Three Imrie-Risley hussars-SBS (1 Viewer)

[theBaron]

Afternoon, everybody!

I'd like to start this thread and share a step-by-step on how I paint my toy soldiers.

The subject is a trio of Imrie-Risley hussar figures, from Bill Imrie's original Hellenic line. I picked these up at Ed Gries' Bucks County Toy Soldier Show last year, and this is as good a time as any to paint them and get them off the bench

Here is a shot of the three figures, from the front, after a coat of primer:

You can see the variety possible with these figures, using the same basic torso with different arms. There is one figure with a carbine, one with a bugle, and one holding his drawn saber. In my mind's eye, I saw these three as an officer, scouting, with two of his squadron.

The kits were cast with the pelisses separate.

Here is a shot from the back of these figures:

Nice enough detail on these, for my purposes. They actually represent French hussars of the late ancien regime or early Republic, but since the details are almost identical, I will paint them as Prussians from the Seven Years War. The only real modification I had to make was to fill in the lace on the front of their breeches. The castings have that engraved on the front. I used several applications of Mr. Surfacer 1200 to fill in that detail.

Notice, too, the officer had a mishap while I took the pictures-his right arm fell off. This illustrates what we've discussed elsewhere in the forum, about assembling figures, and what kinds of adhesive to use. I'll address this minor setback, in the next post.

Prost!
Brad

 

[theBaron]

Having primed these figures, I was all set to start painting them. However, ol' "Thumbs" here knocked the arm off the one figure, and that needs to be fixed, first.

In the previous set, if you look closely, you can see the small nub I/R cast on the arms, as attachment points. Those are laughably useless as anchoring points. You can put glue into the shoulder hole, and an epoxy would hold, but it's a weak joint, and prone to becoming brittle over time. Should the figure tip over, as these will, if they're not attached to a larger base, the arm will come off.

So, what I've done is my usual pin job. Here are the tools that I'll use, and the piece of work itself:

First, I sliced the nub off the arm with an X-Acto knife, then used a drill bit chucked into my pin vise to drill a hole where the nub had been. The scar from the nub served to mark the spot. I also used the same bit to open up the hole in the figure's shoulder. It didn't need much, there was already a relatively deep hole there, about 3mm. But this made the hole the right size for the piece of brass that I used.

I mixed some 2-part 15-minute epoxy, put some in the hole, and inserted the brass rod (see the pic above). I cut this pin off, about 3mm from the shoulder. That gives me plenty of length to hang the arm.

Slathering some more of the epoxy on the pin, I fit the hole in the arm over it, then held it for 15 minutes, while the epoxy set:

Once the glue cured, I can clean up the pin, which I do by grinding down with the grinding bit shown below, chucked into my Dremel:

The brass is soft enough that it grinds down easily, yet not so soft that it grinds too quick, with the danger of damaging the piece.

Here's a shot now, of our officer, with his shoulder cleaned up, and ready for re-priming:

and another angle, to see what the scar looks like:

If I really wanted to be anal-retentive about it, I would have disassembled each of the figures and pinned each arm joint. But they still seemed strong enough, so I've left them as they are.

First application of color will follow in the next post....

 

[aujj65]

Good on you Brad!.........it's nice to see how-to's from this side of the paint pot for a change Looking forward to this.

Jeff

Btw, when do you start painting the Green?

 

[Wraith]

Look forward to seeing your project progress Brad.

And don't listen to Jeff, green is soooo last season's colour.

 

[theBaron]

Good on you Brad!.........it's nice to see how-to's from this side of the paint pot for a change Looking forward to this.

Jeff

Btw, when do you start painting the Green?

Thanks, Jeff, you've settled the choice of regiment for me.

There were two hussar regiments in Frederick's army, that were known as "Green Hussars", from the color of their dolmans. One was the Kleist-Husaren, named for its commander, Friedrich Wilhelm von Kleist, and the other was the regiment commanded by Paul von Werner. Since Kleist's hussars wore busbies, I'll paint these as Werner's. That works out well, since I don't have any Werner hussars in my collection yet.

Prosit!
Brad

 

[aujj65]

Thanks, Jeff, you've settled the choice of regiment for me.

There were two hussar regiments in Frederick's army, that were known as "Green Hussars", from the color of their dolmans. One was the Kleist-Husaren, named for its commander, Friedrich Wilhelm von Kleist, and the other was the regiment commanded by Paul von Werner. Since Kleist's hussars wore busbies, I'll paint these as Werner's. That works out well, since I don't have any Werner hussars in my collection yet.

Prosit!
Brad

Ha Ha! good choice Brad, are you watching Simon?



Jeff

 

[thebritfarmer]

Ha Ha! good choice Brad, are you watching Simon?



Jeff

He's not only watching he is "green" with envy.

Excellent Brad I will watch your figures develop and been very informative thus far. You certainly know your stuff.

 

[theBaron]

'Ev'ning, everybody!

NORM!

No "Cheers" fans?

Anyway, here's the next installment, and I have to start with a bit of bad news for Jeff. After checking my sources, I realized that I misspoke about the choice of green for these hussars.

The 6th regiment wore brown, not green. Here are some shots from one of my references, Dorn & Engelmann's "The Cavalry Regiments of Frederick the Great".

Here are an officer and man of the "Green", or Kleist's Hussars:

and here are an officer and man from the "Brown", or Werner's Hussars:

The pictures may not show it that clearly, but these are prints of water-color sketches, and the brown of the Werner hussar uniforms appears so washed-out to my eye, that it looks a lot like the green used elsewhere in the book. It's not as dark, for example, as the brown used for the harness, or the stocks of the carbines.

Now, Dorn & Engelmann don't give colors, in their text descriptions, they give regimental histories. I went to my other main source, Osprey's "Men at Arms Series Nr. 236-Frederick the Great's Army-Cavalry", to see if I could clarify. The color plates include an officer of the Brown Hussars, and even there, the brown looks awfully close to an olive drab to me. But the text includes descriptions as well, and unfortunately, brown it is:

So, I'll have to make it up to you in a future post, Jeff. I have a bunch of Jäger from Ken at All the King's Men, so I'll do those as one of my next batch of figures.

And now, to the figures themselves. I've roughed in their faces, and their buckskin breeches, using Testor's gloss enamel 1116 Cream. A front view:

I use this color as a skin color for all Causcasians in my toy soldier collection, and also, for this kind of buckskin. Here's a view from the rear:

"Buckskin" in this case was not necessarily deerskin, as we here in North America would expect, but could be goatskin as well. I've only painted the upper portion of the breeches, because eventually, I'll paint in the leggings that hussars wore, the Scharawaden, which covered the lower part of their breeches.

Next time, the main uniform colors will be roughed in...

 

[aujj65]

'Ev'ning, everybody!

NORM!

No "Cheers" fans?

Anyway, here's the next installment, and I have to start with a bit of bad news for Jeff. After checking my sources, I realized that I misspoke about the choice of green for these hussars.

The 6th regiment wore brown, not green. Here are some shots from one of my references, Dorn & Engelmann's "The Cavalry Regiments of Frederick the Great".

Here are an officer and man of the "Green", or Kleist's Hussars:

Brad! What's going on?? Just paint them as Kleist's Hussars and have done with it!

Interesting that you use "cream" for the flesh, saves having to mix colours.

Looking good even without the green

Jeff

 

[theBaron]

Hi, Jeff, sorry, wrong heads for the Green Hussars they wore busbies. Quelle dommage!

I do have some figures of the Green Hussars in my collection, though. I haven't gotten to that batch yet, but they're next on the list to photograph and post.

Prost!
Brad

 

[aujj65]

Hi, Jeff, sorry, wrong heads for the Green Hussars they wore busbies. Quelle dommage!

I do have some figures of the Green Hussars in my collection, though. I haven't gotten to that batch yet, but they're next on the list to photograph and post.

Prost!
Brad

I bet Simon put you up to this! , just pulling your leg!

Brad, I forgot to say that these are some nice quality castings and I assume that are made for the model rather than the toy style market.

Jeff

 

[theBaron]

I bet Simon put you up to this! , just pulling your leg!

Brad, I forgot to say that these are some nice quality castings and I assume that are made for the model rather than the toy style market.

Jeff

You're right, Jeff-on the second point

Imrie and Risley were among the first American makers of metal figures intended for painters, as opposed to traditional toy soldiers. There are more detailed figures available today, of course, but I/R figures are still in production, and are still popular.

For some subjects, like Hessians, and British light dragoons from the 18th century, I don't think you can find anyone else making figures today, Imrie-Risley are the only ones.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Wraith]

....unfortunately, brown it is
...

Champion choice of colour sir, champion!

I was going to feign indifference to this thread, rather than pamper to the goadings of the Pro-Green lobby, but as you've realised that there's no future in green colour, I'll add my thanks for posting the progress Brad.

Simon

 

[aujj65]

Champion choice of colour sir, champion!

I was going to feign indifference to this thread, rather than pamper to the goadings of the Pro-Green lobby, but as you've realised that there's no future in green colour, I'll add my thanks for posting the progress Brad.

Simon

Really!

Ok, no more paint colour related jokes on this thread then.

Jeff

 

[Wraith]

Really!

Ok, no more paint colour related jokes on this thread then.

Jeff

I don't believe you.

 

[aujj65]

I don't believe you.

Ok……….I bet you a pint at the March London show that there will be no more Green comments on this thread.

There, said it!

Jeff

Btw it will have to be Crème de menthe!

.................starting from now!

 

[theBaron]

Alright boys! Mr. Goldsmith, what is that? A bottle of green paint? Bring it up here, place it on my desk, you'll get it back at the end of the term. Simon, report to the headmaster's office.

Seriously, here are the latest pics, our hussars have tunics now:

I paint two coats, to get good coverage with the gloss enamels that I use.

Here is a rear view:

I've started on the Pelze, too, the fur trim is picked out in white, with yellow cord braiding. The officer's Pelz will have gold lace braiding.

Those pics to follow....

 

[theBaron]

Here's a quick update...

Starting from where I was in the last pictures, which was Wednesday night, I've added more details, including the leggings, and the faces:

I've done one pass on painting the eyes, and as you may notice, I've gone back with the flesh color, to cover over a place here or there where I twitched when trying to paint the figures' eyes.

Much as I like these castings, I do concede, their faces are cast in such a way that I have a hard time painting the eyes the way I'd prefer-a line for the upper lid or eyelash line, with a dot for the eye. I can only really paint the eyebrow, with the eye under it.

Anyway, I'll have to repaint the officer's eyes, and the cornet's right eye. But even in my toy soldier style, I like it when I paint a figure's face, that's when the figure takes on whatever personality it will have.

Here's a rear view of the figures at this point:

Next time, the mirlitons, more of the braiding, and various pieces of equipment...

 

[aujj65]

Brad,

Coming along nicely I use Humbrol gloss enamels and I also find that with dark colours that two coats are required to get a good finish.

How do these match up with Tradition figures size wise?

Jeff

 

[theBaron]

Brad,

Coming along nicely I use Humbrol gloss enamels and I also find that with dark colours that two coats are required to get a good finish.

How do these match up with Tradition figures size wise?

Jeff

Hi, Jeff,

Here's a pic of 2 I/R hussar figures, with a Stadden hussar and a Tradition British grenadier, for a side-by-side comparison:

The Imrie hussars scale out at a true 54mm, as does the Tradition grenadier, while the old Stadden is closer to 60mm. To my eye, the slenderness or stockiness of the figures plays a part, too, in the overall impression. I have a couple of the Stadden hussars, but they're just too chunky, so I prefer these Imrie-Risley figures (though not exclusively, as some photos in my other threads will show)

Another installment of the in-progress will follow....