15mm Napoleonic Westphalians

[Ray Rivers]

8 regts for 1807

Ah!

Your missing six. 

[Gunner Dunbar]

 Hi guys

I’m really a modeller/collector, not a wargamer as such, but I enjoy making wargaming units, rather than single display pieces, my favourite period being WWII, lends itself to this type of collecting, however I have struggled with this approach when it comes to my second favourite period, Napoleonics, the numbers of figures and room they take makes it difficult for me to collect, throw on top the fact I paint around 4000 Napoleonic figs a year for other people, which fills in that urge to paint those colourful Napoleonics, so my projects have never really got off the ground, leading to many stalled projects.

As a kid, I remember finding a miniature painting book at the library which concentrated on large Napoleonics, I think they were 54mm, and have always wanted a collection of 54mm Napoleonics, but for various reason had never built the collection.

As a 3D printer owner, I had often wondered about printing Napoleonics at 54mm, but finding STL files good enough to blow up to 54mm was hard, however, I have found Piano wargames and tried some of their figures blown up to 54mm, whilst they have that slight wargaming chunkiness I think they look pretty good at 54mm, so have started the collection, they also do my 2 favourite nations, Bavaria and Württemberg, with the Württemberg light infantry being one of my favourite units of the period, here I have started with Württemberg light infantry and grenadier gardes, I will do an officer, musician, a couple of musketeers/fusiliers/grenadiers, an NCO and maybe a standard bearer for each troop type.

Here’s some pics with 28mm and 15mm Napoleonics for comparison.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/11/start-of-54mm-napoleonic-project.html

[Gunner Dunbar]

Hi guys

Some (10 regiments of 40 figs) 15mm AB early Napoleonic Russian Grenadiers finished on commission.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/11/15mm-ab-early-napoleonic-russian.html

[Gunner Dunbar]

 Hi guys

I consider myself a journeyman when it comes to painting, I have been painting seriously for 30 odd years, my strengths are being able to paint large batches of figures reasonably quickly to a pretty decent wargaming standard, I have started a 30 odd year dream of collecting a 54mm Napoleonic display figure collection, using 3D figures as the medium.

I am not a display figure painter, I don’t have those natural artistic talents that many display modellers do, no Bill Horan, so this project will be an attempt at improving my display painting skills.

So, where to start? I did this first batch of figures using my typical wargaming painting style, with a little extra work on the faces, this is my baseline that I want to improve from, I have yet to add foliage to the bases, I’ll do that tomorrow, so what advice would you give me to improve? Names of painting techniques, and links to tutorials are appreciated, what is your favourite technique, and paint medium? These were done with Vallejo acrylics, I have a huge collection of acrylic paints, so I would like to start there, but I am open to looking into other types of paint, I would prefer to stay away from airbrushing, I have an airbrush, but I find the set up and pack down too much of a deterrent, and only use it for large batches of vehicles.

Should I try and keep this style but improve on it? Or change techniques entirely? Looking forward to hearing your advise.

These are 54mm Napoleonic Württemberg light infantry figures, printed by myself, using piano wargames files, they are next to 28mm figs for size comparison, they were printed at 190%.

Next I will do a Bavarian gun and crew.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/11/54mm-napoleonic-wurttemberg-light.html

[Freddy]

Great looking figures, this scale reallly helps to bring out the small details of Napoleonic uniforms.

[2010sunburst]

Nice job on these.  They look great, and I think you have the basics more than sorted.  Your style is quite “painterly” and is interesting to look at.
If you are looking for advice I would concentrate on smoothing the transitions from shadow to highlight, some of the highlights look a little rough.  The other thing it might be worth doing is going around the figure a couple of times to tidy up edges and the minor overpaints that are evident.  On a figure that is designed to be studied in isolation these become more important than in a wargames unit where sheer numbers themself are impressive.  Of course, all this is easier to say than to do…….

[Gunner Dunbar]

Nice job on these.  They look great, and I think you have the basics more than sorted.  Your style is quite “painterly” and is interesting to look at.
If you are looking for advice I would concentrate on smoothing the transitions from shadow to highlight, some of the highlights look a little rough.  The other thing it might be worth doing is going around the figure a couple of times to tidy up edges and the minor overpaints that are evident.  On a figure that is designed to be studied in isolation these become more important than in a wargames unit where sheer numbers themself are impressive.  Of course, all this is easier to say than to do…….

Thanks mate, I’ll look into tidying them up.

[carlos marighela]

Those look pretty damn good to me. Excellent work in fact.

[vtsaogames]

Those look pretty damn good to me. Excellent work in fact.

What he said.

[Gunner Dunbar]

Thanks guys

[Muzfish4]

Agree - this is superb work. Museum standard, not journeyman standard I'd say.

[Gunner Dunbar]

 Hi guys

The first half of a batch of 28mm ACW Union troops finished on commission, the second batch will be mostly confederates.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/12/28mm-acw-union-troops.html

[Gunner Dunbar]

 Hi guys

I have dedicated myself to sticking to 1/72 WWII for all of 2024, and I almost made it, as is often the case, when I am doing a commission, my mind is on that period and I inevitably start thinking about my own projects, and I usually have the discipline to not follow through with such thoughts, I’m just finishing up an ACW commission, and have fallen into the trap of starting my own long planned ACW project, I was inspired by the 2nd Rhode Island infantry regt troops in the commission, and decided to start my own.

I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to the hobby, and suffer from shiny syndrome, so inevitably I end up collecting historical periods and genres in multiple scales, so it’s unusual that I have only collected ACW in my preferred scale (for nostalgia reasons) of 1/72, I have a small stash of 1/72 plastic ACW figures, and have just doubled it with orders over the last week, my current stash has some of the usual older sets, Italeri, Imex, Accurate and some Airfix, these are fine for some fill in figures, conversion material, and firing line troops, but for advancing and marching troops I have ordered a few of the Strelets offerings which I’m yet to receive.

I never seem to go the easy route with my projects, so as I often do, I have broken out the green stuff, the Rhode Island infantry wore a pull over shirt and a neck protector, so I wanted to recreate that look. They look a little messy at the moment, but I find once they have their undercoat on, it pulls them together and they start looking good, here’s a pic of the uniform of that unit and the 28mm figs I’ve just finished painting.

These aren’t quite finished, I need to add a few more details, but they are 90% ready for undercoating.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/12/start-of-acw-project-2nd-rhode-island.html

[Gunner Dunbar]

Hi guys

Opinion wanted, do these guns and limbers look to big? I used the barrel measurements to reduce these 3D guns to 1/72, but I’m thinking the wheels look to big, especially with the airfix crew, which are really 1/76, I’m thinking I should reduce them by 10%, mine are the black guns and limber on the left, the black gun and limber on the right are Airfix, the blue gun and limber are Italeri, and the brown gun carriage is Italeris Napoleonic British gun carriage thrown in for scale.

I’ve also taken some pics of the 2nd Rhode Island infantry regiment with its undercoat on, I’m pretty happy with this set of figs, though I need to make another standard bearer, I have been working on files to 3D print some iron brigade figures, will post pics of those soon.
https://gunnerswargamming.blogspot.com/2024/12/opinion-wanted-acw-guns.html

[Extrabio1947]

The diameter of an “average” ACW artillery wheel was 4 feet, 10 inches.  So what do you consider to be the average “height” of your artillerymen?