The Perry experiment, part 3

Perry horse latest WIP from three angles.

It’s been over three weeks since I updated progress on the test painting of a Perry figure. For most of that time, nothing noteworthy happened other than me chewing over the result of using the Foundry wine stain red triad. I’ve been looking at plates in various reference books and I spent some time studying photographs on a 14th cuirassiers re-enanctors site. The conclusion: the Foundry colours are too pink and not maroon enough. So that’s been redone with only the darkest shade of the triad surviving the cut. Vallejo old favourites of hull red, red and (sparingly) scarlet have stepped into the breach.

I’ve also finished off almost all of the saddle furniture, including two attempts to get a result I was satisfied with for the sheepskin shabraque. The other big area of progress is that all of the horse’s black coat is painted and highlighted. So now there are only a few details left to resolve – rear hooves, reins, straps and the blanket roll under the sheepskin shabraque. The final jobs will be the regimental number on the valise ends and the grenade insignia on the saddlecloth. I’m currently considering two approaches to these devilish tasks: one is to take a deep breath and pick up a fine paintbrush for a freehand job; the other is to avail myself of the kind offer of a chap in Oregon called Harry to make me some decals for the job.

What do you think so far? And would it be cheating to use some decals?

The three Ps

I’ve resisted the temptation to get involved in all the recent excitement about the Perry plastic Napoleonics (and an honourable mention for the Victrix ones too). After all, if you wanted hot off the press news about the recently released French infantry box and the “3-up” sculpts for the British infantry then there are plenty of other places on the Web where the news is already available and being discussed.

So why bother mentioning it now. Well, this quote from the horse’s mouth is the cause:

The box contains 42 infantry figures in campaign clothing (half in Bardin regulation short-tailed ‘habit-veste’ and half in greatcoats, all in overalls), unit bases to allow you to build units easily and quickly, 2 flags and uniform guides, and 37 additional heads for converting (these include Pokalems, damaged shakos, etc.).

In particular, that last bit about all those additional heads. That’s got me thinking about when the Calpe Saxons are finally available – will these plastic Perry French heads give me suitable raw material for a swathe of head-swap conversions to create truly individual battalions? The heads of the Perry metals are a little smaller and finer than the Calpe heads but the difference between these plastic heads and Peter F’s new style of heads he’s sculpted for the Saxons may prove to be only slight. Food for thought…

The third P is for paint. Specifically, Foundry’s new Napoleonic range. I’ve got to say I’m a little skeptical about this. How many of the colours are genuinely new ones? Austrain White vs. Arctic White anybody? And what about British Redcoat vs. Scarlet? It’s hard to tell without being able to compare them side by side in real life.

And I’m not happy with Foundry’s use of the word authentic to describe the range. I think that’s a bit naughty especially when they actually admit that:

In reality the exact shades of uniform colours varied, often within the same unit!

If you wrestle with the question of historically accurate shades for any length of time you soon realise that the key fact is that the dyes used in Napoleonic times were almost all organic rather than chemical in origin which led to tremendous variation and, crucially, heavy fading when subjected to the rigours of sun, rain and wind on campaign. So if you ever get bothered by a self-proclaimed expert who tells you the red facings on your Kurmark landwehr are the wrong colour, you know what to say!

Still, some of these Foundry colours do look nice – especially the greens. Although I’m not convinced that the French dragoons and chasseurs a cheval were clothed in different shades of green.

The Perry experiment, part 2

Perry horse WIP: forelegs left and right views

A small update tonight. I’ve finished painting the forelegs – three shades of grey (Vallejo dark grey, neutral grey and light grey) over black with only very sparing use of the lightest grey. Also painted the fetlocks (if that’s the correct term, I’m not too good on equine anatomy) with some even lighter grey and white (Foundy arctic grey and white). And I did the hooves too – not very exciting.

Now that I look at these photos again, I’m a little disappointed that they don’t show up the white blaze on the horse’s face very well. I’ll have to take a more front-on picture next time.

The Perry experiment begins

Perry cuirassier horse WIP: left and right views

Since I’ve been off work looking after ill children, it seemed like an opportunity to start trying to paint my first ever Perry miniature. This horse comes from pack FN68 “cuirassiers on standing horses in reserve, at ease (2)” – quite a mouthful! And these two photos show work in progress.

So far I’ve done some work on parts of the saddle furniture including the shabraque, valise ends, wolftooth edging of the sheepskin saddlecloth and some of the cape strapped the valise. I’ve also done the head (above the reins). These items were selected to enable me to get a feel for what Perry horses are like to paint, to enable me to try out the Foundry wine stain paint triple and to confirm that the black coat I want to use for the horse is going to work.

My initial observations on Perry horses are as follows:

• They’re about the same height as Calpe horses, which makes for a pleasing scale fit.
• As I suspected, there’s more cleaning up and preparation work than I’m used to. Quite a few casting runners needed to be removed and filed down.
• They’re thin animals. This is especially noticable on the legs when viewed from the front or back. The body is also thinner than I’m used to and certainly more so that the horses we see plenty of in the Wiltshire lanes and fields locally. I suppose you might say these Perry horses are survivors of the retreat from Moscow!
• Some details seem a little rushed: the legs and particularly the hooves spring to mind. Other details I like very much, especially the head.
• The overall pose and proportions of the sculpts are very natural. Maybe the legs are just a touch too long but that might be a subjective view on my part.

The Foundry wine stain triple is a tonally good set. The three shades are just the right distances apart though I’m not yet convinced by the coverage. In mitigation, I should say that I probably didn’t shake or stir them thoroughly enough in my enthusiasm to rush and try them out. For use as lie de vin, they’re probably a bit too bright but I think that’s better than being too dark. I’m actually keen to have these details stand out a bit on these figures. I won’t be able to tell if the overall effect will look right until the sheepskin and horseflesh is painted. Foundry paints also seem to dry with a slight sheen to them but that’ll get fixed at the varnishing stage.

This is intended to be a black horse with a flesh coloured nose and mouth. If you look closely at any “black” object in real life, you’ll soon realise that it isn’t actually black but various shades of dark grey. I once read a really interesting article about painting black and white objects that asserted that white objects are defined by their shadows and black objects are defined by their edges. So here I’m trying to use greys to highlight highspots like the tips of the ears, eyelids and musculature. I think the camera flash has over picked up these greys in these photos -they don’t look so prominent in real life.

Overall, a pleasing start but there’s plenty more work ahead with the grey paints.