Austrian Hussars are now available in the Hinton Compatible Range

After a long absence from the hobby - House moves, Health and family issues - I hope everybody is well and enjoying full health and the hobby - I have returned to announce the availability of Austrian Hussars - see my Hinton Compatible blog for full details.

Well I had not planned on producing any more figures in this range - solely due to the cost of production versus sales (after my own requirements)

It now costs approximately $200 to have a single figure professionally sculpted and then have master and production molds made! So you can see you must sell quite a few before breaking even.

But in this case (as also per the Cuirassiers) a collector who wanted some hussars stepped in and provided some funds towards the production costs - Many thanks to Jay Stribling for providing almost half of the $1000 it took to produce these 5 new figures.

Both of us will not get any return on this investment other than being able to get these fine figures - a true labour of love.

As per the rest of the Hussars have been superbly sculpted by Andy Stadden and the molds have been beautifully cast.

It is a shame more folks do not use this scale today - they are really nice figures and compliment my Hintons very well. - Boo to the larger scales!

Check the new Hussars page on the Hinton Compatible blog to see the full range and pricing

Some Of My Neglected ECW Period Figures

I was digging out some ECW and Thirty Years War Minifigs (and others) figures to photograph and send to Clive Smithers for inclusion on his 'The Lone S Ranger' blog.

It struck me that I really liked the Thirty Years War figures and they brought back many memories so I thought I would add some pictures to the blog.

They are actually painted up to represent an ECW trained band.

In this case this is the fictitious Colchester trained band - which is where I lived when I painted it - years ago!

ECW - Colchester Trained Band

TYW 1s - Musketeer Advancing

TYW 2s - Pikeman Receiving

TYW 3s - Officer

TYW 6s - Halberdier

TYW My Drummer Conversion

TYW 5s - (actual)Drummer

ECWA 2s - Galloper/H1 -Horse

TYWC 1s - Reiter

My drummer conversion was made prior to the release of the TYW 5s - Drummer and I never every did see a TYW 4s - Standard Bearer.
My standard bearers are just Pikemen with 'old toothpaste tube' aluminum flags attached.
I also have a second of these regiments painted up as the fictitious 'Halstead' trained band!

Organized?

Ok I had to make this post - I was accused of being organized!! I was fairly organized prior to moving but now - well!
These are some pictures of my messy work room which has been taken over by model soldiers. I hope this disproves the 'organized' rumor once and for all! In fact I don't think I can ever organize over 10,000 figures anytime in what remains of my life! - but I'm working on it.

Looking into workroom with work bench in the center and the right side with modeling bench. Green thing underneath the illuminated magnifier is my photograph background as used for the Hinton Compatibles

Panning right around room

Panning left around room - bottom right picture shows French Cavalry in display cabinet above red toolbox. I didn't do closeups of these since there are so many still to sort out.

Modeling Bench - Cabinet contains almost all French - each shelf is (or will be) comprised of one division. Left unit is Guard and middle and right units are Line divisions. Figures are mostly all Hinton and Alberken - a few Minifig and DK - if units are in the cabinet then they are complete. By complete I mean has all its troops - of course many units still have to be painted.
The figures covering the bench top are all in various stages of sorting or awaiting recruits to complete - or in some cases to be sold.

Almost all units are 2 battalion regiments - each battalion is 1 Officer and 12 troops - each division has 4 regiments plus 2 massed Grenadier and 2 massed Voltigeur battalions (each again of 1 Officer and 12 troops).
Thus each division totals (12 btns x 13) 156 figures plus the mounted Divisional General.
When complete the divisional artillery (2 batteries of 2 guns + 8 crew each) is stuffed in between the regiments for safe keeping.
I now have (almost completed) 12 French Line Infantry Divisions - some may be sold!

Left hand storage shelves contain various units or spares for Allies and French Infantry, Calvalry and Artillery - Top shelves is where I store my neglected English Civil War figures

Here is where I store the Hinton Compatibles - Prototypes, Masters and stock - I'm still in the stages of sorting this out to be more efficient. Loads of open boxes partially sorted and being emptied. The British Light Division is in a box on top shelf - right end - just in view here. Also some out of place guitar pedals showing up on a pink stand!

Storage shelves on end of modeling bench contains various complete units for allies Cavalry and Infantry. Last image shows more boxes being opened and sorted

Right shelves stores all my spares and the 7 British Infantry Divisions - mainly Hinton and Pheonix(Les Higgins) figures. Also there is a Polish, Saxon and Bavarian Corp (2 Divisions) and a Wurttemburg, Hessian and Brunswick division - all with associated cavalry. There is also not shown a great deal of other manufacturers and miscellaneous stuff all jumbled in various boxes which may get sorted and sold one day!

Finally because I am really old school - here's a couple of closeups of some of my favorite units to prove it - Alberken (with HH drummers and standards) - these were the early ready painted types - they may well be repainted since they are not all from same units.

So hopefully this post will indeed show that I am far from organized and really quite insane when it comes to wargames figure collecting