A Prussian attack at Sedan

Here we have a Prussian attack on the French position at Sedan. Alfred just sent the photos over. Ok at the moment unpainted but imagine how it would look like when it is ready.

 For thouse of you without enough imagination, here is some inspiration

And here some uniform-details for those of you whom I already infected with the idea:-))

Massimo sells his figures and offers to sculpt for money

Now not only Krisztian lost his job, but Massimo too:-((
Some of you are already helping Krisztian with sending him figures to paint. Maybe some more would be interested to ask Massimo for his abilities too?

Here is the text of the mail I got from him tonight:

Dear Uwe,
I send you photos of some of my work.
for the price of the dioramas we can talk about any further, let's see if we are interested.
Thanks for your help,
Prices range from 300.- € of my dioramas. - up (for example: 2 figures sculpted and painted on the base, Scottish Tamai, are 3-4 days of work, minimum 300. - euros),
but the prices are always negotiable.

My pieces  not  paintings ( extreme conversions and sculpture):
minimum 20. - € max. 30. - € for the figure on foot
minimum 30. - € max. 60. - € for the figure on horseback

Simple conversions (change of trade figures)
Minimum 5. - max 10 €. - €  for the foot figures
minimum 10. - € max. 20. - € for the figure on horseback

Prices may vary depending on the difficulty of building and number of pieces.


And he can paint too! You remember maybe the Indian irregular cavalry officer he sculpted me? One of the gems in my collection. Here a few of his dioramas for sell:

If you want to send him a mail, his address is:   daikaigan@hotmail.it

Some more Prussians for 1870

Here are some of Alfred's latest conversions for 1870. I already had the Strelets Crimean war Russian Grenadiers in mind for 1848 against the Danes. But for 1870 they are usefull too.

News from Massimo - a nice ACW charge

Today Massimo sent photo of his latest work. I like his lifely conversions!

My first thought when I saw these conversions I thought about a charge of Neapolitan Chasseurs a Cheval against Garibaldians in 1860. But of course Massimo with his interest in the ACW made something more mainstream:-)))

Looks really good! BTW, as far as I know Massimo sells his works and even is converting figures for collectors. So maybe you have a dream fullfilled in which he can help you?

HAT 1870 Franco-Prussian war - Building a consortium

Do you remember the time when HAT announced that they would produce figures for the Franco-Prussian war? As a German, for me this special subject was great news.

Now I will give you a little bit of the story behind:

You know my friend Alfred from some of the dioramas on the blog. Alfred together with his brother Roland is working for a French military museum. Years ago the museums plans were to create a 1/72 diorama of the battle of Sedan 1870. The plan was to have a diorama with around 25.000 figures. They started painting and converting figures, asking for volunteers to help etc.

Strelets supported the team with the French Chasseurs Afrique from the Crimean war range. But beside the two Emhar sets of French and German troops no figures were on the market. Of course different sets of Zouaves which could have been used too.

Alfred then asked HAT if they would be interested in producing some figures for the war to get the units we didn't had so far - Bavarians, more Prussian line, Prussian Jäger and French in poses we needed for the diorama. HAT aggreed and we all were happy.

The sculptor started working an the first two sets were done (Bavarians and Jäger). Then he started at the French. Well, the poses we needed were standing around in reserve etc.

In the meantime the museum changed its mind. You know these modern museums. Empty rooms with a PC in the middle and maybe 3-4 pieces on the exhibition behind some glass. How I hate them....
The museums boss now thought it could be better to have something 3-Dimensional modern insteadt of figures. And the project was put on ice... In the meantime the museum has realised what costs this modern way would bring - and is thinking about a figure-diorama again:-))

Mrs. Jones is a good friend of mine and we talked about me buying the masters from him and casting them in metal. You can imagine that buying 24 masters at one time is an expensive adventure.

So I am trying at the moment to build a consortium of collectors who would like to help me here. So far I have 10 friends who offered 100 Euro each. Now I need 10 more and I can take on the subject.

Everybody who helps out will get the metals for 30 cent each and the profit from the official selling (will be 80 cent) goes into new masters or simply back to the consortium. Depends on what the hobby-friend would prefer.

If this all is interesting to you and you would like to help me safing these figures, just send me a mail at
wild-heindl@t-online.de

BTW, beside the 1870 HAT figures there are old Minifigs S-range figures which fit very well with 1/72 and it would be possible to get some Ulf Debbeler figures who covered this range too. So there would be enough stuff to build some armies for the war.

But now for those who forget how they looked like the photos of the masters

Borodino Saxon Garde Du Corps

This unit is a challenge. The Zastrow we have from Zvezda and they are good figures. The Garde Du Corps is available from Strelets, but not really their best set.

So beside using up the five sets of Strelets I have in my collection I need to make conversions. The Italeri 1806 Prussian Cuirassiers are an option for conversions as are any British dragoons. Here I converted Scott't Greys and Lifeguards. My luck is, that Rainer already made some good conversions which he casted in metal and which you have seen in the posts before.

And with now just seven weeks left before we have to put it on display, here is a shemata of how a Saxon cavalry-squadron was organised. They have to be glued in this formation on the stands.

Here some of my own figures

 These are Ycreol dead Prussian Cuirassiers for 1806

 These two need of course white horses! The one beside the Strelets trompeter was a Italeri Carabinier trompeter when he came out of the box.