with ADHD and how he's managed it successfully as a young adult.  He startled me when he looked at me and said "Dad, where do you think I got it from?"  I've never been diagnosed, but I now realize that I've had something akin to ADHD all my life.  My attention span can be short, I get distracted easily, and while I can be good at what I do (I have a few post graduate diplomas and a CV to prove it), to be successful I have to concentrate hard on one task and when it's done I'm exhausted.  Not to bore you with my personal life, but in hobby terms I find that I can overload myself with projects, ping ponging (SQUIRREL!) from one period and scale to another.  I've learned some coping skills - put one project in a box and keep it in one place, and don't let my workbench become chaotic.  Plan a unit and paint it.  Decide on one rules set that I want to learn and play.  It doesn't always work, but it helps.

So this September I decided to take a break from my SYW and WW2 naval projects and return to Napoleonics.  Because I've enjoyed Sharp Practice, I wanted a small force that I could play with, and because my mate James has a lot of Bavarians and kaiserlicks, I thought that I couldn't go wrong with French.   I started with a set of Victrix 28mm French infantry.  Not my first time with Victrix, but I won't lie, these fellows are tricky and you have to concentrate on getting the right arms with the right bodies.   Had to hunt for instructions online.   Not great.  Then I decided that I would paint a test batch with white undercoat, which is a change from my normal practice of using black.   After all, the base of an official French uniform is white, n'est ce pas?

It was a good idea, but the white undercoat exposed a lot of places where I'd missed a spot, whereas black undercoat covers a multitude of sins.  Also it's harder painting a dark colour like French blue on white.   So back to black with the next batch.

I'm not unhappy about how these lads turned out, but I realized that I really don't know a lot about what a French soldier of the period carried.  These figures have a lot of gear that I really couldn't identify - canteens?  map cases?  matchstick cases?  cheeseboxes?  Zut alors!  So I just guessed.  Anyway they're done and it was a good exercise.  When the mood strikes me, I'll assemble another dozen of these fellows.

Since I had my French palette out, I decided that I would revisit a pile of 6mm fellows that I printed some years back, when I still was doing 3D prints in resin (glad those days are over, lessons learned).  These strips are 6mm figures from MC Miniatures.   As you can see, the bayonets are fragile and a lot are missing, but en masse I think they'll look ok.

The method is simple, black undercoast, light grey drybrush, then blue and red for the coats, white for the crossbelts, and then flesh, gunmetal for the muskets, black for the shakos and copper for the shako plates.  The pom poms were the fun bit I allowed myself at the end and required a steady hand.

Now off to the basing depot with them.  For the 28s I think i'll base them four to my usual 2inch square MDF base and for the wee lads, I'll glue two strips to my standard rectangular bases for 6mm Naps.  I have a lot of 6mm French in metal already done, but I think I'll use these printed stands to represent multiple elements in a regiment - four to a regiment for Sam Mustafa's LaSalle, and two to a regiment for General D'Armee 2.   Of course, for larger games such as Blucher, it will just be one stand per regiment or brigade.   It will be fun to try once I get them based.

However, my games table is ready for Imperial Romans and Germans to kick off (SQUIRREL!) so more on that soon I hope.

As always, I'm grateful to you for reading this.  Be well and blessings to your brushes.

MP+

y.