Scruby French Line Infantry

These figures are the first of a batch of Scruby French infantry that I have been painting for a few weeks. Production was halted for a while as I needed to find some paints to replace the faulty Humbrol gloss that I was have such problems with. I am using a mix of Testors, Revell and Tamiya, which seem to do the trick.

These figures from Historifigs are superb, with very clean castings and sharp detail. My only concern is that the uniforms appear wrong for the Crimean War. I am no expert on French uniforms, but these figures appear to be dressed in the 1860 pattern uniform, and of course the Crimean War ended in 1856. That said they look nice when completed and were fun to paint and will join the ranks of the growing French forces.

Scruby - British Staff Officer

I used the Scruby General officer figure to represent General Scarlett earlier this year. Over the last couple of days I have been painting a second figure to represent a British staff officer. He will act as an aide on the battlefield.

Although a very nicely moulded figure the Scruby offering is incorrect for the Crimean war. The problem lies with the plume on the high cocked hat and the shoulder accoutrements. General officers wore feathers on their head dress, although it seems that actually in the field all of the decorative items were removed. The Scruby figure correctly has the officer wearing the long double breasted frock coat, but this would not be worn with all of the gold shoulder decoration, this being normal for the full dress uniform. However, with a little bit of chopping and filing these odd issues can be easily resolved.  Here is the original figure as supplied:

Then the same figure is shown with a few adjustments:

Production Delays

My painting project has slowed down a little due to problems with the paint. I normally use Humbrol gloss enamel paints, which for the last 50 years or so have proved most consistent and reliable, but lately there have been some issues. This is particulalry the case with gloss enamel red (19) and black (21). With these two, no matter how much stirring I do I find that the paint remains tacky for days, sometimes a week. Some other gloss colours appear very thin, and the ratio of oil (if thats the right term) to pigment is too great so the effect is a very watery, runny paint that requires several coats to achieve good coverage. Being so thin it is difficult to paint accurately too without the paint running into all the little crevices.

I initially thought this might be a one off problem, so I ditched the paints I had and bought some more from other outlets, but same issue has occured. I am now looking for other sources of these colours as I have given up on Humbrol.

Anyone else experienced this - or is it me?