Painted French Napoleonic Marine of the Imperial Guard

 In the last post I revisited my process for making shakos for my Napoleonic figures. Basically my original process of cutting a wooden spool in half, hollowing it out, etc. was a lot of work. Lopping the top of the pawn's head off did remove the step of hollowing out the shako, but cutting was still difficult as I was using a mitre chop saw on a round object, so it was never straight.

Using my laser cutter I was able to cut out a shako shape by essentially slicing it horizontally. With that done, I needed to paint it to see how it looked once done. I needed something with a French-style shako and a plume, so I decided on one of my favorite French Napoleonic units: the Marines of the Imperial Guard, part of the Old Guard.

Interestingly, Funcken has the cuffs as blue, while others show them as having red cuffs. I wonder if perhaps that is the difference between the campaign and parade uniforms because the image above (of the campaign uniform) also does not have the hussar-style chest lace that the parade uniform has. Nonetheless this is the uniform I am going for.

As a reminder, this is the unpainted figure.

My big question was whether I should break out the Dremel tool and sand down the shako brim, making it thinner and more distinct, or rounding out the arms and feet.

Here is the figure, painted to a tabletop standard.

Probably going to touch up the figure a little. If I made a unit of these I would add a cartridge box to the right hip, a pack and bedroll, which means painting the black cross belts, and add a musket and the sword they wore. As it stands, this one will just be a specialty figure that can fill in as a spare gunner, and engineer, or a pontonier.

The only complaint I have is the feet are too long and possibly not wide enough. From the standpoint of the shako though, if the slices don't line up perfectly – and they did not in this experiment – then you really want some sort of gap filler or you should sand. I tried painting gesso on top, but that was not thick enough to fill all of the gaps.

Overall, I am happy with the shako and will be using this process for all my hats now. I can see using it to make an Austrian-style shako, a round hat (although I would need to play with woods of different thicknesses), and others. I might even be able to pull off a WWII German helmet, but I think that will take some sanding.

Revisiting Napoleonic Shakos

First off let me start by saying sorry that I have ignored this blog. If you read my Dale's Wargames or Solo Battles blogs you know I have been active over there, playing a map campaign in a fictional 1750 country and Marvel United, but not much in the way of this hobby.

I have written Matt (my co-author on the blog) and he is doing fine. He has done some RPG gaming (which he switched to online during lockdown) but has mostly been painting figures. I rotate hobbies (gaming, computer gaming, painting, terrain making, miniature making, laser cutting, etc.) too, so I understand how it goes. It all comes around in the rotation eventually.

Revisiting the Napoleonic Shako

One thing I have always contended regarding making figures is that, because we look at our figures on the table from above and behind, the hat of the miniature is one of the most important shapes to get right. It is how we generally identify what the figure represents, more so than probably any other part of the figure, save maybe color. The smaller the figure though, the less distinct the shape becomes and the more color is important. (When the figure gets too small, such as 6mm, they all just become blobs of dark color, so mass becomes more important.) Because I am building 42mm Napoleonic figures, the shape of the hat, or shako, is important.

Way back in May 2010 I built my first 42mm Napoleonics figures, on this blog, showcasing it on the Wargaming on a Budget forum on Yahoo (where I also met the group's creator, Matt). You can see the steps to making the shako were fairly involved.

1. Take a wooden (thread) spool and cut it in half.
2. Hollow out the inside of the half spool so it fits on the pawn's head.
3. Create a brim (peak) for the shako and glue it to the shako.
4. Plug the hole of the spool.
5. Add a pom pom to the shako.

     

Eventually I purchased a hobby mitre chop saw and I simply chopped the top of the pawn's head so that I could glue the half spool to the top and the pawn and skip the 'hollowing out' step.

So, what's wrong with this process? Using a small chop saw on a spherical wooden piece was not always a clean chop. If you put the pawn in the mitre saw's vice even slightly off the level horizontal line, the shako would cock at an angle. Cutting the wooden spool in half was even more problematic as it would slip in the saw's vice. I ended up making a jig in order to get a better grip and to ensure that I cut the spool evenly in half (yet a third problem).

Enter the Laser Cutter

When I purchased my laser cutter the first projects were all utilitarian, i.e. I made a bunch of paint racks so I could organize my paints. The first few attempts at terrain were less than aesthetically pleasing. I started casting about on Etsy for SVG files to see what kind of projects I could buy and make. There were some interesting ones, like skyscraper buildings, cabins, and a tank. It was that last project, making a T34 tank, that made me look at laser cutting projects differently.

The T34 Tank Project

I purchased an SVG file that defined a tank 'puzzle', which looks something like the below image.

This image is of the tank turret. The black lines are where the laser cuts and the red lines indicate the laser only scores the wood (to create details, such as tank hatches). Basically the file contains 3mm thick layers. The pieces on the left are at the top and as you continue right you get the next layer down. The two pieces on the right create the 'cross' piece that holds four layers to the left together, making it easy to line the pieces up.

The Shako Project

This style made me wonder whether I could create a shako using this same layering method. Also, I intended to use the laser to cut out the arms, legs, and other accessories rather than requiring I craft them manually from craft sticks.

I created an SVG file (using Boxy SVG, an excellent SVG editor for the Mac, Linux, and Windows) shown in the image below.

1. This is the base of the shako, with the brim. The inner circle is removed so that it slides over the head of the pawn. This layer is 3mm thick.
2. This is the next layer of the shako, also 3mm thick. The inner circle is also removed so that it slides over the head of the pawn.
3. This is another layer of the shako. By this layer you no longer need to cut out the inner circle as it is above the top of the pawn's head. There are multiple layers in order to increase the height of the shako.
4. This is the top of the shako. Note that it is slightly larger than C so that it is wider than the shako body, simulating the lace at the top of the shako.
5. This is the pom pom and plume that is affixed to the front of the shako.
6. This is the left arm of the pawn, if the figure is at a right shoulder arms position, or the right arm if at left shoulder arms.
7. This is the right arm of the pawn, if the figure is at a left shoulder arms position, or the left arm if at right shoulder arms. It would hold the musket. (In the future I will include the outline of the musket itself.
8. This is the pair of feet for the pawn.

Now it is just a matter of assembling the 'layers' of the shako and adding the arms and feet.

 

It looks like I may need to adjust the length and width of the feet, but they don't look bad. Now for the shako.

Note that even though the pattern has three solid layers and two with center cutouts, I only needed two of the solid layers for this French-style shako. Note the top layer is slightly larger and given a 'lip' around the edge. This represents the shako lace.

Add the plum jazzes up the shako and the arms complete the figure. At this point I could leave it as is, or I could take a Dremel with sanding drum and thin out the shako brim, round the edges of the feet and arms, and shape the shako plume. Because my goal is to minimize the build process, I am going to try this first unit straight off of the laser.

What do you think? Is using a laser cheating, because I am not crafting all of the parts anymore, or is it simply a tool that reduces the time to manufacture the figure? (I feel it is the latter, especially as I created the SVG file of all of the pieces.)

Now that the proof of concept is proven, I am going to change one of the arms to hold a musket shape and make a backpack shape (maybe even using scoring to make some details?) and a cartridge box shape.

Napoleonic Spanish Infantry (1808) in Bicorne

Well, I finally made progress on something! The last time these made an appearance in the blog they were in the development stage. But I needed another Allied unit for an upcoming battle and these fit in well with the British that I already have. They are Napoleonic Spanish infantry in bicorne (1808).

Spanish troops look pretty nice, even if they are usually rated rather poorly on the tabletop by most Napoleonic rules. They have almost Seven Years War style uniforms, reflecting a Revolutionary France influence of replacing the tricorne with the bicorne.

This build is fairly similar to all my 42mm soldiers. It uses a standard 1 11/16" pawn for the head and body, with craft foam used for the arms, cartridge box, bicorne, and rosette. A small piece of square balsa dowel is used for the bayonet sheathe and the musket with fixed bayonet is a flat toothpick. As always, the feet are a wooden heart shape. It really does not get much simpler.

One thing that is different about the arms and bicornes from previous experiments: I used a computer controlled cutting machine to make the parts, resulting in a quicker and more consistent product.

I used some white dimensional paint to make the strap over the rosette on the bicorne and on top of the shoes, to make the feet more three-dimensional. Other than that, the rest is pen and paint.

I decided to use a permanent marker with a brush tip for things like the eyebrows, mustache, and dark lines separating colors. I then used thick paint to edge right up to the pen lines in order to control the thickness.

Unlike previously, I did not add painted muskets to the painted figure at the end; I glued them to the figure before I started painting. Big mistake. That made it harder to get paint on the back side of the musket without slopping over onto the white uniform or black bicorne. It is not so much that it looks bad – I doubt you can even see it unless you actively looked at a awkward angle – but that it plays on your mind when you are holding the figure close to your face at awkward angles. You notice it all the time, so the error looks much larger than it really is.


In the end, though, I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. Sad it took me so long to finish them, but happy they are done.

Spanish Troops in Bicorne

If you have read through my blog then you know that one thing I have tried to make in the past, and found to be a pain, was making bicornes.

My last attempt was with the French Napoleonic Officer on Foot and I ended up making it out of balsa wood and Modeling Magic. It was a process that worked fine for a single figure, but not for mass production. As I want to make figures for the Spanish Army of 1808, I need a simpler way to make bicornes. Grinding down blocks of balsa wood won't cut it.

Making a Simple Bicorne

As with most things I did originally in wood ended up not being scalable, I turned to craft foam sheets to see what I could do. I started by cutting and trimming a piece of foam and fitting it to a figure. Once I got the right size and shape, I used it to create a template out of plastic card.

Once you have a template made, it is much easier to make consistent pieces. Trace around the template onto the foam sheet.

Cut out the shapes. One is the front of the bicorne and one is the back.

Cut them out of the foam sheet using scissors. Now tack to the halves together using a dab of hot glue.

Tack only one of the two halves to the head of the pawn applying hot glue to the center of the bicorne half. Do not tack both as it will be very hard to center the hat onto the head if you do so.

Once you have the half centered in place, apply a little hot glue to the open end and glue the two halves together, making sure you keep the hat centered on the head.

If you got it right you should see a very simple, but functional bicorne. The hat will still pop off of the head though as it is only lightly tacked down. As you look under the hat you can see the gaps on the left and the right of the head (or the front and back, depending upon whether the figure is wearing the bicorne side-to-side or front-to-back).

To keep the hat fixed to the head we need to fill those gaps with hot glue. Fill one side and let it cool before filling the other. You do not want the tacked ends come apart.

Now the bicorne sits nicely on the head.

Making a Simple Plume

There are craft scissors that you can buy at the craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael's that cut irregular shapes. I have used them on my troglodyte project as for the manes and tails for horses. Now we will use it for a plume. Cut three triangles using the scissors, two smaller than the third.

Now simply hot glue the smaller pieces to the larger piece, one on each side.

Now simply insert the bottom of the plume between the folds of the bicorne and glue it in.

Simple Feet

In the beginning I used the ends of popsicle sticks for feet, but cutting and sanding took more time than it was worth. I switched to gluing wooden hearts to the bottom, which really looked nice. However, there was still the need to sand off the "point". On the positive side, the thickness of the heart looked right for a pair of shoes.

I found some foam hearts, with adhesive backing, at the craft store. I decided to give them a try as they are a lot cheaper and a lot easier to use.

The result is that they look right, from the top, but are a lot thinner than the wood. Maybe some hot glue on the top to give the shoe some body, like I did with the original feet I made. Much easier to mount and trim though.

Making Simple Heavy Lace

The last item I will show is heavy lace, tape or braid for the bicorne. Normally I paint such details on by hand as I get fixated on correcting my work when I paint outside the lines. So I try not to create any artificial lines.

That said, sometimes the braid on a figure is so heavy that it needs some dimensionality to it. A good example would be the gold braid on the edge of a General's bicorne. To make this simply use your bicorne template and cut out a half on thinner foam sheet. (There are generally three thicknesses, with the middle thickness being what I use to make the bicorne itself.)

Carefully cut the edge out of the half and glue it to the bicorne. You can use hot glue to tack the ends down and then white (PVA) glue to glue the entire piece down. Glue one of these to each of the bicorne halves and you have some impressive heavy braid!

Variations

Napoleon's bicorne had the front more prominent, almost starting to become a tricorne.

For this you will have to put a small square of foam on each end, rather than gluing the two halves together. To make the prominent front, pinch the front half to form the shape and put some hot glue on the back side, letting it cool before moving on.

Some bicornes have a higher back than front.

This can be achieved by making two templates – one for the front half and one for the back – or simply carefully cutting down the height of the front half using the common template.

Really exaggerated bicornes, where the sides dip down, would probably be better served by making a template of the appropriate shape. But it is possible to pull down the sides when filling the bottom gap with hot glue and waiting for it to harden. The stretch of the foam should have no problem dealing with distortion and once the glue hardens it will not lose that shape.

Finally, we have the Prussian 1806 bicorne, which was one of the original figures I was looking at making (rather than the 1808 Spanish).

This is very similar to Napoleon's bicorne, above, except you can insert small spherical beads at the left and right ends to represent the pom-poms, and to hold the two halves together.

Well, I hope you have found this instructive. From this I will be able to build Spanish line infantry, line cavalry, dragoons, and artillery. Expect to see those sometime in the future as I find a new opponent for my French to fight using Tin Soldiers in Action. (For more information on the Tin Soldiers in Action rules see my review and battle report. Part One Part Two Postscript

Molding Small Parts – Hussar Pelisse

Back in 2012 I wrote a post about making small, complex parts by using a product called InstaMold from Cool Minis or Not. In that article I made an modern automatic rifle for an AK47 game I was planning. In this article I will show the results of something I have been trying to resolve for some time: how to make and reproduce a Hussar pelisse (shown below).

As you can see, a pelisse is an outer jacket worn over the left shoulder. The way I created it was to use Crayola Model Magic to define the basic shape. (Unfortunately I cannot show that as I failed to take a picture before using it to create a mold. Creating the mold destroyed the master, which is a rather frail product.) To harden the part I covered the piece with several layers of white (PVA) glue.

I took that shape and made a simple press mold, where only one side is cast by pressing material into the mold. This took only a few minutes with InstaMold, but I decided to put the mold into the refrigerator in order to ensure the mold was hard. Simply press the piece into the mold, wait for the mold to harden, then pull the part as carefully as you can out of the mold. Note if you accidentally overlap InstaMold over the part you will create an undercut. This may require trimming the mold slightly in order to remove the part. Here is a picture of the trimmed mold.

Here are a set of quick-and-dirty instructions on making a press mold.

I mixed some Green Stuff and pressed it into the mold. After about four hours I was able to pull the part out of the mold without warping the part too much. As you can see there is a little bit of excess material around the edges. Press molding is rarely perfect because it is so hard judging exactly how much material needs to be used to make the part.



Note that there are a few cracks and pits. This can easily be covered with a thin coat of white glue. The gray spots you see are the remains of a failed attempt at using paper mache as the part's material.

Simply trim around the edges of the part and get rid of the excess material.



Looks great! The picture below shows a test fit of the part on the figure.



I can't wait to make the rest of the pelisses som I can finish the unit, which has been sitting on the workbench for a long time.

InstaMold works as advertised. Easy to heat up and create a mold. Easy to reuse the product when you are done with that mold. (Simply throw it in hot water and fuze all the pieces together again.) The great thing is that it is flexible enough to deal with minor undercuts, but not so flexible that the part loses shape when pressing material into the mold. The mold is also easy to trim to fix errors when making the mold (just a sharp blade is required). Finally, although some materials do stick slightly to the mold, it is usually not a problem getting the piece out. Model Magic is just a little too delicate though, so take those pictures of the master prior to using it to make the mold!

French Napoleonic Carabinier (1807)

This is why I paint Napoleonics. It is because of uniforms like this. I first saw a picture of the 1807 French Napoleonics Carabiniers in a copy of a Funcken uniform book and I always wanted to paint it, but I never got around to it … until now that is. Granted, it is not an entire regiment, but these four guys will run roughshod over many an enemy in a game of Drums and Shakos.

Click on any images to enlarge.

There are actually a lot of new changes to how I build figures in these models. Although the horses still have a "camel head" look (I need a split egg size between this and the one I use for 25mm horses), I think they look much better using a small thread spool for the neck. The image below shows the spool in better detail.

Also, you can see the new sabers, made entirely from foam. They flex a lot, but they won't break!

I had never really been happy with the horses' hair. I had tried modeling material to make a mane, tail, and ears, and they material was hard to control (as it expanded when it dried) and very fragile. I've replaced all of that with foam sheet.

In #1 you can see the tail, cut from a brown piece of foam sheet. I used alligator teeth scissors to cut the shape, then scrapbooking scissors to "bevel" the edges a bit. #2 was done the same way, except that you can see I made the hair from three separate pieces of foam sheet. By layering two pieces I got a taller mane. In #3 you can see a variation of that mane. Also, you can see that the ears were cut out and simply glued to the back of the split egg. When looking closely at the detail it does look a little strange, but at arms length I think it looks pretty good.

These are the alligator scissors. You can find them in any scrapbooking section of craft stores. There are all sorts of shapes and designs to the teeth. I used these in my Troglodyte experiments.

The image below show some of the detail of the rider. In #1 you can see I put a lot of detail into the uniform. It was later (after I finished, but before I painted the buttons on) that I realized that you will never see that detail when the rider is mounted on the horse! #2 shows the detail of the saber. This time I cut the arm and the saber from foam sheet separately, then glued them together. Next time, it will all be one piece. (Live and learn!) #3 shows the legs of the rider made from foam sheet. As the rider is a shortened pawn sitting atop the spool horse, I needed legs to extend past the end of the pawn and around the spool. In the past that was wood; now it is foam sheet, which follows the curve of the spool much better. Finally #4 shows a change from previous figures. I used to model the epaulettes with wood and modeling material. Now I do not even model them at all. When viewed from the side, painting the epaulette with a dark color, then detail with a light color gives the illusion of depth, and looks fine. (#1 shows what it looks like from the front, if you look really hard.)

It is interesting that building and painting these figures – especially the more complex uniforms or the cavalry – takes a long time overall, but that is largely because there are a lot of steps and I have a tendency to do several projects all at once (building 20+ figures at a time). In a way you don't really have much interest in the figures at the start. They are simple shapes, and although you can see the potential, they are not really exciting. Then you come back to it, add a bearskin and a plume and get a little more excited. You can start to see it. They you start adding basic paint and get a little more excited. It is when you start reaching the end that you start to see the figure. You want to finish quickly, but for me, I just want to keep adding detail. Finally, it is done and you paint the bases, photograph and then blog them, chomping at the bit to go play a game with them. But, you look over at that table with the other 16+ unfinished figures, and see even more potential just waiting.

I hope you enjoy looking at them; I really enjoyed making and painting them to show them off.

Not Quite a Standard Bearer

Here is another figure I have been working on for quite some time now. As I could not find a properly scaled French Napoleonic standard, I went with a porte fanion to represent my French Napoleonic standardbearer.

Front

Side

Rear

He is pretty much standard as far as the build techniques, however I decided to put the halberd through his hands allowing for a different pose. All in all a nice clean figure and paint job.

I am, however, looking for a 40 mm or 50 mm scale French Napoleonic standard. There are some to be purchased but I am trying to find a free one that can scale up. If so, I can paint a proper standardbearer and use this figure as a guard. Nothing like having a veteran armed with pistols and a halberd in Songs of Drums and Shakos.