13 February 2011

A Cautionary Tale: The Green Cuirassiers!

Formerly titled the 4ème Régiment de Cuirassiers

Well, I never thought I would make such an error! I have been rushing to finish up this unit of cuirassiers for some time. I had done 4 of the figures before Xmas. There is a painting contest over at Analogue Hobbies, and I was also keen to get my next scenario "La Haye Sainte" started and I needed a unit of cuirassiers.

I noticed after I had sent the photos to Curt at Analogue, that the 4th actually had orange facings and I had painted these pink; easy enough swop out the flag and repaint the numbers (shame really as I had done a nice job  on the 4's) on the saddle cloth. I was trying to figure out why I had done what I did, so I was reviewing some sources and suddenly it dawned on me that I had made a much bigger error, by painting the coats and saddle clothes green. Merde!!! F..........!

I still have no idea what happened, but here they are "Les Cuirassiers Verts". Time to dig out some blue paint I suppose.








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10 comments:

  1. Oh no!! 8O)

    Perhaps the commissariat got confused with a dragoon regiment. May the making amends be quick & painless.

    Salute
    von Peter himself

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  2. Well despite the bit off color blindness :), they are still very nicely painted indeed!

    Rob

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  3. I forgot to add, a quick question, have these figures been 'dipped' or just 'washed'?

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  4. Thanks, I suppose it will be not to big a deal to repaint the green, we will see tomorrow.

    Rob, I use the Darktone army painter applied with a brush and then quickly removed with another brush. You get an excellent result, I do not dip the figures and I find I always have problems with the surface tension with very thinned washes.

    John

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  5. Green coat and pink facings does sound like you were painting a dragoon regiment.

    Could you have had the plates for Kellermann's III Cavalry Corps out as you were painting?

    Still, they do look very nice!

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  6. You need to be a little more canny, blame it on the cheap dye, the French used to use, obviously these chaps have been working hard on campaign and the dye had faded to an unusual shade of blue that looks remarkably similar to green!!

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  7. John that is a killer,
    The look great too.
    Did the Italian army in the Napoleonic army not have any green cuirassiers?
    I have no idea if they did but at least you could save repainting them?
    Cheers
    Paul

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  8. That's a real shame because they look great - in fact if you had tried to pass them off as Dragoons I bet none of us would have been the wiser!

    Ian

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  9. Thanks again, well it was pretty simple to do the wardrobe change, I will post the results tomorrow.

    I did consider making them Italian cuirassiers, but their metal work was very shiny indeed.

    John

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  10. Damn - sounds like I'm too late.. they were/are magnificent - leave them as is - it's your army, you're not trying to pass them off as correct, move on to the next unit! :o)

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