Milestone passed and (some) figures painted!

It just slipped by without me noticing - 100,000 visitors to my little blog!

Yippee! Who'd-a-thought it eh?

I have to confess that I have been somewhat distracted with little chance to blog as the program of works for my recent retirement reaches fever pitch.  For example: just finished putting in 35 meters of Colorbond fence - or rather remove the old one (and attached greenery) so the contractor can put the new one in.  Crikey - I underestimated the job - it filled a 4 meter skip with enough rubbish left over for another.  Damn job nearly killed me (old age is a bugger!) - luckily my boys were here to lend a hand at the last moment (and get to play with the chainsaw as a reward!) and we got the job done.  Well, just about - my lumberjack ambitions are still to be realised with two more trees to fell.  But ah got mah boys and mah trusty Stihl - them thar trees will be match-wood in no time!  (ok, ok - no more lumberjack talk!)

Long and short of it is all my painting projects have had to be put on hold - just for the moment.

But I haven't exactly neglected my hobby either.  I've been trying to organise my Napoleonic figures into suitable forces for the next Black Powder game scheduled at the club next weekend.  Its been a bit tricky to say the least balancing home and hobby lately.  Nonetheless SOME progress has been made since my French Chasseurs were finished. I've decided to get stuck into the avalanche of Perrys' that have arrived as well as finishing off others that have been on the back-burner such as my Victrix Austrian Landwehr.  I'm halfway through my Perry Hungarian Grenadier battalion but more than that with the Victrix with one group of 16 finished and two more at least half done.

The finished Victrix Landwehr - with very en-vogue wintery dark grey clobber with red highlights!
Very nice lads.  Wait a sec - Oi! Number two - where's your bleedin' 'at then?

I must say that the Victrix turned out better than I thought they would.  I've always though them a bit too cartoonish and large but although on the big side for 28mm figures, they still fit my 'orrible old WRG sized bases (four figures to a 60mm x 20mm) - just!  And the flags supplied in the box literature are very good quality. Plenty of other figures painted or in the process of being painted, some of which have been seen in previous posts (like the Fallschirmjaeger), my Polish command stand and others which haven't made the blog like my ACW figures - an extra VMI gun (made from a Perry's Union Napoleon and crew) and two Sash and Sabre artillery limbers or even some of my TYW figures - more Poles from the Polish Commonwealth army of the early-mid 1600s (command stand).  Which reminds me - I've got to put together and paint a regiment of TYW dragoons!

Polish shotte command - mixture of figures including old Foundry, Redoubt and God-knows-what!

But the interesting thing was in addition to exploring my photography (i.e. of the none wargaming variety!) I also I picked up the pencils and tried a bit of drawing again.  Its been quite a while and my skills were very rusty. I think I may have over-worked it but not entirely un-happy with the way it turned out. Don't like the straps on the pack but... In fact I may ink this one in and do some more - when I get the time!

Polish infantryman in campaign dress 4th Regt Vistula Legion.

We do love the Poles and my 1st Regt Vistula Legion are looking likely to see action next weekend if all goes well. Still got two more battalions and an artillery battery to do as well but I had no idea when I'll be able to get to them!

My Polish pretty boys will hopefully get blooded in next week's BP game.

Well, that just about does it for this brief post - beats my usual marathon AAR's!  Game-wise we have a Crete campaign (Op MERCURY) one planned - but not sure when exactly - and I have my German Gebirgsjaeger  to put together as well.  But the big one will be the Napoleonic game next week which will feature most of my collection.  We are also contemplating a Carlist Wars game using Doug's collection of Perrys and if we can organise it, another TYW game with my Poles.

It would be very remiss of me if I did not thank all of you - now a massive 148 followers!!! ;-) who have taken the time to visit my humble blog and particularly those who take the time to comment and with whom I have intermittent correspondence over the blogosphere. I cannot tell you all just how therapeutic and fulfilling it is as well as being an outlet for my somewhat eclectic wargaming tastes!

A very big Thank You to one and all.

Cheers,
          Doc

PS:  I usually don't edit my posts that long after posting them but this time I had to as I completely forgot something that I was very excited to find in the first place. You see I have found the original painting by Edouard Detaille of the charge of the 4th Hussars at Friedland.

What's so great about that you may ask? Well, although the image of the artwork has been captured in print and replicated many times, particularly on the Web, the original painting was 'lost' for over 50 years.  It was bought by the NSW State Gallery just after the turn of the last century (so early 1900s) from its exhibition in the French Academy. After hanging in the Gallery for over thirty years it was considered old hat and consigned to the basement where it languished for decades. It was rediscovered about 7 or 8 years ago but in a very poor state, badly damaged by damp. A publicly funded subscription saw it restored - that alone took nearly five years. It then went to the High Court building in Canberra (or so I was informed) but my inquiries suggested it may not have been there.  So I'm heading to the Archibald Portrait Prize exhibition at the State, I walk through one of the main halls and viola - there it is!

It is one of if not the largest painting in the collection at some 30 ft long and twenty high - the main figure of the mounted officer is at least life size.  Its stunning to stand in front and look at.  It is a truly amazing painting and even more amazing, the painting so admired by Napoleonic affectionados and wargamers the world over actually resides here in Australia. Not only that, Lady Butler's(?) 'Rorkes Drift' - another famous battle painting - hangs just down the hall from it.  Apparently it was purchased by the NSW Academy around the same time as Detaille's Hussars.

Detaille detail - the trumpeter behind the officer - he's about 1 & 1/2 meters high and he's in the background!
It is a huuuuge painting!

If you are ever in Sydney, its well worth the visit to the NSW State Gallery to see them.  Anyway, just thought I'd share this with my blog followers as I'm sure some of you appreciate this great art as much as I do.

Cheers,
           Doc

Milestone passed - and a big thanks from Doc's 'Art of War'

It slipped by unnoticed a few days ago but Doc's 'Art of War' blog just passed a blogging milestone of sorts.  Since October 2009, some 99 posts later, this blog passed the 40,000 hits mark! Yaaaay!

So as Old Mate Karl says, a big 'thank you' to all of you who have visited this blog and particularly those who have taken the time to make such generous comments on it. 

This blog has been an eclectic mix of militaria from many periods ranging from the Renaissance to WWII and even fantasy including Warhammer and LOTR, both artwork and figures, models and wargaming - with the odd bit of military history thrown in from time to time. It reflects my own reasonably diverse interests and is, of course, entirely self-indulgent!

Needless to say the discovery of blogging has been somewhat of a revelation and has proven to be a tremendous avenue of release for creativity - all constantly inspired by the brilliant efforts of my fellow blogging enthusiasts!

I am constantly amazed at the quality and artistic creativity of my fellow enthusiasts and have learned so much from so many of you - so thanks again to all for supporting my own very modest efforts.

At the end of the day its great therapy.  I've found that later in life, when one does mad things like finishing a university degree near the end of one's career while at the same time juggling work and a large and busy family, to retain sanity  some indulgence is called for.

Blogging Doc's 'Art of War' fits the bill nicely!

Hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have, I look forward to the next 100 posts/40,000 hits!

Cheers,
           Doc

The Kaiserliks

 Austrian Advance Guard consisting of Uhlans, Grenzer & Hungarian infantry

 Relaxing after finishing my uni work, I decided that I needed to re-train myself to draw.  Its been a while and I'm a bit rusty so I thought I'd start simple with some of my favourite figures from my favourite Napoleonic army.  I used my figures and some Ottenfeld drawings (my favourite military artist ja!) to try a few rough sketches.

The first is a grenadier in his famous fanteul - 'armchair' bearskin.  Its not a patch on Herr Ottenfeld's but perhaps its captured something of a 'German' grenadier of the period.

All grenadier companies (two per regiment) were put together in converged brigades as part of the Reserve Division, together with the heavy cavalry (usually Kuirassier) and positional artillery (usually 12 pdrs).  As the Austrian army didn't have elite formations, in a sense these grenadier units were it.

Advance Div 1809 (at least two more Gren 'divisions' for another bde required)

I did a few more sketches, the one that I think turned out best (next to the grenadier) was one of an Austrian 'German' fusilier.  He's wearing the leather helmet with woolen 'caterpillar' crest, brought in from 1798 to replace the old leather casket type cap.  These were all eventually replaced by the shako as they thought the helmet too expensive.  The Hungarian regiments got their shakos first, so that by 1809, most were wearing them but the German regiments still had their helmets with some regiments like Deutschmeister, holding onto theirs long after the others had replaced them with shakos.

Our 'Kaiserlik' was part of two field battalions - the third being a depot or training battalion - forming a 'German' regiment, two of which formed a brigade (two brigades, standard line division).  Nominal paper strength was 4,575 men with a wartime establishment of 230 men and 4 officers per company (6 companies per bttn) although the usual muster strength was around 180 per company in practice.  This naturally shrunk alarmingly through attrition in the field.  By the time of Wagram, after a few months campaigning, many companies were about 60-80 men. 

Line Division with attached Jaeger battalion and div artillery (6 or 9 pdrs)

The Austrians never had light companies in their line regiments, but separate light infantry regiments - not to be confused with the Grenzer or Border regiments, who also used to act as light infantry (although less so as the wars progressed).  A Jaeger regiment of three battalions of six companies was formed in 1801 to replace the light infantry. By 1808 it was expanded to nine 'divisions' each of six companies.  These divisions were spread throughout the line formations and with the specialist Advance Guard Division.   I tried sketching a Jaeger but he didn't turn out that well so I'll have to try again sometime.

Light Cavalry Division with attached battery (6 pdrs) - the Austrians didn't have horse artillery

I do like my Austrian army which I will have to get back into action again soon!  

I've also been toying with the idea of a uniform guide for the Austrians that will be a bit more practical than the very historically based Ospreys. If I did it it would be aimed specifically at wargamers to provide all the basic information needed to collect and paint an Austrian army. But I wonder if anybody would want one? Got to practice my drawing though - its still a bit shaky after such a long absence.

Well, that's about it for now. I've just been modeling and base-coating my French hussars and will have to get stuck into them next.

Auf Wiedersehen Meine Liebchen - Fur Gott, Kaiser und Vaterland!

Doc

More artwork for your blogging delectation

As promised, after finishing some uni work (5,000 word APA referenced essay - phew!) I dug out a few more of the drawings.  Apart from the line art of the AWI Hessian, I do feel these are definitely 'second string' drawings.   I do have a 'clean' colourized version of the Hessian but its also in the Kriegspieler cover art on an earlier post, so I thought the line art would be better.

As before, all artwork is copyright to me, so feel free to download it for personal use, but if you re-post it on the 'net, or reproduce it by other means, don't forget to attribute it!  I have been warned about posting original artwork on the 'net so excuse me if I now sound totally paranoid - psychotic even - BUT if I find it advertising something else or claimed as artwork by anyone but me (as one may guess - its happened before!) I shall be obliged to track down the lowlife perpetrator and shoot them in the head with a tank.

There, can't be fairer than that!


The carabinier was meant as a colour guide when I was painting up the Italeri set (1/72 plastics) some years ago.  I got the perspective wrong on the cavalryman and somehow foreshortened the body in the saddle and for the life of me couldn't redraw and fix it - didn't like the horse much either - not a great head on him.  I gave up in the end and just coloured it in - more important to get the figures painted!

I always had a fascination with Napoleon and his Egyptian campaign with its exotic uniforms and the wild Mameluke horsemen he vanquished so the next one is of a Mameluke of the Imperial Guard.  Again, I like the uniform but not the head on him.  Perhaps one day I'll re-do it.  I did have a much better looking coloured version but I think that one went 'West' a long time ago.  With the remaining line art colouring is always an option, so I may do that.

It was also intended as a colour guide for some 20mm plastic Mamelukes (HaT I think) a 'connoisseur' figure of which I did up to see how detailed I could get something that size. While a fairly pedestrian figure, I ended up with a good result from the painting. A picture of him may be on an earlier post on this blog (my 20mm French?). 


The last one is of a Polish Vistula Legion (with Napoleon's army in Northern Italy) Horse gunner.  It is a dream of mine that one day someone like the Perrys will do a complete 28mm set of Polish horse artillery in czapka.  Meanwhile I'll keep scribbling them because I like 'em so much.  My next project (well, ONE of my next...)  is a Polish army.  As followers of my blog will know from my postings, I do like doing French allied troops: Italians, Bavarians, Badeners etc, etc.

Its also my only one in action - clearly I need a lot more practice drawing soldiers of that era in action!

Well retirement beckons (I know, I know - after university - go figure!?!) and I may just do a bit more of this purely for the satisfaction of well... just doing it right!

But until then, this is the last of the artwork I can find, so I hope my fellow blogsters like it but future postings will most likely be of more figures painted, not artwork. After the next uni assignment that is!

Cheers,
          Doc

Some more of Doc's art

A friend asked me for a print of some artwork I did some years ago.  Fossicing through my old artwork I found the print and quite a few others, some of which were pretty naff but others were, I hope, worthy of posting on the blog.  They are mainly of Napoleonic soldiers - a selection of French, Austrian, Polish and Rhineland Confederation (Napoleon's German allies).

First cab off the rank is the colour version of one I published in an earlier post:  an Eclairer of the Guard.  This short-lived unit (1813-14) was formed in response to the French experience of the cossacks!  These were about as irregular as French cavalry got and performed prodigious feats as scouts and skirmishers for the hugely outnumbered and hard-pressed French army in 1814.  It is telling that at a time of great shortages of all cavalry types, Napoleon made it a priority to form several regiments of  new cavalry.  From all accounts these guys out-cossacked the cossacks!  I don't know if the unit was reformed for the Belgium campaign in 1815.

 The next one is another light cavalryman - this time a Pole circa 1812 - one of Poniatowski's Guides.  I did a rather cartoonish rendering of him as I have a rare old Historex model of one to build and wanted to create a painting guide for it.



The next two are of my favourite Napoleonic army - the Austrians.  It was the first one I collected and at one point contemplated sculpting my own range of 25mm hard plastic figures, so I decided on some artwork to start the process off.  Unfortunately I had neither the time or money (or sculpting skill!) to see it through, so the artwork was the end of the process too!

The next is a Wurttemburg Chevau Leger (Light Horse) which I did for a German friend of mine who's family were from Wurttemburg.  He could trace his ancestry back to a Landesknecht in 1530 something and told me that many had been soldiers including some who either fought with or against Napoleon.  The Wurttemburgers were some of Napoleon's best German allied troops. The trooper depicted was from the elite Light Horse regiment that particularly distinguished itself in the 1809 campaign against Austria.  Unlike many of the other 'Rhinebund' troops, these guys didn't go to Spain but to Russia with Napoleon where they were pretty much wiped out.  I'd like to think my friend's ancestor was one of the lucky few who made it home!


The last one is a French 5th Hussar officer.  I did this one off a photo of a model in the Army Museum in Paris wearing the original uniform.  This is the colour version of the line drawing I posted earlier.  I've decided to make my Perry's hussars up as the 5th - simple colours for a hussar but tres elegant nes par?

Last but not least, I used to get into cartooning and drew this one for one of my sons to go with his Orc army (that I collected on his behalf!)  The drawing was blown up to A3 size, coloured and mounted on his bedroom door - it was a lot more popular with him than the fantasy figures I painted!

All the pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.  They are all original artwork and copyright, so feel free to download them but if you want to use them don't do it for any commercial purpose and remember to attribute OK?  I hate to ask but the web is notorious for people pinching other people's creations and using them as their own!  Not cool!!

Hope visitors to this blog enjoyed this artistic interlude - back to some figure painting as soon as I've gotten a uni essay or two out of the way!

Cheers,
           Doc

Some inspiration is found ...and some more cover artwork

What the heck - got most of the base colours down on the cuirassiers and the casualty markers but haven't got any WIP shots yet.  Found an unreal reference source for the cuirass - Sacha Herm's website.

The man is a genius.

What he manages to achieve with the Perry figures has got to seen to be believed.  His site appears to also be hosted on the Perry one - click on the Gallery for the Napoleonic 1815, then on his name.  Herm's latest will come up.

The first you are greeted with is his mounted Poniatowski - its enough to make you weep its so... perfect!  I'm serious - take a look and you'll see for yourself.

Did I mention Herm even has his own DVD tutorial available?  Seriously thinking about ordering it myself!

For my part I'm using his 7th Cuirassier vignette as my reference.  When I studied art at school I was encouraged to copy the masters to improve my own technique.  I figure its the same with figure painting!  With the likes of Dave Imrie, Giles Alison and others we have a host of hugely talented painters to learn from.

That's been one of the joys about my belated discovery of blogging - all this knowledge and artistry is but a click or two away! And you can interact with these miniature painting Michelangelos' through their own blogs.

How good is that?

Here Endeth the Rave.  Back to the brushes!

No, wait... I feel more raving coming on...  not - done - yet...

Just 'cos I like 'em so much - such great original GW figures (Kislev Lancers) - here's another shot of my Polish Winged Hussars that I found when I rediscovered my old artwork. Enjoy.

Winged Hussars posted for no special reason other than the fact we likes 'em!

I decided to edit this post to add some matching (sort of) artwork...  the last cover piece I 'discovered' recently, medieval Russian super-troopers, the Druzhina. These guys were the bodyguards for knyaz or chieftains and lasted from as early as 800s until the 15th C - the one depicted is circa mid to late 1400s. A bit off topic for my usual but he was such a great figure I couldn't resist drawing him.

BTW - while I remember it, thanks to another great blog I found today - the BigRedBatCave (and yet another talented figure painter specialising in Ancients) there is a competition of sorts to vote for your fave blog at the Best Blog of the Year Award at the impossibly named Figoblogotheque site... blog... thingy.  Check it out and put your vote in.  There are some great blogs there such as those I've mentioned above and Yours Truly might even get a guernsey!

Cheers,

          Doc

More 'Doc' art...

Thanks for the nice responses to my last posting, so while I continue to beaver away at the cuirasssier & dead'uns, here are two more of the 'lost' Kriegspieler cover artwork.  The first is the scan of the sketch of a French Hussar, taken from a photo of an exhibit of a 7th Hussar uniform at the Musee De Armee in Paris.

To be honest, I think the B&W version is better than the colour one I did - must have had difficulties in scanning the latter as the old colour jpegs were huuuuuge files! 

The next you'll recognise from the blog mast: 'Grognard' - depicting a Chasseur of the Guard in greatcoat as he may have appeared on campaign.

Please feel free to use the above and other artwork or photos, all I ask if visitors to this blog want to use them in their own or post them elsewhere is proper attribution - tell 'em where you got 'em and who did 'em.

Other than that - enjoy!  I've got to get back to my (too) rapidly drying paint!

Cheers,

    Doc

Doc's 'art' - some of my old mag covers

Fishing around in my study looking for something I came across some old disks that contained some military images I collected.  Curiosity peaked, I had to find out was was on them - lo and behold!  I found the scans for all or most of my old magazine cover artwork.

You see boys and girls, once upon a time in years gone by (ten years gone by to be precise!) I edited and published a wargaming magazine.  Myself and my mate Doug thought it a good idea and we put a huge amount of our time, energy and money into making it happen.  And for about 12 months (and six issues in glorious colour covers) it worked.  Sort of.

The original is on A3 art paper and properly framed up for a wargaming friend (bought by his wife for his birthday)

This chap was a Hessian grenadier from the American War for Independence. The intention was to draw a different one for each of our bi-monthly covers.  That was the intention - the reality soon settled in that we were flat-strap getting the articles written and chasing those to be submitted, the getting the layout right, doing the graphics and the ads and then the whole shebang to the printers.  Stupidly I provided a free advertising design service that included artwork etc which chewed up a lot more time and for which the mag didn't get a brass farthing in payment for - not the best of business practices!

Time to draw soon became a luxury.  You can well imagine how many figures got painted or wargames played.  Not a lot.

Some of the artwork never made it to the colour stage and there were one or two for our old black & white issues (there were six of them) that probably shouldn't have been! The French Guard Eclairer was one of the better ones published in glorious B&W.

The magazines are still on the redoubtable Russ Lockwood's 'Magweb' site if anyone is interested.

Well, there you have it - some of Doc's 'art'.  Hopefully I will have the time to pick up the pen and draw again one day - until then I'll just continue to paint a few more soldiers!

Cheers,

           Doc