Napoleonic Hair Curler Army

All these came from 1 larger hair curler.

 Long, long ago Andy Callan wrote and article for Miniature Wargames newsletter detailing how to create cheap armies out of plastic hair curlers. A few years back I decided to take a crack at this method. I scoured all the local bigbox stores looking for plastic hair curlers. These were pretty hard to find it turns out. But I eventually found a set of 3 large curlers at a K-Mart for a few dollars. 


These pictures detail my results with English and French Napoleonic armies. Up close they look awful, just plastic with lines of paint. From a few feet away they don't look half bad on the table. You eye just blends the colors together and picks out the flags for the most part.

The thin red line...of womens hair dressing items.

 I downloaded flags from warflag.com and used a very narrow gauge brass rod as a flag staff. The brass rod was a random find at a DIY store. I haven't seen any since so maybe it was divine intervention.

 Painting was simple. Base color, small dot of color for trousers, flesh for faces, black for hats, green on the base of the curler. Done.

 The cavalry was a serious pain to make. The article details how to do this correctly, but I definitely glued my fingers together more than once. Though, maybe I could get good results with white glue and not use super glue next time.

All of this took me an evening to complete. Not bad bang for my buck and a lot of fieldable units in a short amount of time.

Here is the link to this article in the files section of 6mm Miniatures Yahoo group. You may need to join before you can download it.
Hair Curler Armies Article

*UPDATE*
The above link is dead now. I can't seem to find a copy of the article anywhere so instead here is a link to an even better resource on the SUBJECT

6mm Napoleonics Project Artillery and More

Baccus French and Prussian Artillery

 A quick update on my ongoing quest to defeat my painting table. Ive completed the next phase in my 6mm Napoleonic project. My French and Prussian artillery batteries are painted and based. Now in all truthfulness, I have more artillery for the French to complete, but I decided this was a good starting point for a table worthy force.

Box by Calvin Klein

Total bases completed to date

French

5 Infantry Brigades

2 Cavalry Brigades

4 Batteries

Prussian

5 Infantry Brigades

4 Batteries

Up Next, Prussian & French Cavalry

As an added bonus in this update here is a test base I made for a 10mm Great War project myself and a few friends are working on. These are late war Germans running across a downed barbed wire fence.

6mm Napoleonics Project

5 brigades of Prussians

In a little under a week I was able to make more progress on my 6mm Prussians than I was able to make in the preceding 104 weeks. I now have 5 fully functional bases for use in the glorious struggle against the hated French.


I used a new mixture for the grass on these bases than I have in the past. Currently my French having nothing but static grass from GW. Whereas the Prussians have a mix of the following Woodland Scenics products.
Coarse Turf Earth, Light Green, and Medium Green. Light Green Foliage, and of course the same GW static grass.


Now, what to start on next. Cavalry or Artillery? Also Im considering having the command bases painted for me.

6mm Napoleonics Project (2 Years and Running)

Around 3 years ago I discovered Baccus. No, not the ancient Greek god of partying like a rock star. But the modern manufacturer of quality 6mm scale miniatures, obviously the far cooler Baccus. My first purchase was the ACW box set from the now gone Old Rivertown Minis. After some fiddling in the ACW arena I finally made the decision to ruin my financial future and get into Napoleonics. This was my first venture into the era and I knew little else but that there were a lot of options and foreign words involved.     

French Battalions next to pipe cleaner trees based on 3mm foam.

I chose to start with the French (of course!) and Prussians, because who doesn't like the Germans? The above picture was my first test base. I chose to use the Fast Play Grand Armee rules set because I liked the command and control elements, wanted larger battles, and free is always good.

Closer look at the trees.

I may not have mentioned this before, but I hate painting minis. Im not very good at it and my attention span does not allow me to paint like some of you for hours on end. Hell, I'm barely able to get through this blog post without jumping onto Steam to play Day of Defeat for an hour.

Anyway, after much delay, several side projects, geek space renovations, etc I was able to complete a grand total of 5 Infantry bases and 2 cavalry.

Pictured: 2 Years of Effort

Not to say Im not very satisfied with the results. Im just annoyed it took me 2 years to get to this point. Now all I need is another 2 years to get to the same point with my Prussians.

Close up of Le Petite Armee de Nick

Fear my poorly painted Chasseurs and Hussars.