Military Miniatures

The figure of the seated 4th Dragoon has been completed.
All that remains are his pieces of equipment, such as his sword and boot spurs, which I shall add once he is seated in his final position at the table.
(The Dragoon’s sword will need adjusting so that it rests correctly between the floor and his left hand. The spurs will be extremely small and easily damaged, so best left to last when the Dragoon is firmly fixed in place).

His left hand will be resting on his sword, the right hand is holding a pipe.

Close up view of the head of the French 4th Dragoon.

I took the opportunity on a visit to northern Spain to do some research on cafes, window shutters and tiles on old buildings in the region. Not only did this give me new ideas, but it also lead us to a model shop in Tolosa which sold real scale terracotta roof tiles!
So we bought a packet of them and now the roof of the cafe will have to be remade using these real items. (I have also now realised that I can make similar tiles from clay, and will have a go at doing this when I have some free time).

I wanted the Dragoon to be sitting at the table supplied in the kit, but instead of other offered options, I wanted a serving woman bringing him food on a tray.
So, for the first time in this scale, I have started to make from scratch a figure. The core of the figure is a wire armature and onto this I have put two layers of modelling clay. This has now given the serving girl her rough outline, size and proportion. The next step will be to round off the rough parts and to start to add more detail. Probably with greenstuff or other fine modelling two part mix.

Not too bad for the first attempt?

And finally I have started to put the first colours onto the dragoon’s coat and trousers.

Now to rebuild the cafe roof (probably a complete rebuild of the whole structure) with the new tiles, carry on with the Dragoon and more work on the serving woman.

For a change this French Dragoon Officer will be sitting in a cafe (or inn).
The building will have to be scratch built using mounting board (the thick card that we use to mount my wife’s watercolours before framing).

Measuring the height of a typical 54mm model soldier, adding another third or so for the height of the ceiling gave me the rough height of the card wall that was needed.

The wall had to have a thickness much greater than the thickness of the card, so I cut two sheets and spaced them apart with scraps of card. Then the ends of the wall were sealed with thin strips of card to make it look neater.
I used PVA glue throughout.

Next came the small section of roof. I decided to make it look like a spanish tiled roof as this was to be in Spain during the Peninsular War.
Again, the tiles were cut from mounting card, bent and then glued to make the roof of the cafe.

Using a sharp hobby knife I cut the window opening in the wall, cutting one side of the wall first, and then using this opening as a template to cut through the other side. Frame and window sill were again cut from mounting board and glued in place.

The floor was cast out of plaster of paris and, whilst still wet, the ‘flagstones’ were scribed with a sharp point. These ‘joints’ between the flagstones need to be cleaned up when dry, and the floor will need a lot of weathering.

Now the outside of the wall was given a dirty white wash followed by spatters of mud and dirt.
I have a lot more to do on the outside yet, and will be adding mould/wet patches and possibly a creeper.

Similarly the inside will need a wash of colour. As you can see I have started to add some cracks in the wall as well as some dirty patches that will not look so obvious once they have been partially covered with a coloured wash.

A new project, still in the Napoleonic era, but with more of a scratch building slant.

I have bought the “French Officer, 4th Dragoons 1812″ from Andrea Miniatures (S7-F10) but with the intention of doing a different scene from those I have done in the past.

This model is of a Dragoon sitting on a wooden chair having just completed his meal. He is leaning back, facing away from the table with a pipe in his hand.

Following some research I have come up with an idea for a small diorama …………… so watch this space and see how it unfolds.

To be honest, I do not know how well this Napoleonic diorama will turn out as a number of the pieces will have to be constructed from raw material. One of these pieces will be something I have never done before, so a new challenge for me.

The model kit box has been opened, and I have cleaned up the castings, filed and shaped the arms etc so that they are a good fit onto the body, and have undercoated them in white primer.

Unfortunately the chair needed much more work, and I have just spent (at a table in the sun in the garden) most of the afternoon filing, drilling and dry building the chair to get all the small parts to fit snugly together.

The holes in the back of the chair needed to be drilled out a bit deeper and a bit wider.

All the bars of ‘wood’ were test fitted into the newly drilled holes to check for fit and alignment.

Now the chair and the table are ready for undercoating in white primer.

With these two major elements built I can now measure up (roughly) for a base which will give me an idea how much room I will have for the rest of the elements of the diorama.