Lance Heads

Greetings from the 'other side', as they say in these parts.

I was supposed to be painting gunners this weekend but somehow got distracted and ended up doing French line lancer conversions instead.

The officer is a conversion of a Der Kriegspieler Napoleoniques #49: French Guard lancer, with a Hinton Hunt French line lancer's head, a new sword to replace his lance, some new epaulettes and various other minor changes. It was nearly all done with solder apart from the sword, which started life as a Minifigs bayonet.

The trumpeter is a somewhat simpler recrafting of a broken Hinton Hunt FN 118: Light Horse Lancer in crested helmet, charging. Both are for my friend Rob G., by way of a swap and as a thank you for all sorts of vintage 20mm assistance over the last few years years. I may do a couple more like them for myself eventually....

We have a long weekend here in Welly, so there's still another day left to work on the gunners, but as the weather is rather glorious I don't rate their chances too highly.

Yours

WM

Update:

Rob reminded me that the trumpeter really ought to have fringed epaulettes of his own, so I popped some on this afternoon. The gunners never did get a look in.

Polish Off

I have finished the 7th Lancers at last. They've only taken me nine months. The varnish has yet to completely dry on the last three, which makes them particularly shiny, but I suppose that's only to be expected from French Polish.

The figures are:

Der Kriegspielers 39: French Line chevau-légers lanciers (Regiments 7-9) x 8;
Der Kriegspielers 49: French Guard Lancers (Polish and Dutch) x 1, converted to a trumpeter;
Der Kriegspielers 49: French Guard Lancers (Polish and Dutch) x 1, coverted to a DK 39;
Hinton Hunt  FN 43: Guard Lancer, charging, x 1, converted to a standard bearer; and
Hinton Hunt FN 41: Guard Lancer Trumpeter, x 1, converted to an officer!

Many thanks indeed to all those who encouraged me to keep going when I was flagging a bit. Special thanks are also due, of course, to Steve for supplying the missing castings; and Richard, my neighbour, who found me the perfect piece of brass.

Have a splendid weekend everyone.

WM

Opposite Pole

The Magnificent 7th

When Steve C heard about my lancer shortage he came to the rescue with the few Hinton Hunt and DK castings needed to complete the 7th (1st Vistula) Regiment of chevau-légers lanciers.

Bold as brass

The first to be painted is my trumpeter conversion of one of Steve's figures, in this case a DK 49: Guard Lancers (Polish and Dutch).





To make the trumpet arm the simplest thing to do was to remove the original lance arm altogether and replace it with a recast lancer arm supplied by John Cunningham, modified to hold one of my soldered trumpets.

My trumpeter's reversed-facings yellow coat was a bit of a challenge as I've not been very successful with yellow uniforms in the past. I tried a thin wash of brown over the yellow base coat to create a bit of contrast. It sort of worked!

As every one of my remaining lancers has required either conversion, repair or a bit of both, they've been very slow to get started. All things being equal they should start to appear over the next few posts.

WM