Sunday, May 26, 2013

Entry #7 to the Lead Painters' League: 'A Message for Der Alte Fritz' - Seven Years War Prussian Command Stand



I found that one way to gain a few extra points in the Lead Painters' League is to submit a newly painted team for each week's match. One certainly has the option of submitting older stuff from your existing collection (and foregoing the extra points), but that, to me, seems kind of against the spirit of the exercise. In fact I've been really enjoying the whole process of planning my entries and getting them prepared for the coming week's match.

Anyway, as things would have it, this past week work and life conspired against me and I had very little time to work on any hobby projects. Subsequently Friday rolled around and I only had two figures out of the five completed, and the deadline for submission was 6 am Saturday, my time... Damn. I knew I either I had to pull an all-nighter to get them done, or eat crow and submit an existing set of figures (which I was loath to do). After mulling it over I resolved to forego sleep and stick to my guns in an effort to submit a newly-painted entry.


The lovely Sarah, bless her soul, made me two espressos to power me through the night. So  I started in, furiously painting like a man possessed in an attempt to beat the clock. By 4:30 in the morning things looked promising, with the colours mostly done and the figures based. I only had to finish the groundwork and do a bit of highlighting. Well, when I next looked at the clock it was 5:45 and I blearily realized I had 15 minutes to compose the vignette on the backdrop, photograph it and arrange the images for transmission! Yiiikes! By this time dawn had just broke, but being that it was an overcast day the light was quite dim and the pictures turned out rather crappy. I had no time to set up any lights to reshoot so those were the pics I had to go with. Dammit Janet.

So, if you go to the LPL to take a look please accept my apologies for the execrable photos. I have a suspicion that for all the midnight oil I expended I'm going to get smoked due to lousy presentation. Oh well, as Keitel's Feraud in The Duellists would say, 'La!' 

Anyway, enough of my wingeing, as a consolation I took some time today to reshoot the figures in an effort to show them in a better light (literally).


This is my first effort at painting Seven Years War figures. These are gorgeous 28mm castings from  Minden Miniatures, sculpted by the talented Richard Ansell. The figures are quite slight, almost willowy in their stature, but they have a great sense of presence and lots of character. The detail on them is VERY fine which I found quite challenging to paint. Nonetheless they were loads of fun to work with and I look forward to doing some more.


This vignette will serve as a Prussian command stand. The mounted cavalryman I have painted to depict a member of the Zieten Hussars while his dismounted counterpart has been done up as a trooper of the Szekley Hussars. The 'Prussian' infantry officer is a bit of a bodge. He's actually a French infantry officer but I reasoned that the cut of the uniforms were very similar amongst the combatants so I thought I might be forgiven for this bit of heresy.  My personal favourites are the groom and the blacksmith re-shoeing the hussar's mount. I'm particularly taken with the sculpt of the groom who's seen here firmly holding the horse's bridle while gently stroking its neck with a calming hand. Brilliant stuff. The mounted hussar is actually from another set so I had to do some light modifications with greenstuff to create some saddle harness on his horse. No real biggie. I might swap out the mounted infantry officer for a figure of Frederick The Far Better Than Average at a later date, but this will work for now.


I have a few options for what I want to do for Round 8 but I better get a wiggle on so I don't get caught out late again...

36 comments:

  1. Now that's dedication. great stuff - is this a large new project or just a dalliance?

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    1. Thanks Phil!

      It will be a 'moderate' project. Greg and I are planning to get enough stuff done-up to replay the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Battle of Quebec, 1759). Yep, not a Prussian on that field but these were the figures that immediately struck my fancy for the League.

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  2. Wow, what a story! Well you got there in the end and damned fine they look too - well done Curt, I read that you picked up a prize too, many congratulations Sir.

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    1. Thank you for the kind words Michael. Yes, an anonymous follower of the League was very kind enough to provide prizes to three of us. I was quite taken aback by it. It really made my day.

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  3. Well light or no light, these look excellent

    Ian

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    1. Cheers for that, Ian! (Though it was almost dark enough for me to be forced to describe them...)

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  4. Fabulous work Curt, as always. Grats on the unexpected prize as well. :)

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    1. Thank you Tamsin. Congratulations again on your 100K landmark!

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  5. excellent work on some great figures I only found Minden after I was half way through my SYW project or they might have been the ones I used.
    Peace James

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    1. Cheers James. I was thinking of your and your collection when I ordered these. Your work is such great inspiration which I hope to draw on over the coming months.

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  6. Great work and great paint Sir
    Cheers

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    1. Thanks Captain! I look forward to seeing what you do with 'Honey Bee' - I'm sure it will be fabulous as usual.

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  7. Lovely work on what I agree is a marvelous range of figures.

    FMB

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    1. Thank you. BTW I'm quite enjoying following your Poodles & Power campaign. Great stuff!

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  8. GREAT painting work, Curt, and a lot of dedication to the cause.
    These figures are very fine; I have been looking at them for a time, and finally I have bought some models from "Fife & Drum Miniatures", AWI figures sculpted by Richard Ansell. They look different.

    Good luck with this entry!

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    1. Cheers Juan. I'll keep an eye out for your work with the Fife & Drum figures.

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  9. Great work, very impressive!
    Phil.

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  10. Very nice work Curt, and the explanation here explains what I was thinking looking at them on the Lead Adventures site. I looked and though, "hmm looks like good work but hard to really tell they are blurry and out of focus". Luckily, you were matched against an easy win.

    The photos here show how great the job really is. Wonder if they will update the photo over there for you? Or are you allowed to post a link to here in the comments below it?

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    1. Yeah, I was not too happy with the resulting pics after all that frantic work. The administrators of the League are fairly strict on submissions (fair enough) so I think I'll just have to take my lumps with how they're presently shown. Oh well, live and learn.

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    1. Thanks Alberto! I quite admire your recent work on those ACW zouaves. Beautiful stuff.

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  12. Excellent little vignette Curt! Looking forward to seeing you develop the period.

    Christopher

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    1. Me too! I've got enough figures for a couple battalions of figures plus assorted hangers-on. It's definitely a tertiary project but I'll try to plink away at it over the coming months.

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    1. Ah, the man himself! ;) Thanks very much for your kind words. I'm a great admirer (and lurker) of your blog.

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  14. That's a sweet little composition Curt. The chestnut horse is gorgeous and what's not to love about tricorne hats? ;-)

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    1. Indeed, I'm all for a bicorne/ tricorne hat resurgence. Somehow I can't see it happening though... Hm, maybe if they could be designed to help cellphone reception, you know, off the plumes or something. Then they would sell like hotcakes!

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  15. You are one dedicated dude Curt! Lovely work.

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  16. Great work dude. I know we have our little pending project, but I will accept this as fair warning to expect some Prussian battalions on the table some time soon...

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    1. Yes, it wasn't planned but it's probably safe to say...

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Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)