Rob tries to figure something

[Arcwelder]

They produce good moulds, but in all fairness, I fear you will find that from a modeler's perspective the figures cast from them would pass muster anymore either.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, I guess! The moulds from my youth are doubtless in the stables at my parent's place somewhere (we never throw anything away) but I doubt they've survived in a useable condition since the late 80s. Might have a poke around next time I go to visit!

[rob_van_riel]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, I guess! The moulds from my youth are doubtless in the stables at my parent's place somewhere (we never throw anything away) but I doubt they've survived in a useable condition since the late 80s. Might have a poke around next time I go to visit!

Nostalgia is what you make of it. You can still create an impressive looking army from these moulds, suitable for wargaming or as toy soldiers. That was and is their purpose. AMSing the figures was never part of the plan.
My own moulds have been in boxes in the shed for decades, and are still in good condition (well, as good a condition as the degree of use and abuse they've seen will permit); that hard, black rubber may not be the best for top notch detail, but it is extremely durable. I'm confident that if you can dig them out, and still have all the other tools (there is a non-zero chance your ladle will have been reduced to a lump of rust), you can start casting figures right away.

[Arcwelder]

I can actually recall the box that they're all in, last seen about six years ago.. and you are correct, the ladle was a chunk of corrosion! The stainless steel clamps looked OK but they weren't all that much use to start with due to uneven pressure on the chipboard (it's all coming back now!)

[rob_van_riel]

I can actually recall the box that they're all in, last seen about six years ago.. and you are correct, the ladle was a chunk of corrosion! The stainless steel clamps looked OK but they weren't all that much use to start with due to uneven pressure on the chipboard (it's all coming back now!)

Now look what you made me do you evil person you.....

Got home at 6:30 yesterday, and just had to go dig out my old moulds. By 7:00 I had two decent castings from mould #15 on the bench.

Too much flash around the bayonets, and the usual mould lines and rather soft detail, but not bad for a 35 year old mould fresh out of retirement.

By 11:00 I had them both cleaned up and primed:


And by 6:30 today I had them painted up, in true nostalgic toy soldier style.




Not that there was ever any hope of superdetailing these chaps, of course. Even with a perfect mould, there's only so much you can do with a single piece casting.
According to the "box art" of this and another similar mould, the uniforms are those of the British 37th infantry in 1759, and the Prussian 1st musketeers in 1756. Won't bet the farm on the accuracy of it all though..

I actually made it within Blitz limits, but sadly, BlitzXVIII was already over

[rob_van_riel]

Now, for some updates on the more serious stuff..

The drummer's leg protection did the job. Even after primer it is just visible enough (I was a bit worried it was only visible due to the colour difference).

The Cuirassier is going to be more work that I'd anticipated. Ideally, I would have been able to put the arms on, deal with the seams and such, and only then put on the cuirass, but the position of the arms makes this impossible. Best I can manage is one arm pre-assembled. The left arm is now on, and the join to the torso has been cleaned.

I removed the fairly large pouring block from the lower half of Napoleon. The shirt has been painted white, and I've done some (experimental) pre-shading of the coat. I've painted on the edged of the collar on the head, and put the basecoat for the hair and hat on. The hair looks completely dead now, but I hope some drybrushing will bring it back to life.



I've decided to try to finish the hussar using only artists oils, just to get a better grip on the medium. Picking colours with this stuff if hard; the 'samples' on the tubes are useless other than to get the general idea, and the names of the colours are as yet meaningless to me. Not entirely surprising, the tube of "Windsor Yellow, Deep", while a very nice colour, is closer to orange than yellow. I can put up with that for the accents on the hussar, but for most applications, I'd probably have to tone it down considerably. I also find that the paint needs a bit of thinning in normal use to avoid blobs of paste ending up obscuring all detail.

The "Ultramarine (green shade)" was a far better match for the very dark blue I had in mind. When thinned sufficiently to paint well, coverage isn't all that good though, so I'll have to put on an extra coat later. Much later, since this stuff takes forever to dry. Not a medium for those who are in any kind of hurry (in stark contrast to the frustratingly fast Vallejo acrylics).



The much deeper blue near the sash is due to the presence of yellow paint from the sash. Seems like the colour filters are stacking nicely. Whether tis will turn into a problem later remains to be seem; I'm hoping the blue will properly assert it's true colour with an extra coat.

I'm beginning to suspect that, when working on miniatures, oils may work best when applied over a matt base coat of approximately the same colour. I'll certainly have to do something about the yellow on the trousers; the dolman has to become dark blue anyway, so that should be OK, but the trousers are sky blue. I'm thinking about a preparatory layer of "Titanium White" first (in order to preserve the oils only experiment, otherwise I'd just hit it with some Humbrol).

[rob_van_riel]

It looks like the hussar will be out of action for a while; I can still move the paint around after almost 24 hours on the model. This will take a while...

[rob_van_riel]

The "Ultramarine (green shade)" was a far better match for the very dark blue I had in mind. When thinned sufficiently to paint well, coverage isn't all that good though, so I'll have to put on an extra coat later. Much later, since this stuff takes forever to dry. Not a medium for those who are in any kind of hurry (in stark contrast to the frustratingly fast Vallejo acrylics).
....
The much deeper blue near the sash is due to the presence of yellow paint from the sash. Seems like the colour filters are stacking nicely. Whether tis will turn into a problem later remains to be seem; I'm hoping the blue will properly assert it's true colour with an extra coat.

The paint had finally cured enough to re-coat. The stacking effect remains in full force, but the main bulk of the coat is now sufficiently darker that I think it will be OK, especially after I add more shadows ... next week. The bright side of all this slow drying, is that my little puddle of paint from last week was still in perfectly working condition, and may well survive until next week for my little light-and-shadows game. I'd better pick up a few more cheap palettes though; I can't really use the one I have now while there's wet paint sitting under cover.

[rob_van_riel]

I painted up Napoleon's coat just now. There's only one proper recipe for Imperial French coats, and that's Humbrol 104 (assuming you can't find Authentic French Blue anymore). My particular jar of this paint was brand spanking new, no changes to the sample colour on the lid, which as intended was a perfect colour match for some older paint of the same colour. No problems, right?

Well, think again:



The bust and the cleaning wipes below are the new 104, the pelisse was painted with old 104 decades ago. The new stuff isn't blue, more like blue-green-grey (made even more obvious by the wipes on the tissue below it). A nice colour, to be sure, but not what they promosed, and certainly not what I needed

Worse, I've got four tins from (most likely) the same batch, so presumably all will end up on the scrap pile. This, of course, is Humbrol from the useless Chinese phase, so I have some hope newer production will be OK again. I have some of that as well, but I'm almost afraid to open up a tin

[rob_van_riel]

Worse, I've got four tins from (most likely) the same batch, so presumably all will end up on the scrap pile. This, of course, is Humbrol from the useless Chinese phase, so I have some hope newer production will be OK again. I have some of that as well, but I'm almost afraid to open up a tin

As I feared, four useless tins of paint I'll find some use for it, of course, but this is just wrong. Still, I'm happy to report the new paint is once again spot on, so Napoleon has recovered. In fact, aside from a whole load of of gold decoration, the paintwork is completed.

[rob_van_riel]

Napoleon's gold frills went on today, which brought me to the point where I could do the complete assembly of this kit by glueing all two parts together, followed by a shot of Citadel "Purity Seal" varnish. This is just a hair shinier than matt, and works very well for figures, in my not even remotely humble opinion.

Dry fitting had already revealed there was going to be a problem with the man's tail (I believe the polite phrase is queue, but that sounds like people lining up), which does not connect to the rest of the hair. Messing around with filler on a fully painted figure is not recommended procedure, so I mixed up a minimal amount of milliput, and carefully packed the gap from the centre, thus avoiding any contamination of the paintwork to either side; just stuff it in in the middle, until it tries to squish out on the sides, then smooth over and engrave some hair.



All that remains now is a dab of paint over the fix and the mount, and this one is done.

[rob_van_riel]

So much for Napoleon

[Clashcityrocker]

Congratulations on the bust of Napoleon. Looks very nice.

Nigel

[Stuart]

That's a good bit of painting Rob - nice work!

[iggie]

Very impressive work! His stock looks very authentic

[mjatx]

Good work on Napoleon. I like the detail-work on the gold trim.