Friday, 14 January 2011

American artillery (5)


Here is the second Foundry Continental 6-pounder that I recently finished, together with a small American artillery command stand. I put this crew in the standard blue faced red coats, but gave a couple of them non-regulation breeches to suggest a bit of campaign wear and tear. The command vignette was inspired by Bernard Cornwell's latest novel "The Fort", which describes the Penobscot Campaign of 1779. Various historical characters do not come out of the novel particularly well, one such being Paul Revere who commanded the American expedition's artillery. Revere as painted by Cornwell is disobedient and unhelpful, more concerned with having a good breakfast than obeying orders. The situation envisaged in this vignette is that an infantry corporal has been despatched to discover why his battalion is not receiving the artillery support it needs. "Sir, you are supposed to be assisting us and we have been forced to move to a new position over there!" "Corporal, my orders are to fire in the opposite direction and so that is what I intend to do. Good-day!" I painted the corporal (as evidenced by the green epaulette) in a brown faced buff coat to contrast with the artillery officer's blue and red.

6 figures. Painted December 2010.

6 comments:

  1. Nice work Giles and amusing vignette!

    Cheers
    Christopher

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  2. Beautiful figures again Giles. I'm just reading Cornwell's book as well - US hero Revere certainly comes out as an embittered and somewhat venal character - you've captured his artillery battery well!

    Cheers,
    Doc

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  3. Why would Cornwell, being British-Canadian by birth, depict Revere as anything other than an imbecile anyway? I should read the book. ;-)

    Nice touch with this vignette. As said before, the Perry-made Foundry figs are such lovely sculpts. Sadly heavily overpriced for non-UK customers by now.

    Cheers
    SG

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  4. lovely work Giles, you may influence me to start my AWI brits after all!

    cheers
    Matt

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  5. Lovely work Giles - great vignette and like the colour on the carriage woodwork, will try that myself.

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  6. Both the wood tones and the metal work tones are very convincing. The gunners and vignette are beautiful as always. Inspiring!

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