Draconis does….. The Silver Bayonet

16th September 2024

I decided that I wanted to convert a mini for a sapper. He obviously needed to have an axe, and an apron. However, amongst my many, many, many minis I just could not find an axe that was appropriate.

So, I went ahead and tried to knock one together. Think I may revisit it at some point in the future and modify the haft though.

I took a rifle holding arm and snipped out the rifle. Both hands were on the rifle piece, so I had to snip one hand free then fix it to the other arm. I didn’t have a drill bit small enough to go through the hands, so I instead heated up a pin (being held in small pliers) and applied it to the plastic. A couple of goes and I had made a neat small hole. Then I could put the paper clip handle and try fitting it.

I also tried to make a rough leather apron using some (too old) milliput.

Put the rest of him together, sprayed it up and got on with painting. He was painted in the same way as the other redcoats.

Adding some final highlights, and some ‘mystic symbols’ on to the apron, and he is done.

8th September 2024

I also squeezed in enough time to put together two more revenants – again using the Victrix Brits and Mantic Zombies

Just basic again, didn’t do shakos on these, but did snip one arm in half for one of them.

I used a craft knife to ‘drill’ a couple of holes into one of the undead, to represent wounds.

8th September 2024

Another disrupted period, but I did manage to finish four riflemen today. I had built more, but have just been working on four of them for now.

I went with the Bronze green for the jackets, but went for a mix of colours on the trousers (after checking pictures of Sharpe’s Chosen men).

These chaps still had quite a few straps, pouches etc for me to work on, hurrah 😊

As often is the case, I just wasn’t ‘feeling’ them for quite some time. So I added some flock and grass to the base, and that lifted their colour a bit.

Then lots of little finishing bits, piping around collars, epaulettes, rough highlights on pouches and such, and four more chaps were done….

2nd September 2024

Very little time for hobby this past week, won’t go into the reasons.

But at the start of the week I did have a go at making some revenants from Victrix British and mantic zombies.

The zombie parts are ‘heroic’, so will have to use sparingly.

I will possibly drill some more indentation to represent bullet holes.

26th August 2024

Managed to finish this chap up today.

I had tried out several shades of green, as mentioned in an earlier update. For this model (jokingly named Richmond S Harpe for now) I used the old Dark Angels green for the jacket and tunic, and went with AK bronze green for the trousers.

The greens all had a dark wash, followed by a couple of highlight stages.

I got out my small brush to paint on the black braiding on the jacket, and then pick out the buttons. Plus add in the white piping to the edge of the cuff and collar.

The red sash was painted in a similar way to the redcoats of the infantry, with a few small added highlights up to Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Then it was basically lots of little extra bits to try to make him look tidy overall. Quite happy with the final result.

26th August 2024

I had worked on the Artillerist model alongside the others, before concentrating just on the redcoats. The basic conversion was mentioned there too.

He was painted in the same way, except he was given the blue jacket for the artillery, and I gave him grey trousers, to further differentiate.

I chose the bandaged head as I believe the artillery soldiers (possibly) wore helmets rather than shakos.

I’m not overly knowledgeable on the Napoleonic era, so just worked with google searches really. Since I don’t have a helmeted head, I went with one that I thought would work here.

I also realised that I had forgotten the Sergeant’s stripes. So painted those on too yesterday.

25th August 2024

Yesterday I finished up the British line infantry.

Didn’t realise how close to finished they were last week.  With the lack of ‘hobby’ through the week I kept thinking I was missing something too ?

They had some more highlights and some basing, and they are ready to go.

I feel that they don’t look very ‘gothic horror’ but have to remind myself that they are meant to be normal soldiers in a bad situation.

The junior officer had an extra highlight stage on his jacket, going up to Evil Sunz Scarlet.

While watching Peachy’s latest Silver Bayonet vid I realised that I had missed the tie back parts on the officers coat. So went back and painted those in.

I still need to add some more variety yet.

The Sergeant could potentially be used as a sapper or veteran hunter at a push.

The chap with yellow collar and cuffs could be used as a grenadier.

I have an Artillerist minor conversion and several riflemen to add still.

But I do want to have some cavalry and a highlander for my full sized force. Need to source these still, and don’t want to buy a whole box for just one – so will be searching for sprues online.

22nd August 2024

Well, I haven’t been able to get much hobby time in since the last update due to work, and some central heating work being done at home – so I thought that I should post a new update. I have been working on five more infantry, the junior officer and the artillerist (a bit). Plus poking around a bit with ‘Richmond S Harpe’.

One infantryman was worked on more so at the start, to try to refine my steps and process from the first test model.

I must say that I am still finding the straps and bags a little frustrating, but have worked it out a little better now. When I get to those I used a slightly thinned Black Templar contrast to try to make a better edge to them, then overpaint in white, give a wash, and highlight again. Sometimes the highlight covers too much, but overall they still give the correct impression at play distance.

Near the end of the process I decided to change the colour of the collar and cuffs on one of the infantry. In The Silver Bayonet the troops do not all have to come from the same unit. So I decided to go with yellow for one. That way I could potentially use him as a Grenadier or such, and still have it easily recognisable during play.

While working on the Junior Officer I accidentally snaped off the sword ☹

I have glued it back on with superglue, as it was quite a small surface area. If it breaks again I will need to cut off the whole hand and snip one from a different model I think. I also then worked on highlighting the jacket. I may go one stage lighter on the officer than on the troops, but not sure yet.

Hopefully I may be able to get in some work on them over the coming weekend….