Front Rank 28mm British Napoleonic Royal Foot Artillery

Hello There! Another addition to my Maida project is a battery of artillery for the British. It does not appear to be clear what calibre the guns present this a 9lbr gun model.

I replaced the sponge/rammer with a piece of wire as I find the white metal fitting usually snaps far too easily when in use. I drilled the remaining ends out with a pin vice and glued back together with superglue.

The rocks are Cotwold Buff stone chipping painted then dry brushed. The vegitation infront of the cannon is an experiment that I decided to try out. I noticed that not all plants grow out at an angle like the commercially available tufts. I took rolled some 6mm long static grass between my fingers and plucked any ends that stuck out either side and put these piecs bac in the centre of the grass. This levelled the static grass so that both ends were relatively flat. I placed a layer of neat PVA on the base and stuck the end of the staic grass into the PVA and left it to dry.

Unlike tufts the grass stays upright and you can cover any area that you like. After a day of drying get a large paintbrush with soft bristles and gently brush from the bottom to the top over a sheet of paper to reclaim any excess. This has made a convincing out crop of plants.

 

Getting the barrel and brass finish is always a problem. It either ends up looking too shiney or has a flat finish. Here I put a layer of brass metallic paint then after that had dries I added a wash of army painter strong tone around the raised parts of the barrel. This did not work too well at first as the wash gathered into globules or just migrated to the lower surface of the barrel. I added a small brushfull of washing up liquid and used the strong tone wash neat and did the upper surface first and allowed it to dry, laying level, and the turned it through 90degrees and wash again. I wanted some more detail to stand out so I rubbed the raised detail with a soft duster and this removed any wash to make the detail stand out a bit more.

I have further artillery to complete and these will be in future posts.