Airfix 54mm Napoleonic French Line Infantry

[Neil Merryweather]

wow :dizzy:

ooh, thanks Steve!

[GerryW]

Blimey, just caught up, and am so glad that I did - fantastic work with the hobnails, the buckles - too much to list, so just 'FANTASTIC JOB'! :thumb2:
Check the settings on your phone camera - while not as many as there is on a 'proper' camera, there's a few that might make a difference.

[Tim Marlow]

Great work on the falling guy. You’ve captured the moment superbly. He looks like he’s still moving backwards even though he isn’t!

[Neil Merryweather]

Cheers Gerry and Tim,
Painting his face didn't go so well, so he's having little break while I do a bit of sculpting.

[Neil Merryweather]

I can’t believe it’s been over a year since my last report on this project. My new job in film prop-making has been totally full-on and has left me with very little opportunity or energy for bench time, and when it did I just couldn’t settle into anything meaningful.
I started to paint fusilier 4 but the face went wrong and despite several restarts I haven’t managed to get the painting mojo fired up yet.
I’ve had another look at it all recently and decided I didn’t really like the ‘fleeing’ guy (fusilier 5) so I took him apart and had another look at his pose. After a few false starts this is what I came up with.


That led me to think I could do with another standing fusilier, and after a bit of evilbay surfing I found a part-built one in a batch of spare parts which included some useful Historex gaitered legs and other stuff.



I placed a bid of £7, thinking I would max out at £20, but somehow I added two 0s so my max bid was a crazy £700! Of course I was the highest bidder by miles and I couldn’t retract my bid so I just had to sweat it out….It finally topped out at £28.50,which was more than I had planned to pay but not so catastrophic as to require an explanation to SWMBO! I can’t see why anyone would be prepared to go even that high, so maybe there’s something more valuable in there that I don’t know about. Perhaps I’ll offer all the stuff I don’t want and see if it sells…
So the Historex legs will have to justify their existence now!
I had a good look through a load of paintings and illustrations for inspiration and I came up with this from Lady Butler’s painting of Quatre Bras


so we now have fusilier 6,who is in the process of biting off the cartridge



Whilst doing all this I re thought the composition of the group, and I don’t like the fact that two of them are looking to their right at the running guy, so I’m going to change the rammer (Fusilier 2) so he’s looking ahead at the danger approaching.
I also want to revise the eagle guard and the the wounded officer, but I need some decent progress on these two first.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get some quality bench time in over the upcoming Jubilee bank holiday, and get these two filled and fettled. And I really want to get Fusilier 4 painted and finished.
thanks for looking
Neil

[tigersteve]

Just caught up with your work - very nice too, well thought out, as well as the execution of the skill !

[scottie3158]

Neil,
Nicely done mate I'm bet your glad they don't take the whole bid lol.

[Steve Brodie]

great work Neil

[Steve-the-Duck]

Hmm, interesting what you said about eBay. I thought, and this from seller experience, you can retract any bid even if you're the only one or the highest...

Wait, it's been a YEAR since you posted? Blimey!

[Neil Merryweather]

Steve, Paul, Steve and Steve, thanks very much for your interest.

Well I did manage some benchtime over the long weekend, and as luck would have it the film studio closed on Monday and Tuesday so I have had 6 days off!
I did have to spend SOME time with SWMBO, but other than that I got a fair bit done on the Fusiliers.

First up is Fusilier 6. I filled and fettled all the various gaps with white Milliput, then added the various accoutrements such as cartridge box, non-regulation haversack from the spares box and water bottle (whittled down from a WWII German water bottle and a little thingummy jig from a long extinct 1-76 scale tank ). I found a nice furry pack with the Airfix American War of Independence British Grenadier which I textured with the hot knife-in all this time I had forgotten how tedious THAT is….:rolling:I have tried to vary the packs and rolled greatcoats so I made a covered greatcoat from Milliput which will be painted white with fine blue stripes - when I eventually get back into painting mode.
I thinned down the epaulettes as before and now my phone doesn’t recognise my fingerprint…I am keeping the equipment separate for painting so I stuck the epaulettes to the cross belts. I filed grooves in them (and under the arms) for the pack straps which will go on last.

I made a cartridge for his right hand from a short piece of solder, and I pinched the end with pliers to represent the paper twist. Having decided to turn the head of Fusilier 2 I found that the original didn’t work very well so I have used that head for this guy, and Fusilier 2 will get a new one.



So all that’s left for Fusilier 6 is to make the musket sling and start painting.

As I said, Fusilier 2 gets a new ‘character’ head, which comes from my Bee’s Putty experiments on the World War One Figure I sculpted last year.



He’s going to be hatless but he will get hair when I break out the Duro.

I was never really happy with the posing of the Eagle Guard, and I wanted to make use of the expensive Historex legs so I had another look at him.
This is how we left him...



And this is what I’ve come up with.



Not terribly different but I wanted it to look more like he had just grabbed the standard from the fallen officer. I also decided to highlight the fact that he was armed with pistols. I made a substitute flag from adhesive foil tape to avoid damaging the beautiful pre-painted one I have been given. This foil tape is excellent stuff as used by heating engineers, and apart from making flags it’s very good for blocking light-bleed gaps on lit models.
I’ve given him a better head as well, from an Airfix Cuirassier.

So that is where I had to leave things and go back to work. Let’s hope it’s not another year before I pick up where I left off!
thanks for looking
Neil

[Caustik Filth]

Wow Neil excellent work, loving fusilier 6 ,like the change to standard bearer as you say the slight change makes a difference in his action.
I must keep practicing, experimenting!
Hope it won't be another year before you can crack on!
Cheers Rob

[Tim Marlow]

Looking good Neil. Great mods on show. They will improve the composition no end.

[Neil Merryweather]

Thank Rob and Tim!

I have a bit more progress to report
I still wasn’t happy with the position of Fusilier 5, so I had another go at him.
I only had a right arm with the Fusilier cuff, so I’ll have to scratch the other one from Milliput


I left it there ready for milliput in the next session and in the meantime I found this job lot at a great price on evilbay (see HERE for the full story)



…which I could see had at least 2 sets of fusilier arms in it, so I waited until the goodies arrived and came up with this, and I think I am finally ready to go with it.



And here he is after some filling ,filing and fettling





So that's where we are at the moment, many thanks for looking
N

[scottie3158]

Neil,
Great work mate. Figure mods is definitely a skill I don't have.

[Neil Merryweather]

Thanks Paul.
but you've got plenty of other skills for the rest of us to envy, so I think you're probably ok.....