Sonntag, 29. Dezember 2019

Risorgimento 1848

There is a set of figures, Ingo sculpted for me this summer. I never had the chance to paint them or put them in the shop. This changed today.

Now with time to relax I put out some figures and found this set lying around. So here I can show you a type of Italian Nationalguards.

I painted them as Romans for the Siege of Rome in 1849








I think with some little conversions we can change them to Prussians or any other early Waffenrock types for the 1840ies. 

The other set I painted were some of the Austrian Hungarian infantry from Martin. I painted them as Grenzers. Puh when I see such close ups I think about changing my hobby.... The face of the firing one needs a change.

Dienstag, 24. Dezember 2019

24th door - Nativity

After the "quiet time" I hope we can all relax now and think about for what these days are really standing for.

I took these photos from the blog of my namesake Uwe Hergesell



The figures are from Hecker & Gores and for sell in their shop.


I wish you all a quiet Christmas. Peace, Luck, Health and Hope for the next year and God's blessing!
May your wishes become true.

Montag, 23. Dezember 2019

23rd door - An ancient Roman Winter

In good timing, Stephan just finished his latest project of a Roman Temple in winter.

You can see the full range of photos here.

Great work as usual.






Sonntag, 22. Dezember 2019

22nd door - the last time novels...

Ok, let's finish this series with this post. Last time I stopped with the beginning of WW2. There are two series, which are between. I never one covered the period of the Freikorps 1919-1923. Sadly only 13 magazines, which usually had texts from old books. This is a period, I can't find much information, so I found these interesting. A pity, there is nothing from the Red point of view.

A listing of all issues you can find here.


A series printed from 1939 to 1944 is the Kolonial Bücherei. The bad guys here were usual British...





We come to WW2. Beside the titles in the Series "Spannende Geschichten" the classic series is "Kriegsbücherei der Deutschen Jugend". Published between 1939 and 1944 the idea behind was naturally to find volunteers for the army. The stories are not always more a kind of adventure and of course we win every fight. But we also have casualties. Here comes the ideology of the 3rd Reich -  The Polish are bad people, cowards etc. The French are tough soldiers, a honored enemy who simply fights for the wrong political reason.




After the war the stories changed. In the 1950ies several series hit the market. First two small (under 20 issues) which are very rare - "Signal" and "Schild-Hefte"

Now the war is terrible, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Especially Russia is cold, bloody, nothing to eat etc. etc. On the western front we fight against the odds. Now there is no "hurrah" propaganda. Some stories are true, others are simply imagination behind a historical context. First they are written by former soldiers, in the years this changed.





The better known series is "Soldatengeschichten". They not only cover WW2, but also have some from the Franco-Prussian war, WW1, Colonial wars, US Troops in Korea, French in Indochina etc.




And finally we have the popular "Landser" Published from the 1950ies until today (The name changed to "Weltkrieg" after some left thinking people stopped it, calling it Nazi Propaganda). We should leave politics out, I've never read about NS thinking in them. Some novels are written from the other side of the front. Especially all the issues about the Pacific war are from the US Point of view.







Talking about the other side, there was also a series "Die andere Seite". WW2 from allied view, usually translated from foreign books.



Now we come to the end. There are only two series, covering military history after WW2. One is "US Marines", combats in the 1990ies.



Finally in this year started a new series "Legion" The title describes who are the soldiers, covered in this stories. So far, five issues appeared. On Beau Geste style, two Indochina and two modern Africa.



So now I come to the end. For figure collectors the covers could be interested as inspirations. The stories are of course no love-stories. For historical research I use history books. These booklets bring a little bit more life and action into the subject, but they are simply what they are - short stories to spend some time. I usually read when the rest of the family is in the bed and I have a quiet time. When it is late, such a small 32-65 pages story is exactly what I want to read:-)

Samstag, 21. Dezember 2019

21th door - a Spanish figure museum

Many thanks to Timo, who sent me the stuff for the door today.

Spain is a country, I've never been before. So this is one option for a future hobbytrip with friends.

Timo sent me 289 photos from this museum. I try to put the best here on the blog. Many figures are from Alymer, true 20mm figures. Many other scales are shown too. This museum is for sure a must for me. There are so many photos left, it is good for another post:-)

See here a crossover, mostly ancients.