Saturday, April 9, 2016

The longest project


Hi,

My plastic 1/72 ACW is the oldest army that I have now (The 1/72 Napoleonic forces are long gone and replaced by something heavier and four time the size). I began playing the Archduke Piccolo sometime in the 90's and I recall had around 12 units and a few guns. The army then survived a decade of storage as I traveled the world but has taken me a good 10 years to sort out. A recent purchase of Airfix ACW figures has also satisfied a wish list item of getting some.

A recent burst of enthusiasm has seen the completion of a decent sized force. 12 Infantry Regiments and a few guns. I still have around another 12 Infantry Regiments, 4 Cavalry and about 8 guns left to do. Simple 90's basing was simple green paint and simple paint jobs and I have followed the same style for the new figures. ( They have that toy soldier look that I always admired in the early war-games books of Featherstone and Grant).

Below - The Current Pile - A mixture of 1990 basing and 2008 Basing (I seemed to change my mind a lot). The flags are all mostly glued on half an hour ago apart from some old hand painted ones done in 1994.


 The Oldest Units - Mid 90s at least. The Esci figures are even older as I recall having them when I was around 13 (I just turned 40).
 The "newest" - Italeri (new figures) and Airfix (second hand).

So a few more hundred to go and then the Union can be finished (But I have already started).

Cheers






6 comments:

Chasseur said...

Nice work Paul! I still love these 1/72nd figures :)

Archduke Piccolo said...

Looking good! My record for painting units: 81 Airfix CSA figures from plastic to finished in one evening. Simple paint job, not counting the bases. I started doing some work on my cavalry about this time last year. Still more work to do to sort them out properly.

Paulalba said...

Brilliant to see them Jackie, I think it was the ESCI ones that caught our imagination many moons ago, very thin figures with a few lovely casualty sets. 1 guy being carried off the field and another getting a fireman a lift from the field. Lovely sculpts they were. Great that you have kept them in such good shape through the years.

Jacko said...

Thanks.
I recall when I "started" there were no Airfix available so it was all Esci. Great days ! I got a lot of Esci in a recent purchase - 10 wounded guys but I use the porter as my standard bearer now. The Union packs still have the great ones in them too.

Cheers

DaveM said...

I love the look of plastic armies on plain green bases. Must be a nostalgia thing. No, wait a minute, most of mine look like that !

Cheers, Dave

Jacko said...

True Dave, classic basing of PVA and green paint can all completed in a night. No more long hours of flock, dirt and other contemporary "nonsense" ;)

Cheers