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1st Empire French Grenadier drummer, 54 mm


jean

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Hi everybody,

this is a 54 mm drummer from the First Grenadier regiment serving under Napoleon 1st...

I have had this figurine since the mid seventies, in its little plastic bag, and I have suddenly decided to do something about it.

I want to depict a drummer during the 1804-1807 period, so the uniform colours will be markedly different from the later years.

These Historex figures are great, albeit sometimes a bit too stilted for my liking, But the detail is very good.

The drummer is made of 18 pieces, some damn small, the bear bonnet is made of only 9 pieces and the drum of a paltry 4... The haversack is a single piece. Pheeew!

This is the figure after a coat of enamel paint as primer (the plastic is white), and before painting with artists' oils.

If anybody is a boffin of this period, please share any tips you may have!

Cheers

JR

Grenadier1_zps5a05c98a.jpg

Grenadier2_zps009882ca.jpg

Edited by jean
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Hi Jean,

I have just dug out some of mine too!

The last time I played with one was 20+years ago. As you have noted the stance of these wonderful figures can be a little 'stiff'. The usual stuff that I did, (and will be doing again soon), consisted of building up the hair and sideburns so that the head and hat fitted more closely, separating and further defining the fingers, a known weakness of Historex due to the limitations of the moulding process and adding some more texture to the 'furry'bits with a hot needle, (there is a posh name for it but I forget...)

The figure looks great and I look forward to following you WIP. So, will it be in a white habit?

Perhaps I should break out one of mine and do one as well...!

Happy hunting!

Christian the Married and exiled to africa

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Another walk down memory lane with Historex. I did a lot of these (badly) back in the day, still got a fair few around the place. Must take a pic. Good luck with it JR.

Exile, sounds like a 'pyrogravure'. I got one in a toy soldier shop off the Grote Markt in Brussels back in the '70s. Still use for flash removal from 1/72 plastic figures.

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