French Napoleonic Hussars pillow fight (Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge entry #2)

As mentioned in a previous post, these are the minis I painted first for Curts Analogue Painting Challenge. But this is the entry for the first fortnight theme (non-combatants) and Curt wanted to post all those at once, so these hit the internet as the second entry. As indicated before, the non-combatants theme was giving me headaches. At first I had thought that I should do one of the battery area markers for my Napoleonic batteries. Those are supposed to cover a huge area and convey lots of little scenes, which can include non-combatants. But then again a large area would have meant lots of figures and I simply did not have the time for that. While The Challenge started on the 15th, I had my last day at work on the 17th and could not start before that date. At the same time we left for my better halfs relatives on the 20th and I did not want to take paints, minis, basing materials and my camera equipment along, so things had to be finished before that date.

So something else had to come up. After Curt squashed my idea of British WWII soldiers having a cup of tea (Thanks Curt! ;-)) I came up with these. Essentially it is a command stand for some French Napoleonic Cavalry. Now I would never assume that two officers would count as non-combatants, but I really hope the two mistresses will count. Well I hope them having a pillow fight is not too combative. 😛

The officers are from Perry. One of them is a General de Brigade, the other his ADC. I looked at the colors of the different French Hussars regiments for some time and ended up with the 5th since I really wanted to work with some light blue and was intrigued by their blue shakos. Not sure if there ever was a Brigadier that wore a uniform from the 5th, but I simply wanted to do them this way. So far so good. In the end I think I should have gone with a different unit, at least for the ADC, since well… with all this light blue they look like a bunch of Smurfs! The two ladies are from Eureka Miniatures and are painted to match, except that they are wearing enlisted soldiers jackets (yellow piping) instead of officers jackets (gold lace). Depending on what source you look at, one could use different shades of blue. For example the Histroire & Collections book on French Hussars shows them in a darker medium blue. Rousselot depicts them in a light sky blue. I felt the later was possibly the more accurate source and I wanted to try out some of the light blues I had bought last year and still had not used.

5th Hussars officers
(Yes, while other men march into the meat grinder, the Hussars have all the fun!)

5th Hussars officers

5th Hussars officers

5th Hussars officers

Hope you all like this little vignette! For those of you wondering about the other FOURTY entries, here is the link to the special page Curt set up for the first fortnight theme and for people to cast their votes for favourites.

Now on to thinking about what to paint for the villain, which is the next theme and while the deadline for that is only the 5th of January, I have a similar problem with my private timetable, so I will have to tackle that first!