The 20mm figures - the Austrians

I'm just finishing the Victrix Italians off today with basing, flocking and touch-up.  It'll take a few hours as its stinking hot weather here - 37 degrees C forecast today (it was 36 yesterday and 27 at 11.00 PM!)  But I didn't post to talk about the weather as I'm sure those of you freezing through one of the coldest northern winters in years will be glad to hear!  After viewing blogs like Matt's 'In The Grand Manner' I have been inspired to a) keep my own 20mm collection & b) record and post the better portions of it. 

These figures are those I first did when I got back into the hobby after an absence of 20 years. I literally openned an old trunk and pulled out hundreds of old Airfix and a few Hinchcliff figures, got Funcken's 'L'uniforme et les armes des soldats du premier empire' (vols 1 & 2) and started painting.  That was about ten years ago, and I've since acquired some Ospreys for reference as well and haven't stopped painting since then.  While I got some good results from plastic figures like Airfix - and have since discovered and collected dozens of other makes from the prolific HAT, to quality makers like Italeri, Zvesda and Revel, but the ones that really appealed were the metal Kennington range.  Other manufacturers like Newlines also produce comprehensive ranges and I have collected a number of them as well.

Amongst the first I collected were Kennington Austrians and among my favourite figures are the Uhlans.

I found them easy to paint - far more so than 25mm figures - and I used them to train myself, so apologies if some of the following look a bit basic.

Also great figures are the Austrian artillery and yeh, I know - I got the guns the wrong colour! My excuse is I was still learning and haven't had the time to go back and correct many of my earlier mistakes. Nice figures nonetheless.

While we're on Austrians, I have pics of some of my first conversion work - Austrian limbers and caison.  These are made from converted Revel and Airfix with card and paper to complete the ammo caison. As can be seen, some paint is a bit chipped - with age and plastics its unavoidable!

Another set I liked a lot were the Kennington Jaegers - another of my initial metal acquisitions.  I could also have made them Landwehr as they didn't come with a bugler - I 'borrowed' a HAT one and converted it, as you can see on the command stand. As I recall this is one of their regiment-in-a-bag deals - 36 foot or 24 cav, 3 artillery etc, very economical to collect.

Also nice figures that paint up well are the Newlines - I have a number of these like the Austrian Kuirassier.  They are slightly smaller and to my eye not quite as detailed as the Kenningtons, but a good figure nonetheless and Newlines have a comprehensive and affordable range - always a consideration when buying from the other side of the world!

That's it for my 20mm Austrians - like most of the others I have hundreds of them but these are those I consider worthy of posting - and I haven't the time to photograph all of them.  I'll do further posts on the French and Russian parts.

Cheers,
           Doc