What's Next?

The results of the poll are in and I want to thank the 92 people who voted. Here are the results:

1. Artillery crew (both sides)   39 votes
2. Dragoons (both sides)          23 votes
3. Personalities                         22 votes
4. More Militia                         14 votes
5. Continentals variants            12 votes

For most of the voting period, artillery and personalities were running neck in neck in what appeared to be a tight race. But then, the artillery had a strong finish and the personalities faded to third as the dragoon votes caught them at the end.

So here is what will come next - we plan to add two sets of four crew for both the Continentals and the British. Once crew will be in firing poses, while the second crew will be loading the gun or positioning the field piece.

There will also be a pair of limber horses and some civilian drivers.

And finally, we will have the limbers and start off with 3-pd and 6-pd field guns for both armies. However, it is not my turn in the sculpting queue yet, so I would estimate that we will bring the artillery to market around May/June 2012.

After that, who knows? It will either be Continentals in hunting shirts, dragoons or personalities.

British Mounted General - Painted

I spent about three hours last evening working on this new British Mounted General from the Fife & Drum range of AWI miniatures. He was fun to paint, and easy too, and I really liked the way that he turned out. Now I just have to figure out how to make a vignette on the base, either with another figure on foot, say, a drummer or officer, or a pile of rocks etc. Since his face has a "I mean business" look to him, I might christen him as Major General Charles (No Flint) Grey in Howe's army during the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777.

 Rear view of the general, along with some foot Guards for perspective.

A comparative picture of General Grey and Colonel Cadwalader of the Philadelphia Associators, again for perspective purposes.

Now I have to start on the officer/ADC holding his hat in his hand.

New Fife & Drum British Grenadier samples, painted

I couldn't wait to tuck into these little beauties on Friday night, so I stayed up late painting four sample figures of the new British Grenadiers so that I could see them in full painted kit. I hope that you like them as much as I do. Now off to paint the whole converged battalion!!!!

Note that the Grenadier drummer in bearskin can also be used as a centre company drummer too. I also have the same fellow wearing a brimmed campaign hat.

British Centre Company & Officers Pix

British Centre Company Figures & Mounted Officers

Fife & Drum British Regiment Preparing to Get The Prime of Their Lives

Here are a couple of quick photos of the actual lead figures. I washed 16 Grenadiers and about 32 Centre Company men plus the two mounted officers in a bath of rubbing alcohol to ensure that any mould release was cleaned off. The castings are very clean and crisp with nary a spec of flash. I did a little bit of filing underneath the saddles of the mounted officers, using a long rat-tail file. One or two swipes of the file and the figure was ready to be glued onto the horse.

In the picture above, the officer on the left hand side, holding his hat, is mounted on a Minden Miniatures standing horse. The officer on the right, with his hand on his hip, is mounted on a Fife & Drum horse. I plan to add more officers' horses in the future, but for now, I'm concentrating on getting the basic infantry, artillery and cavalry sculpted and into production. My objective is to have all combat arms done by this time next year.

I also affixed 16 of the marching grenadiers and the two others (at the ready or advancing/standing firing) onto temporary card bases, for priming and painting. So they are not shown in this picture. They are out in the garage getting grey primed. I plan to start on the first 16 grenadiers tomorrow, so I had to get them primed and ready for the brushes. The line companies will get painted next week. I'll have to rush off an order to GMB Designs for some British flags.

Well, I'm off to bed now, so good evening.

The British Have Arrived!!!!!!!!!!

STOP PRESS! British AWI Figures Arrived

I came home from work today and noticed a rather large and heavy box waiting for me in the front vestibule. I knew in an instant what it was -- the arrival of the British centre company and grenadier company figures from the caster.

Oh sweet monkeys -- these are gorgeous!!!!!!

I don't have time to post pictures this evening, for I'll be sorting figures and assigning stock numbers to each pose. I will post the stock numbers on this blog  tonight.

UPDATE: new stock numbers posted in right hand column

You can actually scroll down the page of this blog and see pictures of the greens.

More later, I've got some work to do.