Tonight I will not be posting pictures of painted figures, but instead I am posting a question and hoping to see if someone has an answer.
Today I picked up the Italeri box of Austrian Infantry, for I fell in love with them ever since first seeing them. I really am a sucker for the fancy new Italeri sculpts.
Anyways, I bought them, thinking I will base them all together for a little vignette, maybe Austerlitz, with all in formation, and plumes of smoke leaving the muskets as they unleash a volley on the enemy.
But then I realised that there are three different types of uniforms in the set. The first is the average infantry (fusilier? I am really new to Napoleonic nomenclature), the grenadiers (big roman-esque helmets, my favorite looking ones), and finally another, fluffier hat version. I looked through the osprey books my brother has, and they are all terribly confusing. I think the fluffy hats are Hungarians?
So I looked up the set online, and couldn't find a single painted version of them anywhere. Which is strange for such a beautiful set.
So my question is, what do I paint these guys? Do I follow the back of the box, or is Italeri wrong (like they are quite often)? Does anyone have good photos on what they should look like?
Thanks for reading,
I'll post my Qing troopers tomorrow or wednesday
FF
Hallo! I'm not a big expert on austrian uniforms, but I painted many figures (not from this very set but from other sets, including the other one from italeri) and I have done a bit of research myself.
ReplyDeleteAs for the uniform, you guessed correctly about the majority of the figures, they are indeed fusiliers. Not so about the grenadiers, which are the last two figures in the psr page (the two with the fluffy hat). Both these types of figures wear the old uniform, good for the last years of the xviii century and up to 1805. the two figures with the roman-ish casque are fusiliers wearing the new uniform for the years 1805-09.
Both the new and old uniform are rather similar, and the most noticeable difference (apart from the fusilier's hat) is in the collar: old-> folded down collar, with black scarf (red on some regiments?); new-> standing up collar
All figures can be painted the same, and the box is mostly correct apart from the uniform colour: that wasn't really white, but more of a off-white hue, sometimes defined as cream, sometime as very, very light gray. It's a matter of taste I guess...
As psr suggests, the roman hat figures can be painted also as light infantry; those had gray uniforms (called pike gray, which is a medium gray, seemingly with a slightly blue tone).
As for the "nationality" of the figures, they're all "germans", that is from the non-hungarian half of the empire, thus including also northern Italy and Belgium. At this stage hungarian troops had the same uniforms and hats, but lacked the black gaiters and had instead long tight blue trousers. In truth it takes just a bit of paint-conversion to make both "germans" and hungarians.
The box shows green facings, but every regiment had a different facing colour, so it's possible to have some fun here.
The officer on the box cover has a coat (which was gray), but the one inside has none, and wears the new style uniforms it seems.
For more infos (and some facing colours suggestions) have a look here:
http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/Austrian_infantry.htm
Have fun! ;)
PS as for the "roman" hat, line and light infantry had the same, but with different designs on front (on the box top, the officer has the line infantry version with the plaque, and the guys on the left have the light infantry style, with the emperors' monogram)
hi,
ReplyDeletehere's a website with historical paintings for a austrian field manural:
http://www.napoleon-online.de/html/mollo_oesterreich1798.html
still blinded by the glory of your french and russians experiments I would say italieris illustrations are pretty accurate - see for yourself at the "Jäger" and "grenadiere" depicted by Tranquillo Mollo and Josef Georg Mansfeld (click on the pictures to enlarge).
from a long ago visit at the Leipzig Battle Memorial I dimly remember that the "JägerW are a german special - light infantry wearing helmets while skirmishing and scouting, while the grenadiers are as usual for the time are the heavier line infantry.
are you still looking for reconquista arabs? I guess the Faerie-courts could help you with the mounted and foot-infidels and further with french and saxon cuirassiers...
with admiration for your clean and crisp painting & your versatility...
Lilith
Thanks to both of you, Giano and Lilith. The websites are very useful. I have already painted a few of them in different styles, and I think I know how I'm going to tackle them, and your information on the colors is just what I needed.
ReplyDeleteThanks a million,
FF