October has been a very busy month for me, and it's gone by much quicker than I would have ever imagined. I'm in the final stages of entering a new career while simultaneously winding down in my current job--next Thursday is my last day there. As such, I haven't had a lot of time to post things here. That does not, however, mean that my workbench has been idle!
Ever since I got those 1/72 plastic kits from Hobby Lobby a while ago, I've been itching to put one of the wagons together. Kitbashing and converting has always appealed to me, and I've always been attracted to working on new projects instead of finishing the ones I've already started!
So here's where I am so far (Remember to click on the pictures for bigger versions):
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| The wagon box with undercarriage glued in place. These are taken straight from the "American West Settlers" 1/72 kit. |
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| The assembly at the back of the wagon was created with strips of thin plasticard and super glue-stiffened thread. I don't know the technical term for this, but it was used to store fodder for the livestock and/or additional baggage. |
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| At the front of the wagon, a strongbox/seat was created using a piece of square dowel and more plasticard. |
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| The wheels and wagon tongue are added, modified from kit parts. |
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| The wagon is glued to a plasticard base. Two horses and a mounted driver are added as well, taken from Italeri kit #6018 "French Line/Gueard Artillery." Uniforms for the French artillery and baggage trains were nearly identical, just different colors. |
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| Leads from the wagon to the horses were formed from green stuff. |
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| The piece was coated with primer and the interior of the wagon under the cover was painted flat black. At the last minute I decided that the seat looked kind of empty and so, on a lark, I converted an American settler woman seated on a box into a Napoleonic French camp follower on a wagon seat. She turned out very well, and was subsequently glued in place. |
Finally, there's one other thing that I'd like to share with y'all. I think y'all will be able to appreciate this:
I sculpted this a long time ago, while I was in High School; maybe as late as eight years ago? Not long after I began painting miniatures I got an Osprey book on modelling and painting wargames figures, and it kind of got me on a "creating" kick. Since at the time I didn't know that you could just buy wargames figures, I made my own. I built legions of Roman soldiers converted from green plastic Army Men and toy horses, my own 15mm American War of Independence figures from toothpicks and hotglue, etc. And I also sculpted (from scratch) a Napoleonic Wars British soldier out of Sculpy, which you see above.
Now, back then I had little interest in the Napoleonic Wars, but from the scant pictoral source I did have I decided that the uniform looked snazzy and would offer a good challenge for my sculpting. I had him folding his musket at the trail, and since I needed to give his left hand something to do I sculpted him holding a flag. This was to be a British flag at first, but then I learned (from somewhere) that private soldiers weren't flagbearers in the British Army, ensigns were. So I converted the pole's finial into an Eagle and made it a French flag. I base coated the entire figure, compiled a file on uniform colors (horrendously erroneous, if memory serves me correctly), set it on top of my bookshelf in my room,and then went off to college.
There it sat until the other day, when I saw it sitting there in my room under a thick coating of dust. I thought it was interesting, since I took an interest in both the history of the Napoleonic Wars as well as wargaming the conflicts in college, and this figure I had sculpted had sat in my room uncompleted for years. So I've decided to paint it up as best as I can.
The figure is about 58mm tall from the top of his head (not his shako) to the soles of his shoes. Looking back, there are so many errors in the uniform and in the sculpting in general that were due to my total ignorance of my subject matter. For instance, the tufts on the shoulder straps are far too large and the shako is missing a tuft. But for nostalgia's sake I'm going to keep it as it is.
This piece of amateur sculpting is going to represent Sergeant Patrick Masterson and the Eagle of the French 8th Line Infantry Regiment, which he captured during the Battle of Busaco. A lot of the detail is muddled, but I will correct and add as much as I can with paint. I hope that it will come out alright. If anything, it will complete a long-overdue project that has a lot of sentimental value to me.
Well, that's what I've been up to. Hopefully I'll get this French supply wagon done soon, and then I can get started on "pro-painting" Sergeant Masterson. I'm looking forward to that.
Thanks for putting up with my waffle! Questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking!
Chuck
