The Russians are Coming - the Russians are Coming!!

Hello Everyone!

This post is a bit past due. I had wanted to post this a few days ago, but life just sort of got in the way. Better late than never though - eh?

I thought I'd go ahead and do a post introducing my new project - Napoleonic Russians for the 1812 Campaign. Let's just say that this project is getting off as well as Napoleon's advance on Moscow did.

The figures I'm using are the 28mm Russians from Old Glory. Some gamers do not think that the OG miniatures are all that good, but I like them and the price is right.

So, the goal is to get these:


To look like these:

I'll be very surprised if this is pull off.

While the first picture shows the unpainted version of the minis I'll be working with, the second picture shows a unit painted by a very talented painter who's name I have misplaced.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a bad painter, I'm just not as good as such illustrious artists as Steve Barber, Steve Dean or Sascha Herm.

Here are a few examples of sources I typically use as painting guides.

These are some plates from the Osprey books.









Here is another sample of an Osprey plate.
















I also like to use more contemporary sources if they are available. Here are some samples of these.

Officer...

















Standard Bearer...

















Musicians...

















& Line Infantry.

















The first step in getting ready to paint (for me anyway) is the removal of flash, mold lines, and other such aspects of the raw figure.

Once this is done I then glue each miniature to a roofing nail.

This rather strange picture is just showing the prepped minis getting ready to be primed.




Perhaps this is a better picture. Actually it isn't; it's a bit fuzzy isn't it?!







I'm not the best photographer when it comes to small items. Hopefully I'll get better.

Anyway, in this pic you can see the Officer, Drummer, and one of the Standard Bearers.

Here are the same minis, just bit more organized and primed.








And these are the same Officer, Drummer, and Standard Bearer.






You might have noticed the 'spear' looking thing laying on the wood block. Keep this in mind for later.

Before I go much further, perhaps I should explain a little about the unit to be painted.

As I said earlier, the unit is going to be a Russian Infantry battalion of 1812.

The Russian infantry battalion of 1812 consisted of 1 Grenadier and 3 Infantry companies, composed of 2 platoons each. Of special note, the Grenadier company consisted of a Strelki platoon and a Grenadier platoon.

This is what the typical Russian infantry battalion would look like in "Closed Column by Division".






BTW - the Russian's had two other 'Column' formations besides this one.

The miniature unit is based on the 'In the Grand Manner' Napoleonic Rules. So, at a 'miniature to real man' ratio of 1:20 this Russian battalion will have 32 miniatures.

This is what the miniature battalion will look like.



O = Officer; F = Standard Bearer; D = Drummer; S = Strelki; G = Grenadier X = Infantryman.

Now lets get back to those photos that had the spear type thing on the wooden block. remember those?

Anyway, that spear was actually the flag staff that had been on the miniature. It snapped off right after the figures were primed.

I was not happy. This meant that the staff would have to be replaced with metal wire.

So, after a long drawn out process of removing the remainder of the flag staff it was replaced with 1/16 brass rod.

I used a pin drill, X-acto blades, and a tiny file to to dig out the remains. Just to make matters worse, I went ahead and tortured myself by replacing the flag staff on the other figure so that they would match. To finish these new flag staffs out finials will need to be added.

Here is how they ended up looking.

To be honest, the results were not as good as I had hoped, but it could have been worse.

Maybe they will look better once finished.

I do know I won't be doing this again unless there is no other choice. At least the flag staffs on the British unit waiting in the wings are good!

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry