Mini Mania pt.2 Military Modelling 54mm and Above

As well as being a wargamer, I am also trained as a historian and archaeologist and therefore also like delving into the minutiae and makeup of the details of soldiers equipment and clothing, a feature that 28mm and below really doesn't do justice. Often the kits are expensive or hard to comeby, hence my ability to work on them only happens occasionally. But I defy anyone who has read or picked up an issue of Military Modelling, not to be inspired to try their hand at more detailed larger scales. However the following are my attempts in plastic to replicate the look, feel and nature of period soldiers.

 English Man-at-Arms/Billman 1415, 54mm Italeri. The Hundred Years War has always been a conflict that has fascinated me, whether watching Henry V, reading Bernard Cornwell, or exploring the connected battlefields in The Scots Lowlands, but raising a wargames army doesn't appeal (whatever the Perries throw at us) because the idea of raising a French army of the period doesn't appeal. Maybe it is the style inherent, maybe it is continued losses until Carcassone and Castillone-maybe it is a set in stone English sensibility (they did raid and burn up and down the coastline from where I originate from). Anyway this was my limited commemoration of the Agincourt 500 and I'm rather proud of him. The armour has been finished off in gloss varnish and colour scheme has been taken from a contemporary livery coat.

The following two are my continued frustration at not being able to attend the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo this past year. As such, I have a long term goal (as suggested in Arthur Taylor's 1972 Discovering Model Soldiers) of targeting part of my modelling towards painting every uniform of La Garde Imperiale (A Grenadier a Pied Tambor, officer and artillery team wait patiently on the desk). Naturally, this cuirassier wears the uniform of 1e Regimente Cuirassiere, 54mm A Call to Arms.

But the pride and joy of the past year has to be Sergeante de la Grenadiere de la Garde, 110mm from Miniart Figures. I wish more people did these still like Airfix, although this seems to be a dying fashion today, with interests naturally gravitating towards WW2 (although Tamiya are lovely). Clothed in dress uniform, on guard in the marble halls of Fontainebleau, the floor, plate, brocade, buttons and musket have been finished in Gloss Varnish, while the bearkskin and plume in Satin. One feature that I take great pride in all my models is painting faces, as it is here you can differentiate most between masses of troops, I feel because of my dark colour palette a feature too often missed. Here I have to blow my own trumpet and say I am really proud of the face and think it portrays a small level of emotion, even if under the rigours of service. The model is not quite done yet, the base I would like to give a coat of gloss varnish to and add a plaque, possibly with the Imperial Cipher or an Eagle in Chains. 

In a couple of weeks will also post up the start of my alternating modelling project, a rifleman.

Next up, my favourite period by far, the era of Pike and Shotte, the 17th century.