Military Miniatures

In the café, the dragoon’s food has now arrived. The chicken is being served on a metal plate, the freshly baked loaf of bread is ready to eat. To wash it all down is an earthenware jug of red wine (not shown).

At the moment I have stopped work on making a figure of a serving woman out of modelling clay. Instead I am investigating moulding the figure from commercial moulds – watch this blog, more to follow.

So, the Dragoon’s café is on hold for the moment. But I have started my next project which will be a small diorama of a battle that might have taken place in Spain around 1808.
This new thread will be called Spanish Battle…………

The completed roof was glued in place on top of the cafe wall.

On the outside some ‘mud’ and ‘dirt’ and ‘mould’ and the remains of an old creeper on the wall were simulated by diluted paint and sawdust.

Inside the wall was too clean, so some slightly off white washes were painted onto the wall.
Cracks between the floor slabs were dry brushed with dark grey to tone them down and to provide shadow.

Strips of wood were glued to the wall to represent timbers, and the edges of these wooden strips were chopped about to prevent the new, square look that modern beams have.

(In the picture the Dragoon is holding his sword - but this is only temporary, it has not been glued in place yet, and nor have the table or chair been glued either).

Below is a top view showing the general lay out, however the Dragoon might be relocated closer to the window. That depends upon how I manage with modelling the serving girl.

My attempt to amke a serving girl is not going well, but watch this space.

Today has been rather foul from the weather point of view so I have been able to catch up with the model of the 4th French Dragoon as well as the scratch built cafe in which he is seated.

The tiles, bought in Spain recently, proved to be too difficult to use to build a ‘real’ Spanish tiled roof”.
Ideally there should have been rows of upside down tiles on top of which the ‘right way up’ tiles should have rested. But a number of dry runs ended up with a mess.

The problem was solved by making a base of modelling clay to represent the forms of inverted roof tiles and then mounting the top layer of tiles on top of that.
The result worked and the hand made tiles looked irregular and very much like the real thing.

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.