Thursday, May 27, 2010

Calling Up the Reserves!


King Wilhelm has called all able bodied men to the defense of the fatherland! Today the Herrsoldaten (gentleman pensioners) Regiment of the Konigreich der Bleiherzen marched off the the border to meet the rest of the Armee, encamped there. These old fellows are not as flashy as the younger regiments but are dependable and as long as the beer ration wagons are keeping up, are hard fighters as well!

This unit is my first unit of Spencer Smiths and I'm pretty happy with the result. These guys were done with a layered block painting approach that seems to suit these older castings.





I'm beginning to think there's nothing a .02 Micron pen, steady hand, and reasonably good eyes can accomplish with a bit of patience detail-wise, I even went so far as to add gaiter buttons on these, (not something I normally bother with because you really can't see them at "gaming distance") but for this unit, I thought it deserved a bit of extra effort.

I enjoyed painting the colonel and with some layering of colors on the horse, even the simple casting takes on a good bit of depth.

You can see also in these pics that I'm still to put buttons on the ensigns, some shading on the flags and such things, but I wanted to get the unit into reasonable trim to fight in the next battle this weekend so I'll save those details for later.

11 comments:

Mark Dudley said...

Very Nice. I am sure these chaps will be dependable and will soon earn some battle honours.

May I ask what type of beer they prefer. I am thinking a good dark pilsner suit them well.

Martin said...

Outstanding looking unit! One can almost hear the marching song they're no doubt bellowing out, knocking the birds from the trees.

"For a long time now, we've been marching off to battle.
In a lot of ways we feel a lot like cattle.
Our aching feet, the sounding beat, aren't easy to ignore.
What do we want? A girl worth fighting for!"
Mulan

Well done Littlejohn. Well done.

Capt Bill said...

Hw do these handsome lads compare in size to your RSM armies?

littlejohn said...

Mark,

Indeed, a dark pilsner is their weapon of choice,...and in fact they have been known to shout across the battlefield to their opponents, "can't we just settle this over a pint?"

littlejohn said...

Martin,

"...a girl worth fighting for"...I think a fitting motto for their Liebfhane, ...I'll translate that to German and paint it on to the flag!

Pjotr said...

I really do hope my Spencer Smith minis will turn out as good as yours. I envy your brush hand. Looking forward to the first battle honours.

Pjotr

Bluebear Jeff said...

Brave-looking fellows, I must say . . . and I particularly like the bases being the same color as the table top. It is a nice clean "old school" look that I like.


-- Jeff

Snickering Corpses said...

Very nicely done. I look forward to hearing the report of their first battle!

Fitz-Badger said...

You did these little fellows proud. Very nice job! And I like the uniform colors.

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Very pretty painting on those Spencer Smtih fellows! Your extra work on the standard bearers is impressive. To my eyes, these old figures, together with the extra time and care you have taken to paint them to a high standard, rival any "modern" range of 18th Century figures. Well done!

Best Regards,

Stokes

tidders2 said...

Super unit, I'm sure they'll perform well on the field of battle

-- Allan