13th Light Dragoons Trumpet

[Angus Tura]

'Morning.

 

This is one popular GB, Col!

 

I asked Col if a figure in a special uniform would qualify, and the man from Inverurie, he say yes.

 

Images of Light Dragoon trumpeters in 1815 are, to put it mildly, infrequent. There are plenty of images of them in the 18th century and after 1820. They all show reversed colours with a buff/yellow coat in the case of the 13th LDs. I found one painting of the 13th dragoons at Waterloo:

 

 

According to Alamy this is copyright expired, incidentally. Here is the trumpeter in close-up:

 

 

So much for paying for an HD download! The HD image is at least of the full picture letting me see it's by Harry Payne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Payne_(artist), who seems fairly likely to have painted an accurate picture. The reason to harp on is that there are several illustrations I've found on-line of LD trumpeters during the Napoleonic wars dressed like every other light dragoon, other than the fact they are carrying trumpets. Any way, I'm going with this.

 

Buff coat, yellow lace and red facings and plume. Otherwise, his equipment is the same as the troopers'.

 

This is all slightly complicated by going on holiday. Here is my valise, as I believe the light dragoons would say.

 

 

Here is a Lusitanian mini-den:

 

 

I'm hoping this is all I need to construct. I want to try some pyrograving and didn't think it was very wise to pack a soldering iron, so that'll have till wait till home.

 

The kit:

 

 

This is the Historex British Light Dragoon. There are a few editions from Historex NCO spare parts, whose mail order is great. I've added a couple of heads to see if I could find one I like: probably the top one. There are additionally some Figurinitaly 1/30 resin heads which I got some time ago without any real project in view. So, head to be decided. I didn't like the horse's pose much and got these horse halves (Historex numbers 4 and 13.) The horse's head is as supplied. I also got the horseshoes, the saddle bags and an additional set of the decoration parts specific to the 13th light dragoons.

 

I forgot to include in this photograph this:

 

 

The trumpet! This is Historex' British trumpet. I have photographed it at this angle to show the hollowed-out bell. I had not been struck by this previously; this must be a very early bit of slide-molding.

 

Long ago, in my teens, I read in a Historex catalogue that their horses are too thin. I think that's right.

 

 

This is the horse assembled with blu-tac to be a bit broader. I've left the front end thin so that the horse's neck still more-or-less fits. You can see that the horse is looking straight ahead and is a bit unnatural looking. The weird octagon is a Historex foot figure base, which came in the kit. It's ideal for making the spacers between the horse halves.

 

 

Here is the horse assembled with spacers and the start of mutiple razor saw-cuts to the horse's neck to turn it to the right a little.

 

 

Thanks for looking/reading and see you later.

 

Alan 

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff Alan

 

I wondered if you could do the reverse of what you've done to the horse on myself and no doubt some other BM members.

I can't remember the last time If ever someone said I'm too thin ! 

 

Best of luck with the build. 

 

Cheers Pat

[Col.]

Delighted to see a figure in our GB Alan and you're giving us one on a horse as an added bonus.

Good luck with this holiday project.

[AdrianMF]

Love a Historex figure! Used to build them in my youth. Looking forward to this.

 

Can you even still buy them? I haven't found a supplier in several casual searches.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Angus Tura]

Adrian,

 

Hi. This is another instance of the North-South divide. I only dreamt of Historex in my youth and had to make do with Airfix, and porridge, obviously.

 

Historex Agents in the UK (https://historexagents.com/#) have pretty good stocks, and Historex NCO (http://www.historex.com/) in France have just about everything,

 

Alan

[Redstaff]

Looking forward to this as I've tried figure painting in the past and never succeeded, hopefully get some tips and enthusiasm as I've got a couple of figures in the stash plus some F1 drivers that I'd like to complete at some point 

Ian 😀 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Well this is an interesting choice, Ive seen all sorts of colors on Napoleonic era uniforms. Ranging from Reds, Greens, Blues, but never heard of yellow. 

[Black Knight]

35 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Well this is an interesting choice, Ive seen all sorts of colors on Napoleonic era uniforms. Ranging from Reds, Greens, Blues, but never heard of yellow. 

It was usual for the musicians to wear reversed colour uniforms. Their 'facings' were the main uniform colour and their uniform was the regiment's facings colour 

In this case the 13th's facings are yellow, thus the trumpeter wears a yellow jacket

Just as today in the British Army the musicians were the stretcher bearers and field medics. Having a reversed colour uniform made them stand out and be found easily

[CliffB]

A fascinating choice.  I'm looking forward to seeing more 

[Angus Tura]

21 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Great stuff Alan

 

I wondered if you could do the reverse of what you've done to the horse on myself and no doubt some other BM members.

I can't remember the last time If ever someone said I'm too thin ! 

 

Best of luck with the build. 

 

Cheers Pat

 

I'm just retiring, Pat, but I'm certainly on to give it a go. 25 guineas?

 

9 hours ago, Black Knight said:

It was usual for the musicians to wear reversed colour uniforms. Their 'facings' were the main uniform colour and their uniform was the regiment's facings colour 

In this case the 13th's facings are yellow, thus the trumpeter wears a yellow jacket

Just as today in the British Army the musicians were the stretcher bearers and field medics. Having a reversed colour uniform made them stand out and be found easily

 

Thanks BK. I think you're right, but I think there were sometimes at least when musicians and ensigns had standard uniforms so that the other side couldn't target their "command and control". Hence my concern about the authenticity.

 

Anyway, here are the horse halves together and the join along the rump filled with scrap and liquid glue. I want to get that join filled like that because I think it'll make fitting the shabraque easier. The front of the shabraque will be covered by sheepskin. 

 

 

I kept on with the razor saw cuts to the horse's neck, albeit with my heart in my mouth,

 

 

and closed them up having filled them with liquid glue, and then, having not brought the Berna clamps on holiday, held on to it for an hour,

 

 

and that's about right. It's made a nice smooth curve and between cuts the muscle detail is intact.

 

Here's the horse together and the halves of the shabraque.

 

 

See you later.

 

Alan

[Col.]

5 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

I'm just retiring, Pat, but I'm certainly on to give it a go. 25 guineas?

[Courageous]

Have been tempted to do miniatures a few times but my existing stash dampens such temptations, so I'll have to sit back and watch this unfold. Very interesting so far.

 

Stuart

 

[AdrianMF]

Thanks for the info Alan. I might be tempted to pick up a project I had left unfinished as a teenager, and would need to get the right horse poses to do it.

 

On 25/09/2022 at 19:19, Angus Tura said:

North-South divide

Hmpf… Before I moved down to That London to dine on caviare and champagne every night, I grew up in Brum on a diet of tripe and liver and onions. I didn’t smoke, drink, drive or chase girls, and so all my money went on modelling! And while on the subject of warm gravel for breakfast (luxury!), I didn’t even get to buy an Airfix kit above series three until I was forty something. Try telling the kids of today that… *

 

The horse surgery looks great - I always assumed the Airfix Horses were too fat!

 

Adrian
 

* they will just stare at you and ask “What’s an Airfix?”

[AdrianMF]

On 25/09/2022 at 19:19, Angus Tura said:

and porridge

Does it work as a filler?

[Angus Tura]

Ee ba goom, Adrian.

 

Being Scottish, but living in God's own county (it says here), I'm in a perpetual state of confusion as to what counts as north, and what south, to you English Folks. I am sorry if I have incorrectly labelled you as a GSW *. Porridge, like green stuff in my hands at least, never gets set enough to sand.

 

Precious little Light Dragoon progress to report:

 

 

I spent all of yesterday evening gluing stretched sprue into neck wounds leading to, 1: boredom and 2: row with her indoors in re failure to make the tea.

 

Alan

 

Footnote (Footnotes in posts are a great idea, Adrian.)

* GSW: Great Soothen Woosh. 

[Col.]

Doesn't your dear lady know you've more important matters requiring attention!?!

[Angus Tura]

On 9/27/2022 at 12:27 PM, Col. said:

Doesn't your dear lady know you've more important matters requiring attention!?!

 

I can't get through to her, Col. Would you have a word?

 

Yesterday I thought I could get the horse's neck smoothed out but unfortunately a few areas of the plastic were still soft and not well supported beneath.

 

 

So, those bits need redoing. The concave bits of the centre line joint I'm going to fill with Magic-sculp as it's easier to shape than the glue-melted polystyrene. Hopefully make a start on the shabraque and sheepskin today.

 

Alan

[Col.]

5 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

I can't get through to her, Col. Would you have a word?

Of course. Although I can't promise that'll improve the situation for you Alan.

 

War Horse looks to have a few battle scars after the initial skirmish but I'm sure the subsequent campaign will see it right  

[TimJ]

Nice to see a figure in the GB. The work on the horse's neck does add a bit of animation to it. 

[Angus Tura]

Bom dia from Portugal.

 

We went to the beach a couple of days ago and I took along this build, as you do. There was a rain shower and we sheltered in BJ's very excellent beach bar.

 

 

Horsey and kit in foreground. Mrs.Tura's nose on the left. I had to do a bit of sculpting before putting the tail on, which I had to do before starting the saddle straps, which I had to do before starting on the shabraque. The sculpting caused considerable hilarity for BJ and his co-workers:

 

 

The indignities of life as a 1/30 scale Connemara Grey. This will need a bit of Mr.Surfacer-based smoothing out.

 

Here is the problem with the shabraque:

 

 

The fit at the front end is woeful. I suppose it would fit better were the horse holding his head/neck up. Foreground are two holsters to go under the shabraque. Here they are glued in,

 

 

and carved down to fit:

 

 

The saw cuts in the shabraque avoid the lace edge and are to let me close up the edge with the horse's neck.

 

Here are the crupper and breast plate, so-called, on and the left side of the shabraque glued on:

 

 

This is going well. No catastrophe so far, he said touching wood.

 

Boa Tarda,

 

Alan 

[Courageous]

Looks like you know what you're doing there. Don't think my other half would've been happy about getting my model out in the middle of a bar...

 

Stuart

[arfa1983]

57 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Don't think my other half would've been happy about getting my model out in the middle of a bar...

 

But the horsie and his indignities look very good... that sounds funny now that I write it...

Edited October 1, 2022 by arfa1983

[Angus Tura]

On 10/1/2022 at 2:31 PM, Courageous said:

Looks like you know what you're doing there. Don't think my other half would've been happy about getting my model out in the middle of a bar...

 

Stuart

 

Mrs.Tura may have her faults, Stuart, but as long as she's well supplied with Espresso Martinis, she couldn't really care less what I do!

 

Here is the shabraque on, and the front edges stuck down and smoothed out.

 

 

Having got that sorted, however, the next problem appears:

 

 

The sheepskin will fit at the front, or the back, but not both simultaneously. I've spent several hours carving back the shabraque and thinning out the sheepskin.

 

Here is as far as I've got before home. The pencil lines mark the front edge of the sheepskin, which is to say the front limit of shabraque-carving:

 

 

The answer to the sheepskin fit, I think, will be to saw it nearly in two through the girth and then fit the back and front more or less separately. The back of the sheepskin is nothing like curved tightly enough to fit the valise, and I think it will need a whole series of transverse saw-cuts to preserve the edge but let it close up the space between itself and the valise. I don't fancy that on holidays. More to the point the decorations (in the foreground) will need to go on the front at least of the shabraque before the sheepskin because they are partly covered by the sheepskin. It is clearly going to be critical that they go on properly centred on the corners of the shabraque, and unfortunately I haven't brought any sticky labels which would make that straightforward. So, I want to do that at home. So, I'll try to do a bit of neck-fixing for the next couple of days and,

 

see you later,

 

Alan  

[Courageous]

I reckon the trumpeter's big butt will cover some of it...

 

Stuart

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Good work on the horse, looking forward to seeing the colors on this.