Montag, 28. Dezember 2015

Some old Napoleonic dioramas

Now with being in the holidays I tried again to clear up a part of my hobby-stuff. I found a huge pack of old photos, nearly glued together.

These I dioramas I found in museums and exhibitions.

In 1999 I had a business-tour to Leipzig. Through a hobby-friend I came into the rooms of the "Völkerschlachtdenkmal" where at the moment they tried to build a diorama of the battle in 1/72.
With the limited resources they had at this time I thought their work interesting. And especially their conversions which they casted in metal. Some of them you can see in the photos.









A year later or so I was in the holidays in Austria with the family. On the way back from Vienna there was a little exhibition of a Napoleonic enthusiast who had his private collection of paintings, original items, books etc. on show. Between all the stuff he had a small plate with 1/72 figures on show too. I liked the simple conversions at a time when there were not much Austrians on the market





And finally in 2003 I visited Winchester and the different military museums there. In the Rifle-Museum was a little diorama of Vimiero 1808. A very nice one with a lot of Esci-conversions, but bad light. So my photos are not good either. Maybe someone can offer better photos?










Sonntag, 27. Dezember 2015

TK painted our 28mm Musketeers

I was surprised how popular these figures are. Well as a 1/72 collector I don't really understand the 28mm market. Several hobbyfriends asked us to continue the range (which we will do) or simply joined the group in producing their own 28mm figures.

Here the link to the musketeers

http://www.hagen-miniatures.de/index.php/en/produkte/category/view/302


And here the photos from Krisztian
















Samstag, 26. Dezember 2015

British Train 1815 - what to do with them

Some month ago a hobbyfriend who wanted sculpting for us asked me for an order. I told him "Make me three British train soldiers for Waterloo" and sent him some Revell horses on which they should fit.

Well, the price for the masters was the same as Massimo asks for. But the outcome is not his standart.

I do not really know if I should bring these figures into the shop. The casting showed no much details (the masters were white plastilin, nearly nothing to see on the photo).

Here I tried to give them an average paintjob, not supering or washing them to show the details on an ordinary painted figures.

So please take a look at the photos and tell me what you think about them.




Freitag, 25. Dezember 2015

A nice little diorama of the attempted Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland 1799

One of the lesser known chapters in Napoleonic history is the attack of an Anglo-Russian force on the Batavian Republic in 1799.

Geert Uythofen wrote a nice book about it of which I have a handsigned copy in my collection:-)


Hopefully one day there will be an English translation. For those not able to read Dutch take a look at this link from Wikipedia

Now on the blog http://brigadedaendels.blogspot.de/ are photos from a nice diorama at Fort Kijkudin.

Here some of the photos, sadly no close ups of the figures.











Montag, 21. Dezember 2015

Our Dioramaproject for 2016 - Ulundi

We have decided. With Isandlwhana made in 2004 and the Zulu war one of my favourite interests we decided to have a "quiet" year and use figures from armies we already have.

So it came to Ulundi, a Zulu army already available. On the other hand I thought, why not showing both dioramas together as there are so many new figures on the market since we made Isandlwhana in 2004.

So let's see what we are able to do. To show the first and the last battle of the war has something charming too:-)

I safed these photos here from 54mm figures for possible ideas of conversions into 1/72








Great stuff eh?


But for Ulundi Alfred already sent photos. His collegue at work already started building up a Zulu Kral in 1/72 - Well, he had a few minutes time he said...













The Kral will just be in the backround, because we show the attack on the British square. On the other hand as you can watch the diorama from all sides there will bring some "life" into the Kral too. So maybe some Zulu Civilians to sculpt, casualties from the battle comming in etc. etc.