General de Brigade

[Littlearmies]

Hi,
Some months ago I picked up a grab bag of AB figures off Ebay which included some Peninsular British Line Infantry Standing Around. This morning I had the urge to put brush to lead and started painting them. I haven't got quite enough for a battalion (so I can see Ian Marsh will be getting an order soon) but I am enjoying doing them very much.

Now, I have some basic references so I'm quite capable of doing justice to the bulk of these chaps but I'm somewhat stumped by the fellows in forage cap. I've had a look on the Web and can see that originally these were red but that this colour was out of favour by 1800. I've found another reference that says the cap was black in 1812.

I started painting these chaps with buff facings (I was thinking the 48th Nottinghamshire regiment perhaps) - would I be wrong in painting the crown of the cap in the facing colour with the material in the top of the cap a dark material (I've seen references to blue, green and black)?

This should teach me to start a little project without proper research!

Malcolm

[Ronan the Librarian]

They were mostly made up from scraps of material and particularly the remnants of last year's coats. So a red item with a facing-coloured band would have been common; however, dark blue, piped red, with a facing-colour band also seems to have been worn by many units.

Have a look through the photo galleries on here; if you click on each regiment, many have their own websites as well:-

http://www.napoleonicassociation.org/historical-reenactment/index_files/wellington.htm
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You can lead a horse to water, but a toy soldier can no longer be lead (due to Health & Safety Regulations).

[Littlearmies]

Thanks for the answer. Well, nice to see I was not too far off track.

It was quite a productive day by my standards. Eight figures completed from the Napoleonic British pile, plus another half dozen undercoated and given their basecoat. Plus six Russian AA gun crew completed and a few colours added to the dozen WWII Germans - I find it hard to get worked up about WWII painting though - they are just so dull.

I think I sit at the painting table and revert to some kind of childlike state murmuring "pretty, pretty" when looking at the bright coloured Napoleonic uniforms - which I just don't get painting Feldgrau.