Wednesday 15 August 2012

AWI Airfix Grenadiers

Here are a few more refurbished Airfix figures, these were painted by the same person who painted up the previously posted AWI French, and the much earlier posted Airfix Marines. The set featured in this posting is the rather unfortunate Airfix British Grenadiers, reviewed by PSR here. Needless to say, it is not a glowing review. Once painted, the figures do at least look better.

The group: Three stands of infantry and a  mounted command stand.
 In refurbishing these figures I attempted to preserve the original painters paint job where possible, as I find it quite a pleasing one. The brown wash brings out a lot of the detail hidden by the enamel paint, and also helps obscure where the paint doesn't really match.
 
Another group picture. The poses in this set are well suited to making linear  musket formations.
 The drummer was painted red, so I kept the original colour scheme, although I strongly suspect that he should be in reverse colours to the rest of the troops. The Union Jack on the flag is not a bad attempt to deal with the problem of the weird flag shape on the figure. Again, I kept the original paint scheme for reasons of completeness, as well as aesthetics.

Unlike some manufacturers, Airfix drums are always big.
 The process of refurbishment was the usual one of retouching the paint jobs, basing the figures, giving them a brown wash, followed by flocking, and finally a coat of spray varnish.

A side view of one of the stands.
I still have quite a number of unpainted British Grenadiers that may be converted into line infantry, should I find an easy way of doing this en masse. Most likely, I will just paint up the Imex AWI figures I have as they are particularly nice figures that don't need converting before painting.

Next up in the refurbishment line up is Airfix AWI Americans - George Washington's Army painted up as George Washington's Army!

11 comments:

  1. On the whole I don't think the Airfix AWI British Grenadier set is all that bad. I believe that PSR has no high opinion of the Washington's Army set either.

    The lack of this and that detail can be supplied by careful painting, or simply adding the omitted gear or attachments. The mounted grenadier figure is far from useless if you are using the figures in an imaginary army. I would even go so far as to suggest so what if the real grenadier officers weren't mounted... officially? It would be no surprise if the odd one went against 'regs'.

    The flag might be thought of as half furled, though I agree, Brian, that the painter made a very good fist of painting it convincingly as (mostly) unfurled. But I personally do not retain the flags as cast. On this figure, it can be replaced easily with a wire and paper flag.

    I can see why you retained the scheme. It looked good, and the refurbish just made a good job better.
    Cheers,
    Ion

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    1. My personal opinion is that PSR's review on these figures is quite harsh - but not without merit. The figures do have numerous flaws, but also have a cerain charm to them. As to the issue of the mounted officer, I concur that in the field unofficial acquisitions of an equine nature almost certainly occurred. If I was to paint up the flagbearer figure, I think I would certainly give replacing the flag a go.

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  2. They look really nice Brian. I have always like the Brit Gren set, there was just something about it that really appealed to me.

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    1. The original painter did a very nice job on these guys. I can only hope that when I get around to painting some AWI figures that they look as good.

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  3. Nice set of stands! You won´t beleive it..but I looked at the French waterloo artillery the otherday. I was considering giving them head swops from the washingtons army set :-D
    Cheers
    Paul

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  4. nice work brian nice to see some red coats

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    1. Can't have a rebellion without the Empire...

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    2. LOL sure you can just move to the Balkans!

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    1. Really enjoyed looking at these. Back in the day these old boys and their Washington's Army foes got painted up as Napoleonic units from all sorts of obscure duchies and minor states. with much assistance from the venerable Funcken volumes L'Uniforme et les Armes des Soldats du Premier Empire...


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