French line infantry so far...

I'm a little over half way now towards my initial target of painting up eight line infantry battalions for the French. The latest unit is the one pictured here on the left with six figures per base instead of the usual four or eight. I like this basing better, so I'll probably stick with it for future units. Each base is 35mm wide and 25mm deep, so a slightly narrower frontage per figure compared to the 25x25 and 50x25mm bases. The plan is also to get each battalion up to 24 figures, so a few of the ones shown here need to be topped up.

There's a short video below to show the miniatures more closely. The next battalion is undercoated, but I will probably take a break first and paint some more cavalry or one or two generals.

At last...some flags!

I suddenly (and finally) got round to start adding some flags to my 20mm Napoleonic collection this weekend. I've been putting this off for ages, but it was annoying me that I had so many painted infantry units that were not really finished.

I haven't had any success looking for places to buy Napoleonic flags for 20mm scale minis, so these flags are courtesy of Alan Pendlebury from the excellent www.warflag.com - thank you, Alan! The designs are very well done, and look great on the tabletop. Unfortunately, my printer didn't do a great job in reproducing the colour of the red flags, so I painted over them, which helped a lot. The blue flag of the rearmost regiment printed ok.

The size that I decided to print them at are maybe ever so slightly bigger than they should be, but I preferred to give them a bit of height on the tabletop. All in all, I'm pleased with how they look, and relieved to have finally solved the problem of what to do for flags, thanks to warflag.com. I'll probably add flags to the remainder of the Prussian infantry battalions quite quickly now.

Meanwhile, I'm turning my attention back to the French. The collection is a bit further behind the Prussian in terms of painted units, and I really need to add more line infantry, so I'll be doing those next.

And the lead pile just got a bit bigger this weekend as well, with the arrival of another wee purchase I made from Newline Designs for more 20mm Napoleonic goodness. Lots to do!

East Prussian Landwehr Cavalry

So, my first unit of Prussian landwehr cavalry is now finished. I have one other lot of 9 miniatures still to paint, which will probably be done in the not too distant future. As with the French chasseurs, I've gone with three figures on a 45x30mm base, which is also handy for making the most of the Newline Designs unit packs, which contain 9 figures.

Rather than painting another Silesian regiment, I decided to paint these guys as an East Prussian, so it was nice to paint some red collars etc rather than yellow. The central figure in the command stand is actually a landwehr colonel, which I bought separately from Newline and swapped in for one of the regular troopers to add a bit of variety.

I'm rather fond of the landwehr portion of my Prussian army. I think it's the uniforms that appeal to me. They're simple but look good once painted up, and a bit more colourful than the regular Prussian line infantry. Apart from the other pack of cavalry, I still have one more unit of foot and that'll be the landwehr finished for now. No doubt I'll want to add more in the future, but this will be enough for the time being.

Currently on the painting table is a base of Prussian reserve infantry, which I decided to do next in order to experiment with how a 6-figure base looks agains the 4- and 8-figure bases I've used so far. I'll post pics of these and the other completed reserve infantry units in the next post.

Bye for now!

Chasseurs á cheval

I got my first unit of French line chasseurs finished and based today. This will be the first of two units, both of which will be painted as the 16e. I've painted chasseurs á cheval before in 28mm (since sold) and in 10mm, and always enjoy doing them. These are probably my favourite of the cavalry figures from Newline Designs that I've painted so far. Really nice figures. I spent a bit longer on the horses than I normally do. Horses are not one of my strong points, but I'm slowly improving I think.

I used the Osprey Men-at-Arms book, Napoleon's Line Chasseurs as my main reference for the uniforms. The command figure in the centre is based on one of Angus McBride's excellent illustrations from this book, showing a subaltern from the 16th regiment.

I decided to start using a different approach to basing cavalry for my 20mm Napoleonics. Instead of two miniatures on a 30x30mm base I'm putting three miniatures on a 45x30mm base. So, same frontage per miniature, but it'll mean fewer bases per unit.

It's back to the Prussians for my next unit. I started work today on some landwehr cavalry, which should be quicker to do than these chasseurs. I have two packs to paint, and may do both together, but I'll see how it goes. I hope to post pictures of these soon.

I doubt this blog will be getting much traffic at the moment, after such a long hiatus, but if you do stumble across it then I hope you're enjoying the posts. It's likely I'll be staying focused on this current project for the rest of this year, so if you like 20mm Napoleonics then there should be more posts to interest you over the coming months.

Prussian foot artillery

I painted these Prussian foot artillery units quite a while ago, but only got round to taking a few snaps today. As with the Jaegers in the previous post, I was experimenting at the time with using a much quicker method of painting, using only flat colours and abandoning all highlights with the exception of a wash and highlight on the skin areas. I think a tidy paint job with flat colours can still produce nice looking miniatures for the tabletop, especially at the smaller scales. That said, I still can't resist using highlights on the majority of my miniatures, although I usually limit the colours to just two tones when it comes to 20mm figures.

Unlike the French foot artillery I painted, I decided to put the guns and figures on one base. It's what most other people seem to do, and I think it does look better, so I'll probably go back and rebase my French artillery at some point. I almost always use mdf bases, but these are plastic Renedra bases that I had kicking about, so it was nice to find a use for them, and the size was perfect for what I needed.

I'm making good progress on the French line chasseurs that I mentioned in the last post. I may get these finished this weekend, depending on how much free time I have. Here's a quick 'in progress' pic. I'll post some photos next week once they're all done and based up. Happy painting and wargaming. Bye for now :-) 

Prussian command figures

All of these command figures, with the exception of Blücher, were painted fairly recently. I enjoyed doing the two line commanders in particular (majors, I think they would be?). I'm not completely sure if the white jacket and plume on the general is correct, but I like how it looks regardless. I desperately need to add some more reference books to my collection for Napoleonic uniforms in general, and the Prussians in particular. Quick web searches are ok, but I'm never entirely sure if I'm painting certain details correctly or not.

The figures are all 20mm scale from Newline Designs. I still have some more Prussian generals and line commanders to add, but on the painting table at the moment are some French line chasseurs. Painting command figures is a nice way to take a break in between units. I'm planning to do some French generals next, once the chasseurs are done.

It's been a while...

Many a hobby blog has likely had a post with a title such as this. To be honest, I didn't think I'd return to weepaintedmen, although I always intended to start blogging about my hobby again at some point. I felt (still feel) a bit of a failure for not having kept this one going, so my intention was to start over with a new blog.

But that now seems silly. I might as well pick up where I left off, even though it's been almost two years! After all, I haven't been idle as far as collecting and painting wargames miniatures goes. And where I stopped with the blog is where I kept going with the collection - up to a point.

My 20mm Napoleonics collection has grown - and continues to grow. It's my main endeavour at the moment, with equal time spent on building the French and the Prussian armies. I have a small pile of British and Hanoverians as well, which I'm hoping to start this year once the other two armies have reached an decent size.

There have been other projects on the go for me. Besides my collection of Newline 20mm Naps, I've also been building up Napoleonic armies for France and Austria in 10mm using Pendraken, and both are coming along nicely. I have a couple of 28mm ancient Greek armies on the go, too, and I even had the inclination to paint up some fantasy miniatures.

All in all, there's plenty to show in terms of painting, but not a whole lot in terms of gaming. I'd like to do post some battle reports in the future, especially with my 20mm Napoleonics, since I now almost have suitable sized forces to take to the tabletop.

So, the blog is back, and I do intend to keep it going this time. I hope visitors finds the posts to be enjoyable and interesting. Any questions, comments, I'd love to hear from you...

In the meantime, I decided to give the blog a quick theme change. The old layout and background was a bit too busy for my liking.

Here are a few random photos of some figures from my 20mm Napoleonics collection. Once I get my camera set up properly, I'll be able to share lots more. Happy wargaming!

Prussian Jaegers

Prussian Jaegers

Prussian cuirassiers

French line infantry in greatcoats, waiting to be based...