Pretty in Pink

Like a lot of people I've always been a bit nervous about painting horses and therefore cavalry, but needs must and I actually enjoyed painting these 1/72 scale Napoleonic French dragoons by Italeri.  I decided to get these figures because previously the only plastic cavalry I had had were the original Airfix cuirassiers, which are really terrible figures.  Plus, I thought it would be nice to have dragoons instead for a change. 

The figures are excellent and the plastic is quite stiff and takes the paint fairly well.  There are 17 horsemen in the pack so I could therefore just about make six bases of three (on 60mm x 40mm bases as per WRG 1685-1845).  The box art has them depicted as one of the regiments with pink facings and so I thought 'you know, why not?' 

After the figures had been washed and glued together (with standard PVA) they were undercoated in black acrylic.  I painted the horses first, giving them a liberal coating of Tamiya Red Brown (XF-64), Hull Red (XF-9) or Linoleum Deck Brown (XF-79), apart from the trunpeter's horse which was base-coated in light grey. 

Thereafter, using a combination of dark washes and highlights the horses were finished.  Quite easy really.  Once the horses were done the riders were painted using my usual 2-stage technique, that is I block in the main areas with a shade coat and then just add one layer of highlighting - my eyesight and skills aren't good enough to do more than that (plus I've not got the time).

For the final base I was one figure short of the 18 that was needed, so instead I had two figures galloping past a destroyed cannon.  This was an old Airfix one from the 1970s that was still knocking about but had lost a wheel.  This was repainted and added to the base.

I quite like this little diorama because although actually the same figure, the riders look different because they are on different horses.  I also like the way they seem to be looking down at the gun as they ride by.