6th Hussars

This is the Andrea French Hussar Officer 1812 bust. Initially I thought I might have taken on more than I intended when I started this kit. However, after some planning it all worked out just fine. The bust was painted without the right arm in place because of all the detail that would have been inaccessible if it were on. That’s probably better because it was easier to paint the Gold lace on the sleeve this way. The colors of the 6th are Blue and Scarlet. The Blue was Winsor Newton Blue/Black with just a touch of Winsor Blue added. The Scarlet was a base of WN Cad Red shaded with basic Red and highlighted with WN Cad Scarlet. The Gold lace was my biggest hurdle. I read Lou Masses article in HM and thought I’d give it a go. I just couldn’t get it to look as good as Lou’s so I improvised by using his technique and my own which was not much more than using Gold printers inks and streaking it on in the highlighted areas. The braiding was done with Lou’s method and I thought it worked well. Flesh tone was my basic mix of Burnt Sienna, Gold Ochre and Titanium White. Some Red was added to the eyelids to make him look a bit tired. I also added some Red under the nose for some color. The shirt collars were made from some sheet lead as the ones supplied were rather thick. Earings were made of brass wire because the ones supplies were a bit too thick. The buttons had some nasty mold marks on them that needed to be cut and sanded. This left them a bit flat so I used two part epoxy and dropped a dollop on each button that covered this up and left a nice round button. All in all the kit is very well done and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in French Napoleonic’s.