Italeri French infantry, step-by-step

First I painted my French infantry blue...

Just kidding, I promised myself if I were ever to do a tutorial, or step by step I wouldn't be teaching anyone's Grandma how to suck eggs. I've included pictures showing the figures as they progress and I'll not be going into specifics about paint and colours used as everyone has their own favourite paint manufacturer. Having said I am about to completely contradict myself by talking about paint specifics.

I've given up buying cans of aerosol undercoat. Mainly because a money saving venture on my part resulted in a fortunate discovery. I purchased a cheap spray gun (Badger 250) for the purpose of undercoating. You'll notice I have avoided using the term 'airbrush' to avoid being reprimanded by the airbrush purists. Now filling these up with Citadel or Vallejo acrylics was going to get a bit pricey so I needed to find an alternative. My local shopping centre has a huge hobby superstore, with aisles of paints and brushes of every possible ilk. After wandering the shop for what seemed like minutes I happened upon a bulk pot of Acrylic by Daler Rowney called System 3. Says on the tub it's suitable for models, was a fair price and was in a spill proof bottle (essential for a clumsy oaf). I bought a 250ml bottle but its available in sizes up to 2.25 litres!

The good news is, it was a triumph, thinned nicely and covered soft plastics, hard plastics and cardboard well.

Stages 1-3, Red, White & Blue

One aspect of painting figures rarely discussed is the inevitable 'wobbles' or going over the lines if you like. I paint stages 1-3 and then correct any errors. Most mistakes made are because of inevitable hand wobbles (I think it's an age thing). I find it useful to rest the hand holding the figure or figures on the table and rest the little finger of my brush hand on my other hand to minimise wobble.

After stage 3 I tend to correct any errors as I go along, this prevents the figure getting too untidy.

On figures this small, painting hands and faces can be difficult, but it's worth doing a good job as good faces can give your figures character. I make sure my paint is a bit thinner than normal as it goes on a bit easier. I paint the back of the hand then fingers (not always successfully) then the opposite side, palm etc.

Faces are just a series of dots. I dot the nose, each cheek and then the chin/bottom lip. This gives a great 'Frenchman with big moustache' look. You can paint the top lip for a 'slightly younger Frenchman' look that is ideal for a bit of variation. Or you can paint that top lip grey for a 'really old Frenchman' or Old Guard look.

Stages 4-6, detailing.

I start quite untidily, and finish with as much detail as possible.

The last stage is always metallic details. Gun metal, silver and gold.

Hope one of these tips is of use to someone. I have picked up many useful tips from the internet over years, time to return the favour.

Waterloo terrain

I'm currently busy finishing my final six French battalions, so I though I'd take this opportunity to show you the terrain pieces I have started. There are six in all, two representing the most famous buildings of that battle and the other four generic pieces to be used for the other points on the battlefield (Plancenoit, Papelotte, La Belle Alliance etc). I have completed one piece just as a test (which is an annoying habit I seem to have developed, buy figures paint one as a test, move on).

La Haye Sainte 150x90mm

Hougomont 200x150mm

Generic 100x100mm piece, the only one completed so far.

Remaining 100x100mm pieces.

Each of my infantry bases is 60x20mm ( 60x80mm for a full battalion)

French Italeri Flags - a quick WIP

I was disappointed with the Airfix French as a whole. The Italeri French on the other hand are amazing. So much so that I'm actually quite glad the Airfix figures were so poor. I still had to do my normal flag conversion on the HQ. The Italeri figures provide an officer, drummer and Flag bearer x3 in every box. I just trimmed off the existing flag, made a hole in the base and glued a straightened paper clip into place using PVA glue. Two or three applications should do the trick.

 These are best 1/72 figures I've painted so far, although some of the Zvezda figures look like worthy purchases as well. I may post a more in depth WIP as I paint some of the remaining French.

Les Bleus

My intention is to have ten Battalions of French to oppose my British. To date four are finished. These  four are made up of the Airfix Figures that were included in my Waterloo set. They range from good to bad to downright unusable. The good are the Guard figures, well sculpted, good moulding, a few strange poses and a dodgy Officer's sword. The bad are the French Infantry, poor sculpting but can be saved by some clever painting. The poses are fine. Unfortunately some of the figures are so badly moulded that their limbs are so thin they looked like me on a beach holiday. I had so few usable figures that I was forced to make up the numbers using a surplus of 'shoulder arms' figures from the French Artillery set. Having said that I'm not unhappy with the final result and nostalgia for the bow-legged hunchbacks that served in my childhood 'Boney' army goes a long way.

So the final line up will be seven line, one light and two Guard Battalions.

1st Corp, 2nd Division, commanded by General Donzelot

 13th Light Regiment

1st Corp, 3rd Division, commanded by General Marcognet

 45th Regiment of the Line

Imperial Guard Corp, 1st Division (Old Guard) commanded by General Friant

1st Grenadier á pied 

 1st Chasseurs á pied

The remainder of 1st Corp, 2nd and 3rd Divisions will me made up of the fantastic Italeri French Infantry.

10 British Battalions

Having decided on how I'm going to base the figures the first Regiment I decided on was the 44th East Essex. The reason being I am an Essex man, born and bred. I'm actually from South Essex, but we all know there was never any South Essex Regiment... right?

This eventually led to me deciding to paint Wellington's reserve, Picton's Division minus the Hanoverian element. The inclusion in the Airfix set of French Guard figures would eventually lead to me add the two Guard battalions of Maitland's 1st Brigade. Clearly the Airfix set didn't have enough figures or figures of the right type to complete this task. I also decided at this stage to replace the mini skirt wearing Airfix Highland Infantry for the superior Esci/Italeri product. I also added the Revell Rifles and the Italeri British Infantry 1815 which is a mix of Guard figures and Stovepipe Shako wearing figures of the North Gloucesters (perfect).

8th Brigade, commanded by Major General Kempt

1st Battalion,  28th North Gloucester Regiment (Italeri)

1st Battalion, 32nd Cornwall Regiment (Airfix)

1st Battalion, 79th Cameron Highland Regiment (Italeri)

1st Battalion, 95th Regiment 'The Rifles' (Revell)

9th Brigade, commanded by Major General Pack

3rd Battalion, 1st Foot The Royals Regiment (Airfix)

1st Battalion, 42nd Highland Regiment 'Black Watch' (Italeri)

2nd Battalion, 44th East Essex Regiment (Airfix)

 1st Battalion, 92nd Highland Regiment 'Gordons' (Italeri)

1st Brigade, commanded by Major General Maitland

 2nd Battalion, 1st Foot Guards (Italeri)

 3rd Battalion, 1st Foot Guards (Airfix & Italeri)

My 1/72 Waterloo project

My most time consuming project of late has been a Waterloo based project in 1/72 soft plastic. This is due to my prior purchase of the Airfix Waterloo set. I had an existing set of the British Infantry bought on a whim and this was to be the starting point of the collection.

Here is the contents of my Waterloo box in various states of paint, there is also some scratch built scenery/terrain pieces (not shown here I'll save that for another post) that are to ground scale not figure scale. I decided to base the figures according to a set of Wargame rules, just in case I ever found a fool friend to play this scenario with me. I settled on Jon Linney's Fast Play rules that I found at Free Wargames Rules.

I chose these rules for three reasons:

1. They're free
2. They're fast play
3. The basing system allows me to display my battalions in column, line and square

There are 16 figures to a battalion, 4 figures to a base. The bases are 60x20mm. I'm shooting for 10 battalions each of British and French. The British represent Wellington's reserve, the 8th (Kempt) and 9th (Pack) Brigades (excluding the Hanoverians for now as this would mean an additional 8 or so battalions to paint), plus two additional Guard battalions. The French will be made up of Donzelot and Marcognet's Divisions plus two additional Guard battalions. To date I actually have all of the British battalions painted. The figures are as accurately painted as I can research on the Internet or with my limited (not really I've got loads) library of books. I do find, however, that the Mont Saint Jean website is a fantastic Waterloo uniform reference if you don't mind the text being in French.

Each base is painted to represent either Grenadier, Centre or Light companies (or their French equivalents). I realise this might not be numerically accurate as there are normally more centre than flank companies, but I'm not that anal... yet!

The figures are also painted to accurately portray these company types with the correct plumes or epaulets. Because of the small sizes involved I have decided to only use one standard, which isn't a problem for the French but The British tended to carry 2 colours (flags). I have opted to use the Regimental Colours for a bit of variety as the King's Colour was generally a variation on the Union Flag. All my flags are laser printed, free from the excellent Napflags.