The Duellists *finished*
Posted: October 22nd, 2017, 9:59 pm
The host for our clubs New Year's meetings specified "colourful" as the theme for 2018, and after half a year of minimal activity, I'd better get cracking..
The interpretation of "colourful" was left up to the participants, so I figured I'd go completely over the top and hit as many possible interpretations as possible.
Around the turn of the 19th century, two French officers took an intense dislike to each other, fighting more than thirty duels over a period of nineteen years. Say what you will about Napoleons generals, but they bore grudges with the best of them
Joseph Conrad picked up the story as the basis for his 1908 story "The Duel: A Military Story", changeing a few minor details and generally dramatising the whole affair. Very helpfully, one of the things he changed was turning the gents in question to officers in two different hussar regiments, the 4th and the 7th. Few uniforms were ever flashier than those of the hussars at that time
In 1977, Ridley Scott picked this story for his debut as a director, labeling it "The Duellists". For reasons unknown to me, he swapped the 4th regiment for the 3rd for one of the main characters, an odd choice, in my opinion, since the uniform of the officers of that regiment were grey with silver lacing, about as close to boring as one can get with hussars.
Last year, Art Girona brought out a set of 70mm figures, clearly based on the film, but oddly, they again changed the same character's regiment to the 5th, as seen in the picture. This is better than the 3rd, but in my not even remotely humble opinion, still not as good as the 4th, which uses very dark blue instead of the light blue of the 5th, providing much nicer contrast with the gold lacing, which is why I'll stick to Conrad's version.
The contents of the box:
The figures are beautifully scuplted and cast, with the minor niggle below. I'm not so happy with the base plate; it's messy, and will be hard to mount the figures on correctly. It's also quite cramped, especially if you want to include the chair with all the put aside kit on it. I'll be replacing that with a simple pavement base. The decision whether to include the chair and the kit has yet to be made; on the one hand, the shako and pelise are spectacular items in their own right, on the other, I'm not sure if they'll look good just sitting there next to the wild action of the swordfight.
No instructions, of course, figure builders are above such wimpy accessoiries I've done a fair share of Napoleonic figures, so I'll manage, but it can be a bit of a puzzle like this.
Now, about that niggle. Hussars carried ornaments on their upper legs. Depending on the regiment, this would be either a simple bastion, or a complex affair known as a Hungarian knot. The picture of a Historex set shows this better than words.
The 5th, 7th and 10th regiments had bastions, the rest had the knot. I suspect this might be the reason for the transfer to the 5th. None of that really matters though, because these chaps are officers. For officers, rank was in part indicated by adding additional bastions surrounding the basic one, even in regiments that normally had the knot. Both figures have the single bastions for enlisted men and NCOs.
I could correct this, but just to be vile, I won't. The ever widening array of bastions of the officers becomes, in my opinion, tastlessly garish. The figures will therefore retain the lower ranks decorations on their breeches, just plain wrong, but it looks better. That doesn't help me with the chap from the 4th though, since logically, with this modification, he should have knots. I've filed off the bastions, and made a start at drawing the knots, which will be printed as decals and applied much later. Decals will probably look better than heavy relief anyway...
I've taken off the locator lugs under the boots, and drilled holes in the soles for later pinning to the base.
I had hoped to attach just the heads before painting the faces and hands (inextricably linked, since both require the same ad-hoc mix of paint for skin), but that won't work; the hands are attached to the swords, instead of to the arms. There's very little doubt about how the sword arms will be attached to the bodies, but there's considerable leeway in the relative position of the hands and swords, in fact, I'm not entirely sure which hand belongs to which fighter yet. Only test positioning with the entire hand-arm-body chain on both figures will reveal the correct way to do this. That's six parts to juggle, two of them quite heavy, and the other two very small, and I'm no acrobatic octopus
I see no alternative to at least attaching the arms to the bodies before proceeding with this puzzle, and then the hands will have to be attached before I can even start painting. This is bad, since the arms and swords will get in the way, and the risk of damage during further work seems considerable.
Oh well, it was silly to expect these two not to put up a fight
The interpretation of "colourful" was left up to the participants, so I figured I'd go completely over the top and hit as many possible interpretations as possible.
Around the turn of the 19th century, two French officers took an intense dislike to each other, fighting more than thirty duels over a period of nineteen years. Say what you will about Napoleons generals, but they bore grudges with the best of them
Joseph Conrad picked up the story as the basis for his 1908 story "The Duel: A Military Story", changeing a few minor details and generally dramatising the whole affair. Very helpfully, one of the things he changed was turning the gents in question to officers in two different hussar regiments, the 4th and the 7th. Few uniforms were ever flashier than those of the hussars at that time
In 1977, Ridley Scott picked this story for his debut as a director, labeling it "The Duellists". For reasons unknown to me, he swapped the 4th regiment for the 3rd for one of the main characters, an odd choice, in my opinion, since the uniform of the officers of that regiment were grey with silver lacing, about as close to boring as one can get with hussars.
Last year, Art Girona brought out a set of 70mm figures, clearly based on the film, but oddly, they again changed the same character's regiment to the 5th, as seen in the picture. This is better than the 3rd, but in my not even remotely humble opinion, still not as good as the 4th, which uses very dark blue instead of the light blue of the 5th, providing much nicer contrast with the gold lacing, which is why I'll stick to Conrad's version.
The contents of the box:
The figures are beautifully scuplted and cast, with the minor niggle below. I'm not so happy with the base plate; it's messy, and will be hard to mount the figures on correctly. It's also quite cramped, especially if you want to include the chair with all the put aside kit on it. I'll be replacing that with a simple pavement base. The decision whether to include the chair and the kit has yet to be made; on the one hand, the shako and pelise are spectacular items in their own right, on the other, I'm not sure if they'll look good just sitting there next to the wild action of the swordfight.
No instructions, of course, figure builders are above such wimpy accessoiries I've done a fair share of Napoleonic figures, so I'll manage, but it can be a bit of a puzzle like this.
Now, about that niggle. Hussars carried ornaments on their upper legs. Depending on the regiment, this would be either a simple bastion, or a complex affair known as a Hungarian knot. The picture of a Historex set shows this better than words.
The 5th, 7th and 10th regiments had bastions, the rest had the knot. I suspect this might be the reason for the transfer to the 5th. None of that really matters though, because these chaps are officers. For officers, rank was in part indicated by adding additional bastions surrounding the basic one, even in regiments that normally had the knot. Both figures have the single bastions for enlisted men and NCOs.
I could correct this, but just to be vile, I won't. The ever widening array of bastions of the officers becomes, in my opinion, tastlessly garish. The figures will therefore retain the lower ranks decorations on their breeches, just plain wrong, but it looks better. That doesn't help me with the chap from the 4th though, since logically, with this modification, he should have knots. I've filed off the bastions, and made a start at drawing the knots, which will be printed as decals and applied much later. Decals will probably look better than heavy relief anyway...
I've taken off the locator lugs under the boots, and drilled holes in the soles for later pinning to the base.
I had hoped to attach just the heads before painting the faces and hands (inextricably linked, since both require the same ad-hoc mix of paint for skin), but that won't work; the hands are attached to the swords, instead of to the arms. There's very little doubt about how the sword arms will be attached to the bodies, but there's considerable leeway in the relative position of the hands and swords, in fact, I'm not entirely sure which hand belongs to which fighter yet. Only test positioning with the entire hand-arm-body chain on both figures will reveal the correct way to do this. That's six parts to juggle, two of them quite heavy, and the other two very small, and I'm no acrobatic octopus
I see no alternative to at least attaching the arms to the bodies before proceeding with this puzzle, and then the hands will have to be attached before I can even start painting. This is bad, since the arms and swords will get in the way, and the risk of damage during further work seems considerable.
Oh well, it was silly to expect these two not to put up a fight