Starting & Finishing!

So, having worked out what I’d been neglecting as far as painting’s concerned, and having sorted out most of my storage boxes, I thought it was maybe time to get painting stuff again! There are still quite a few figures prepared and ready for finishing, so it just comes down to picking which ones to paint.

Since my Poles for the Russo-Polish War of 1920 are nearly finished, I thought I’d paint the last handful of them. These are three figures from the Strelets Blue Army set and a Chauchat light machine gun team from the Strelets WW1 French infantry in gasmasks set (see picture below).

Having agonised years ago about the correct colour to use for French Horizon Blue uniforms I opted to use Vallejo Pastel blue and have stuck with that ever since. It might appear bright, but artwork depicting these uniforms is frequently close to this shade and I think it looks alright. Since I already had a French WW1 LMG team in this colour uniform I opted to use that for my Polish forces, since the men weren’t wearing gasmasks – the team shown above is therefore a replacement team for my French and fits in with the rest of that unit (who are wearing gasmasks). Finishing these figures now means my Polish forces for 1920 are 100% complete!

The next mixed bunch are for the Russian Civil War (see below).

Shown are a Red Army officer (on the left), two Ukrainian Bluecoat Division soldiers and a Ukrainian sailor (he has a blue armband that is not visible in this view). The single Red Army officer completes a unit of ten infantry, leaving me another unit of ten Red Army figures still to complete. Painting the Ukrainians also let me complete two mixed units that I can uses in conjunction with WW1 Russian army figures to represent forces opposing the Red Army. The two Bluecoat soldiers are Strelets WW1 Russians in winter uniforms and are not strictly accurate but close enough for tabletop encounters! The situation in the Ukraine between 1917 and 1922 was complicated to say the least, with various factions and armies competing for control of the region and I need to do a bit of swotting up on the subject! A century later and the Ukraine is still an area of uncertainty and tension unfortunately!

So these are my first figures finished in 2022 and ripe contenders for Dave Stone’s “Paint What You’ve Got” challenge! Better than that, they’ve actually got storage boxes with places reserved for them!