AB - Old Glory Comparison

I've made some comparisons before, but here are pics with painted units of AB and Old Glory 15s. The units are comparable size wise, and work well on the game table in the same miniature armies. The styles are very different, however. So is the level of detail. In the pic below, the figures to the left are AB, and the figures on the right are Old Glory. Both are figures of Portuguese line infantry.

The next pics are British artillery - AB horse artillery on the left, Old Glory foot battery on the right. One thing about the Old Glory figures is that the gun tubes are not particularly good - every once in a while the castings are off and the top and bottoms of the gun tubes don't line up.

Lastly, there are the cavalry figures. The AB figures are British dragoons in Tarleton helmets, and the Old Glory are later British dragoons in shakos. For me, the crucial difference between the brands is the quality of sculpting in the horses. While Old Glory is perfectly functional (and let's face it, no one stoops down to inspect the horses during a game), AB horses are extremely well sculpted and cast.

One trade-off between the brands is that Old Glory tend to be much faster to paint for a guy like me, because when I have a figure with a high level of crisp detail, I paint as much detail as I can. If I were building an army for use in relatively short amount of time, I'd go with Old Glory. Here are some Old Glory 15mm ACW Confederate figures as seen from the "three foot rule." These were simply blocked in color, Army Painter Quickshade (dark tone), and a couple of highlights for the flesh areas - and boom - done. These took only a few hours to paint, and for gaming purposes look just fine.

Cross-Blog

I found a great blog. I know this guy as "Sun of York", and he has a great blog with a lot of variety in its entries and unlike my blog, is updated frequently. As for me, I'm between houses, so all my painting and gaming stuff is packed away in a storage unit. Moving July 1, though, so I'll be painting the Polish Lancers with the airbrushed horses and posting pics as progress is made.

https://napoleonicwargamingsociety.blogspot.com/

Horse Painting Technique WIP

Hello all

I've decided to attempt a different technique for painting horses - this one is from the Polish Lancers of the Imperial Guard. So far so good - this technique has to do with thinned paint an an airbrush. I didn't think it would work on a 15mm figure, but I tried it, and it turned out not-so-bad (so far). One surprising thing is that it is incredibly fast to paint them this way.

WIP Post

I'm finally back to painting. I took a side-trip down ACW lane, and I'm back to Napoleonics. Here are some work-in-process pics from another battalion of French line infantry.

Cigar Box Battle Mat Report

Until now, I've spent almost all my hobby time painting, and almost never gaming. Part of this problem was the fact that my figures are really detailed, but I just couldn't get the terrain board to work. I'm a figure painter, not a terrain maker. Then I accidentally discovered the Cigar Box Battles products, and that changes everything. This company makes fleece gaming mats with designs embedded in them (it isn't paint - you can even put them in the washing machine). Here are some pics; this entire setup was incredibly easy to pull off. I just put the tables up (6' x 4'), wadded up an old t-shirt to use for the heights on the French right, put the mat over it, sprinkled in some lichen, added trees and half-painted buildings, and that's it.

Goddamned Google!

O.k., it took a while, but I finally figured out how to log back into my Blogger account. Anyway, I have a cyberbuddy, Scott Erdo who posted some excellent pics of Old Glory 15s French Chausseurs a Cheval. I can't really do justice to the figures, but here are some pics of the same figs I painted about 10 years ago. The thing is that I'm not sure about the colors. I think that perhaps my color choices are a tad too bright, but then again, I look at figs on the table and two things come to mind. First, at 15mm, no one really notices, and second, who really cares? It's a 15mm game, and the focus should be on the game, not on the color of the cuffs of the uniforms of the figures. The thing for me is that I paint WAY more than I game, and I love trying to recreate the figures in miniature. There is that, and so I changed brands to AB because the sculpting is outstanding. On the other hand, the general spirit of the OG15s is hard to beat. Here are a couple of pics from about a decade ago. The paint job probably could be better, but the spirit of the sclupts is really great.

Some Old Glory French, Full Dress

I had these lying around, so I touched them up and rebased them. They are from the Old Glory 15s French Ligne Infantry, Full Dress pack. I like the fat guy on the end.

An Update - Figure Is Almost Finished.

After a bit more work today, this figure is headed toward being finished. Now I have to pick out an ADC figure to put on the division command stand. Unfortunately, the lighting and the camera make the blue look a lot brighter than it actually is.