French Infanterie de Ligne

I got a bit more painting done over the weekend, the Austrian gun crew and the Calpe Saxons are well on their way. I struggled for a while trying to pick the paints to use for Austrian 'roedeer brown', the colour of the Artillery uniforms. I ended up experimenting on an old figure until I came up with a combination that looked 'right'. I'm going for the yellowy-brown colour as seen in the Osprey and in Hourtouille's Wagram book. I'm hoping to have them finished and based up next weekend. I picked up some MDF coasters from the craft store which i'm hoping to use as bases, hopefully with the crew being removable.

I did manage to get some pictures though, these are of my first French line infantry 'group' for Sharpe Practice. They're painted up as the 1st company - denoted by the dark green pompoms. I've still got to do the metallics for the bayonets and musket barrels, and then finish the basing and muddy them up a bit, but they're pretty close to being finished. These guys were the first lot of 28mm Napoleonic figures that I painted - quite a few years ago now. This is their third repaint.

I didn't clean the figures up that well before painting, and so that explains the mould lines can be seen on some of them. They're not that noticable in the flesh, but they really showed up in the pictures. Still, i'm happy enough with them. The stripy pants were fun to do, these were my first attempt and i'll be doing more of these in my next lot of Frenchies. I like painting up units for the 'campaign' look, rather than looking like they've just stepped off the parade ground. Hope you like 'em.