Ottomen on the Horizon

(For the less linguistically inclined, Ottomen is the plural of Ottoman.)

I have not been as idle in recent times as the lack of updates suggests. I suspect mainly the fact that the camera is still broken deters me from taking loads of pictures. Anyway, the Napoleonic Ottoman army is almost complete (which army ever is?), so I thought I'd take them out to the sun and show them to the world.

Russian Guardsmen and Herdsmen.

It is rather rare that I post something from four different manufacturers, but this is the case right now. In enlarging my Napoleonic Russian army, I have completed the following units, from left to right:

• 2x12 Jäger, Italeri and Zvezda figures, plus a single HäT figure in the rear rank.
• 6 Guard Lancers, of Esci make, on Italeri hussar horses.
• A 16-figure unit of Pavlov Grenadiers by Italeri.
• 2x16 Opolchenie by HäT, plus a single Pioneer base/marker.

Swag is for boys - Raupenhelm is for men

Two units of Bavarian infantry and one of Chevaulegers join the collection. The cavalrymen are Esci Polish Lancers, with sort of the right uniforms, and green stuff helmets - I just had too many actual lancers (the other half of the set will be Russian Guard Lancers, actually).

Light cavalry

As soon as I could gather enough painted figures for two or three posts, all the rechargeable batteries in the household ran out. I could snap six photos of these, and after ditching half of them, I came up with this post here.

You can see a unit of Spanish hussars (Zvezda Prussians) on the director's left, and Hungarian Insurrectio (Italeri French hussars on Esci horses) on the right.

More Russian hordes

Another large group of 1/72 Napoleonics are finished, mostly horsemen. 

A fledgling Russian division

These are the not so humble beginnings of a 1/72 Napoleonic Russian army: three units of foot, one  large group of cuirassiers, and four cannon.

Nova Hungaria - the Ruslanders arrive

The first Ruslander reinforcements to land in Nova Hungaria are the Blackguards of Countess Svetlana Ivanovna and a company of the Naval Brigade.

The figures are of the mixed bunch I received last December, painted up to be substitutes for Yanks if I ever want to game the ACW. 

Evil Agytpians

The remaining 31 figures from the Esci Muslims set. They are a various lot, some have Mosins but we'll just pretend they have muzzleloaders. 

I promoted one to a commander (given a larger base), the rest is an even 15-15 shooters and melee fighters.

The white undercoat - white clothes - quickshade combo worked on the previous batch, and they're not bad this time either.

More Shades of Quick

Knocking small scale figures off the painting queue in a quick pace is not a considerable achievement. Doing so with larger ones is, to some extent.
I have, at the moment, about 7-800 unpainted (stripped, glued together and some even on sprues) 1/72 plastic figures and this calls for alternative solutions. Many people are looking for the optimal thing and some find it in Army Painter/etc. products. I have, during my various painting exploits, used many types of shade, including homemade oil/enamel washes, enamel varnish mixed with black/brown/grey, commercial Vallejo washes and glazes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. I generally use a great deal of slumpy highlights (see my TYW figures, for example) and everything is done improbably fast. The relevant working hours put into some figures would seem really strange to some people (minus drying time, it's not more than 3-4 hours for a group of 30-40 figures that includes every process from priming to basing) and what I really care about is character/command figures, where my brushes become more careful.