A few more Admins Victorians

I'm hoping to get most of the Victorian Admins pictures together...

VIC05 Gent in evening dress drawing pistol.

 

VIC09 Gent in topper and overcoat drawing swordstick

VI15 Adam (Frankenstein's Monster). Like the face on this character - most Admins faces I don't like!

 

VIC03 Thug in shirtsleeves with broken bottle.

 

A bit of silliness as a work in progress. Always wanted to do a set of Christmassy figures to play with but never got any of the ones Paul Ashton did. Plus didn't get my hands on the moulds. Anyway, I'm rubbish with greenstuff, but thought I'd give it a try. Red for goodies, green for baddies - the Victorians often did FC in green rather than red. Some of the Admin figures look very useful for a cartoon/toy Christmas grouping... Silly, not very good, but showing promise...

1897 Redone Artillery

40lber/4.7" gun redone and crew added. Looks much better!

Original idea was for a two man crew but this looked silly so I've added an officer - later I'll probably make the crew up to five men. This size gun needs it.

The gun needs a bit of retouching but I don't think I'll bother at the moment - no doubt later on I'll start feeling guilty and sort the wheel, just now I'm reverting to my 'These are toys' stance.

I sometimes feel a bit guilty about the 'blobby' faces - again, I just say 'toy' and move on.

The officer is a bit weird. Noticed it when painting the red stripe down his trousers - the leg is in a weird position. Doesn't seem to have a kneecap and it bends forward in an... odd... fashion.

I was only going to have one gun with my 'army' but suspect that a full 3 or 4 gun battery is on the cards at some stage.

1897 The first of the invaders

First unit of French infantry finished. Figures used are Irregular 42mm from the Franco-Prussian War Range

Very much toy soldier for lots of reasons. For a start, what colour blue? Every picture looks different. Finally settled on Vallejo Model Colour dark blue - 70.930.

Next, unit size. On Regimental organisation, 151st Line Infantry Regiment in 1914 site suggests each Brigade included 2 Regiments. The Renegade Miniatures site and French Regiments of Infantry amplified this by saying each Regiment had 3 Battalions. So, even though 1914, quite happy to go with this.  How many companies is another issue. Renegade Miniatures suggest 5 companies - 'and whilst a battalion officially consisted of 1,000 men (approx. 200 men making a company),' - but 151st suggests 4 companies of 250 men.

So, on balance it seems reasonable to stick with 4 men per Battalion, therefore 12 men per Regiment - except the figures I got from Irregular are in 8s... so I'm going to have them leave one Battalion per Regiment at home!

One thing I'm not sure about is the flag - do I leave them plain or try for some fancy gold letters? Thinking about that one! 

1897 New Line regiment

Back to basics... this unit was already half finished but I stopped when I started painting the Scots Grays.

So, I now have four Regiments of infantry completed - one Grenadiers, two Line and one Highland. Enough for a whole Brigade!

1897 the Guns

For obvious reasons I'm not doing as much painting and posting at the moment - other things occupying my time. So, looked for something quick and easy and settled on painting a couple of the guns.

The British at the time used the Maxim. I took an Irregular tripod mounted machine gun, chopped off  the tripod and fixed it on a Gatling carriage. At this point I remind myself 'toy' - wheels too small, no gun shield and no seat for the gunner on the trail. Long term though - I'll be looking at options.

The 40 pounder mentioned in the book is the 4.7" RML gun that remained in use until 1902. It's a Spencer Smith model, not particularily accurate but toy...

 Colour scheme for both guns is just a plain green. I think that the Maxim should have more of a natural wood finish, perhaps the 4.7" should be grey - could rethink colour schemes in the future.

Admins Victorians

Together with the WS Range one that I quite like - they are quirky.