Monty's North West Frontier - Update on p. 5 - 9th Lancers (25.10.2020)

[Monty]

Thanks for your kind feedback, chaps!

Step by step there'll come some more updates then.

At Tactica 2018 some fellows and me presented a participation game featuring the 2nd Anglo-Afghan War. To decorate the battlefield we wanted some vignettes which lead me to this humble piece. Since I've already added a detachment of the 66th Regiment of Foot (the unlucky Berkshire regiment) it was a no-brainer that I had to add one of the most famous medic in English literature. In the introduction of 'A Study in Scarlet' Conan Doyle mentions that his narrator, Dr John H. Watson served with the 66th in Afghanistan and was wounded during the battle of Maiwand.

The vignette is based on the excellent hospital set which Perry Miniatures have in their Sudan range. After consulting a couple of reference books and an interesting conversation with sculptor Michael Perry who is very studied regarding the mentioned conflict I realized that the only real hindrance might be the helmets and the characteristic puggree. Luckily in their NWF plastic set there is an officer’s head with a cap bearing a 66 (for the 66th Regiment) which I put on Watson’s body after removing the given pit helmet. Although the neck looks a bit strange I’m rather satisfied with my humble conversion work.

The stretcher bearer who's standing by had the puggree just grinded away slightly. Then I painted it khaki to resemble the helmets with the iconic covers.

As usual I employed mostly Vallejo Model colours as well as the splendid set of skin colours Wargames Foundry is offering. Finally I added a coat of matt varnish and a couple of grass tufts and a couple of pieces of clump foliage.

Cheers
Stefan

[Plynkes]

That's superb, Stefan. Always like to see people making conversions and putting their own personal stamp on their collections. 

[OSHIROmodels]

Excellent 

[Atheling]

Excellent Stefan 

All those little details make the world of difference in a game 

[Jack Jones]

Lovely work.

Thanks fro sharing.

Cheers
JJ

[Mike1879]

Brilliant work 

[gamer Mac]

Cracking background to you figures as well

[Diablo Jon]

That's a great little vignette beautifully painted. I love making vignettes for my projects they are always a nice break from painting the rank and file of an army and give you a chance to get a bit creative.

[Monty]

Many thanks for your kind feedback!

It was indeed great fun to make something decorative. Since I have the remains of the hospital set and some other wounded and medics there's more to come I presume. 

[JBaumal]

Great brushwork Stephan, and the comments regarding personalization of your collection are spot on!

[Monty]

This time a very short update only...

A couple of years ago Iron Duke released some wonderful sets with camels, elephants, pieces of load and other useful bits and pieces to bring a table to life. Thus on Tactica I bought a couple of these camels from Empress and they've been lying on the lead pile for a while now. Finally last week I found the time to paint them:

The figures are of excellent quality. The sculpts and nice and detailed and the casting is superb. Literally I didn't have to clean any flash.
 
This time I combined Citadel Contrast Paints for the basic fur colour and the red blanket and Vallejo Model Colors for the other parts and the highlights. Afterall I'm pretty happy with my first camels. Later there's loaf to come and maybe more camels for the Camel Korps as part of the Gordon release expedition. We'll see...

[MaleGriffin]

Brilliant work! Just what I need, another theater!

[Monty]

From the very beginning of my NWF efforts a painting by Orlando Norie kept fascinating me:

Thus acutally since 2015 I've been pondering about painting a unit of lancers to represent those brave men. To be honest those figures have been lying on my lead pile for a while but during the last weeks I finally took the time to finish the horeses (they've been primed ages ago...) and to paint the riders. All in all I aimed for a twelve men unit to have them ready for any rule set from 'The Men who would be Kings' to 'Blackpowder':

The miniatures themselves are from Perry Miniatures' sublime Sudan range. Actually they represent the 10th Hussars fighting against the Mahdi rebellion with improvised lances to catch prone enemies. After I compared them to Norie's painting I came to the conclusion that they should serve rather well. There are a couple of small inaccuracies: The blanket on the back of the saddle is missing, the 9th lancers on the painting appear to carry an Indian style water bottle, it's not clear whether there are pugrees on the painting. Anyway I was ready to accept those minor flaws. Especially since I didn't find any better models.

There are several photographs of 9th lancers during their tour of duty in 1880. On these the fellows show a variety of clothing: home service pieces, padded winter jackets, khaki jackets etc. After some pondering I decided to paint the unit uniformly in khaki jackets and blue home service trousers.

For painting the figures I employed my trousted Vallejo paints. The khaki sheme is bases on VGC 'Khaki' while most other paints where from the Vallejo Model Color range. For the first time I didn't employ Wargames Foundry's skin colour sextette but Citadel's contrast paint 'Darkoath Flesh'. I'm really pleased with the result. Especially because it safes loads of time. It's just one layer. No more no less. With the Foundry colours I painted fours to six layers to build up shades, highlights etc.

For the lances I decided to use steel pikes rather than the delivered lead ones. My experience showed that the latter tend to bent and never get straight again. Although those don't represent the bamboo lances used at that time perfectly I appreciate their durability. The pennants are self-made. I cut them from common printer paper and apprlied super glue to give them a plastic like stiffness. Finally painted them red over white.

To pretect the models I applied a couple of layers of gloss and flat varnish by airbrush.

That's it for now. Soon there is more NWF stuff to follow but not now. I hope you like them. Please feel free to leave a comment here or on my blog: Here.

[Captain Blood]

Beautiful 
Well done Stefan.

[Atheling]

They look lovely Stephan 

I just popped briefly over to your very interesting blog so say "Hi" to another follower . Whatever did happen to Blogger sending notices out for updates?