Tuesday, 27 January 2026

Butterflies and Disney Princesses

 A random inspiration while perusing a manufacturer's website was  making a small 28mm skirmish force of Snow White and the Eight Dwarves. This was then followed by pondering what other Disney Princesses could be used.

Elsa for Frozen was front of mind as my grand daughter is infatuated with her. Then I thought of Cinderella and a collection of "mouseketeers" with a Fairy Godmother sorceress. Mulan and her warriors and a dragon. Then came the Princess and the Frog as I already had a frog army for my 40k Dangerous Fauna.

A purchase of 15 snowmen was quickly made from Aliexpress for $10 and I already had some penguins with SMG so Elsa's force was complete.

However, unusually for me, I thought "What and when would I use these for?" Having no answer I rationally decided that while these would be fun little projects they were not needed when there were already a lot of other projects waiting for my time.

I searched for an Elsa so the snowmen would not go to waste and found her plus a friend in a packet of two resin elf sorceress. The second one was suitable for the Princess and the Frog so another $12 later I was closing out the purchasing for this butterfly project.

Here are the pictures.

Elsa and her gang.


Inspiration from Disney's version

My Elsa interpretation
Elsa and some friends... sending a cold front to someone

Elsa and more friends

Elsa's heavy hitters  "Reservoir Penguins" *


The Princess and the Frog



Inspiration from Disney

My version with her two froggy princes

The Princess sends out her horde of frogs.   They fear no one except the French.


Well, all in all I got out of that with little expense in either time or money.

This got me thinking about all the projects half done that I have waiting in various boxes. I really do need to concentrate on some of these so the Napoleonic British are going on hold** until I sort everything out and make a plan.

* "Reservoir Penguins" - stolen from Mr. Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs whose characters hid their identities under colourful names.

** I am sure many of you are thinking that I am just increasing the number of unfinished projects and so making things worse, and, that's a good point.

See you next time with something a bit more rational - we hope.

Wednesday, 14 January 2026

French Napoleonic - Grenadiers

 First post for 2026 and last post for the French Army Painting Project

The last two units for the French Napoleonic Army.  the 92nd* and 72nd Grenadiers*

The 92nd marching in column head on.

The 92nd marching in column at an angle

The 72nd in line. Unfortunately for them I have run out of drummers.

* these flags are from line units left over so I have used them.

Finally the army is completed.  An army review to follow.

10mm Figures and flags from Pendraken.

300 of        300 Infantry              10 units of 30        Completed 100%  YAY.

55 of        55 Skirmishers              5 units of 11        Completed 100%  YAY!

60 of        60 Cavalry                    4 units of 15        Completed 100%   YAY

9/36 of       9 Guns with 36 crew.                             Completed 100%    YAY

5 of            5 Command stands.                                Completed 100% YAY

I have now flocked all the bases and they look better and just have to do the photo shoot (I wonder if that is why we call it modelling?)

In January/February I hope to tie up a few loose ends from 2025, the Napoleonic army review, and update my census of painted and unpainted figures as well as my current list of stalled projects.


Wednesday, 31 December 2025

French Napoleonic The Old Guard

 Final post for 2025. This is 31 posts for the year which is a record for my blog and for the first time exceeds my target of 26 posts a year. My previous best number of posts was 23 in 2021. A good year for the blog.


The Old Guard Battalion rolls off the painting table.

Old Guard Battalion in Line

In column

Painted with a mix of contrast and normal acrylic paints.

Bases still need to be flocked.

10mm Figures and flags from Pendraken.

Painting Progress

240 of        300 Infantry              10 units of 30        Completed 80%  nearly there.

55 of        55 Skirmishers              5 units of 11        Completed 100%  YAY!

60 of      60 Cavalry                    4 units of 15        Completed 100%   YAY

9/36 of   9 Guns with 36 crew.                                Completed 100%    YAY

5 of        5 Command stands.                                    Completed 100% YAY

On the painting table now are two battalions of Grenadiers.

Also I have completed a lot of the base flocking for the existing French units (they look better) and will have an army on parade post in January.