Merryweather
A Fixture
Well, as I promised myself , I have decided to go OOB for the next one..
…..and also, not.
I’m staying Napoleonic and with the Airfix 54mm Collector’s Series, in this case the French Line Infantryman. I got interested whilst making the shakos for the Scots Greys diorama when I realised I actually had two of these boys in the stash. I'm not sure why I bought them as I’ve never really taken any notice of the line regiments, only the Imperial Guard.
That said, I am getting conscious of entering my latter years, so I have decided to start using up the stash(SHOCK-HORROR!) rather than adding to it too much from now on.
As is customary with these kits, our man comes with a choice of arms- firing or loading the musket. And here he is, straight out of the box, in the firing option.
……OOB except that I have raised his right shoulder a gnat’s.
Then I thought ‘why not use up the other one as well?’, so I broke him out and built the other option, ramming the musket.
But I wanted them to look at least slightly different , so I took the gaitered legs and head from an old Imperial Guard Grenadier and used them. I had to trim away the above the knee part of the gaiters. They also wore trousers, but we’ll get on to that….
Whilst looking in the legs section of the spares box I found a pair of kneeling Historex gaitered legs. With a Historex body I could adapt, before I knew it I had this boy. I decided not to use the left over firing arms from the kits because they would look a bit too samey, so I used some from the spares box-Multipose Eighth Army, I think. The head is also Historex.
So I’m on a roll now, and I have a pair of kneeling legs from the Airfix 95th Rifleman, another Historex torso and I adapted the spare arms from the Line Infantry kits (which saves me scratching the cuff detail) and there was fusilier no 4, ready to receive cavalry in a Square.
It’s still all a bit static, so I need some movement.
I give you fusilier no 5.
I used the left-over body from the old Old Guard Grenadier, and trousered legs and head from Multipose US Marines, and the last two the spare arms from the Line Infantry kits. He will be in between the two standing guys.
In my youth I loved this kind of thing but with the ‘wisdom’ of old age I am a bit more uneasy about depicting the moment of death. That said, I also recognise the absolute brutality of war and I still cannot shake the fascination with it., so I decided not to shy away from it this time.
So this is roughly where we are.
I will tighten up the composition in due course, but this is the general idea.
I have yet to decide on which of the many line regiments and in which battle this is likely to be, but I’m sure a situation like this must have happened at some stage.
So thanks for looking in
Cheers
Neil
