"Suggestions wanted" Topic

for possible '18th C. alternate heads' (with tricorne, mirlition, busby…) for RastlWorld Miniatures rastlworldminis.com 'Winsome Napoleonic Soldiers'

and general comments / suggestions about future figurines.

Discussion started there TMP link (scroll down a little) please if interested post on that thread so that all relevant messages are kept together.

An interesting (but purely virtual at the time being) possibility for Lace Wars Imagi-Nations creators with a sense of wittiness, specially if one of them please manifest your interest.

Reminds me of Lt. Prostitute from Yellowbeard.

Tim

I am chatting to a sculptor for a kickstarter project to do just this thing at the moment.

I am aiming for a range of figures that will do

Standard bearer, Drummer, Officer, marching shouldered arms, firing, forward, and perhaps another pose.

with grenadier caps, and normal tricorns.

depending on the sculptor they are using it might even be the same sculptor…

What scale?
I hope 28mm…

28mm – why of course…

if you want to comment send me a private message about what you want to see…

May I underline that, without being 'hysterically historical' I dislike the totally anachronistic bikini which makes the minis look like 21th C. women in kinky cosplay.
A 'strategically placed' (read ± like a sporran) cartridge pouch would be far more 'in period'.

Why on earth would 18th/19th century women – even in ImagiNations – go into battle half naked?

Men of the period did not, which is why the few women who served in the ranks while pretending to be men – such as Hannah Snell – were only discovered when they were wounded and their small-clothes removed by surgeons.

Why on earth would 18th/19th century women – even in ImagiNations – go into battle half naked?

Because they are stationed in Tahiti

or equatorial Afrodisia

and (even if intended for 1815 ‌) wisely adopted the local costume ?

.

You know, it's not supposed to be *serious*: I doubt the buttons are sculpted with the appropriate monograms, I even fear the number of buttons may be historically inaccurate .

'Seriously' (¿?) now, I'd prefer them sculpted without the shockingly unhistorical bikini bottom, but 'bare' (Barbie doll fashion without 'intimate' details),

allowing to paint them, if wished so, with skin-thigh trousers à la hussarde
(Phoenix figurine link)

But if you object to 'bikini bottoms' on historical grounds, and I do, too, surely you would wish to respect the mores of the historical era?

Hannah Snell and her like could escape detection because their male comrades did not divest themselves of clothing at every opportunity and so were not surprised that they did not, either.

But if you object to 'bikini bottoms' on historical grounds, and I do, too, surely you would wish to respect the mores of the historical era?

First, it is 'alternate history', and not of the 'hard science' type taking itself seriously; and if Fantasy cannot offer… more than The Real World™, where is its point?

Then, while both of us have their own prejudices, they are obviously very different: in this beautiful 'Tudorpunk' portrait of Gráinne Ní Mháille (the Elizabethan 'Pirate Queen of Ireland' YouTube link ):

(from link : the magnificent blog of a very gifted and talented painter) while I fully appreciate the combination of Napoleonic features (Richard Sharpe of the 95th Rifles' dolman-like jacket, type of pistol…) I'm totally allergic (?) to the épaulettes. To me they are far too specific of the post-Revolutionary times, while dolman-type jackets are far more 'atemporal', being of a type (if taken loosely) worn from the Late Renaissance to (with parade uniforms) 1914

The only 'Tudor' features are the slashed sleeves and puffed breeches. Everything else – pistol (which seems to have the cock on the wrong side – perhaps because she is left handed, to judge by the sabre), sabre, belt & whistle, frogging on jcket, epaulettes and cigar are pseudo-Napoleonic. Does nothing for me, though clearly skilfully-executed, I'm afraid.

If I, as the despotic – but benevolent – ruler of an ImagiNation were to raise a bataillon des belles to adorn the parade ground of my summer palace, they would remain fully clothed when on duty {how candidates for promotion might appear when invited to my private study might be another matter…) so as not to scandalise my subjects – indeed I cannot imagine any woman of good character willing to enlist in a regiment 'dressed' in the manner suggested by the sketches above! – and would on no account be committed to battle. How could I subject such pulchritude to the ravages of case shot and musket balls?

Why on earth would 18th/19th century women – even in ImagiNations – go into battle half naked?

Was not the question of input requested posed strictly from the point of view of and directed at those doing "Imagi-Nations," and quite obviously in addition, aimed at a niche within those constraints?

An interesting (but purely virtual at the time being) possibility for Lace Wars Imagi-Nations creators with a sense of wittiness…

Neither this nor the original thread is posted on the 18C or SYW pages as near as I can tell? So, no effort at historicity is intended, and, no one is holding a cocked horse pistol at anyone's cranium and forcing anyone to buy these!? So what's the harm? Don't want 'em? Don't buy 'em!

Myself, I am involved in a campaign set on a "mythical" island-continent "dated" to 1800. The new season of 1801 is supposed to start soon. Most of the other players' armies are built with Napoleonic figures (they're also Napoleonic historical gamers), but my army is based on the Lace Wars. So what!? Then too, a member of the ruling house of a neighboring country is called "The Lady Bouncing Boobies!!" The ruling house is led by "The Grand Duke Elmer…" Yuppers, as in Fudd. So, why wouldn't I perhaps raise a battalion of Eureka's girls in Tricornes for the Legion Fuddlandique to counter the "dubious characters" invading my space?? I've still to make up my mind about a battalion painted up in "Summer Marching Order," but girls in a-historical bikinis in a campaign that is already using cartoon characters for one ruling house is a "problem?" Am I going to trot them out at Histori-Con?? Hardly… so who'd it harm?

So, @abdul666lw, I'd say, on the first figure:

The coat tails should be extended "tastefully," to come down at least somewhat over her derriere -- to remind the war-gamer that the figure is intended for ca. 1740-1765. She'll still show plenty of leg… And put her in a tricorne hat.

The second figure shown is meant as a "British horse artillery" girl? If you wanted to leave her in a dolman, then make her a hussar-ette, and maybe give her a horse pistol or carbine -- there were no horse artillery personnel in the era of the SYW dressed like that. Actually, RASTL already has "Lysette" the hussar-ette. They could start by simply re-releasing her with a different cap -- a mirleton, or a fur busby appropriate to the 1740s to 1760s.

But as to the figure sketched above… As a hussar, take off the British helmet and put her in a mirleton, or a fur busby (kolpak), and give her a pistol or carbine -- or make her the horse holder of a dismounted element skirmishing while on outpost duty? On the other hand, In that dolman and though without an outer coat but wearing a tricone (yes tricorne), and waving a saber excitedly, she would make a most interesting officer leading Austrian or Prussian Pandours! In fact, some female Pandours to go with her would also be "interesting!"

I'll pass on these

I'll pass on these

A rather ambiguous formulation, if I may. I doubt one would be allowed to stay indefinitively

Hi everyone!

These are 28/32mm scale sculpted to match Perry, Front Rank, Vitrix, etc. So they're actually meant to be put on the table as soldiers and should fit in well with what you already have.

These are based on WWII American pin-up art so all the bits are going to be covered. Mostly covered. The bikini has 2 more functions – to show she's actually kind of in uniform and to balance out the figures which tend to be top-heavy.

The second figure is Royal Horse Artillery. Hussar will be a separate release.

I realize that not everyone wants historical cheesecake. That's fine. I'm giving those who do want to have some fun the figures they need to mix up their troops.

@Maddaz11 – Glad to hear that someone else is having some fun with historicals. PM me and we can chat about who's doing what, etc.

'historical cheesecake' just about sums it up!

As photo in a magazine, maybe; on the wargame table, no thanks.

on the wargame table, no thanks

I'm sure you never play sword & sorcery games: lots of chainmail bikinis there

Actually, I don't play many fantasy games – but if I did, I wouldn't object to 'chainmail bikinis' as they seem to be part of the iconography of the genre, and it is, at least as far as I'm concerned, pure fantasy, not a fictitious state like an ImagiNation operating within an historical background, like Hornblower, Aubrey, Ramage et al operate within the Napoleonic Wars.

In the latter case, I prefer my characters to obey the technological and social constraints of the period – hence I can accept a decorative female palace guard, uniformed cantinieres, but not figures that appear to have stepped out of a modern soft porn magazine and defy the mores of the period in which they supposedly live. But I would be happy to game with half naked Amazons, warrior women of Dahomey or Polynesian islanders &c.

That is my personal opinion, and I do not seek, or claim the right, to force it on others. We must just agree to disagree on this issue.

Without going as far as RastWold 'cheesecake', scantily clothed fighting ladies often appear in Pirates games, another type 'alternate tricorn era' setting.

link

link
More… relaxed on the average than land-based Imagi-Native campaigns, since it's not uncommon for pirates to encounter krakens, Deep Ones, voodoo zombies… or to land on a mysterious (Skull?) island where dinosaurs coexist with cave girls in fur bikini link (though it *happens* to Victorian times oversea expeditions to discover such 'lost worlds' link).

In Caribbean and warmer settings such lightened dress is justified by the climate, and it would make sense for regular European soldiers in such garrison to wear adapted uniforms: the 'bare navel' Sandra is a credible example

(and no, she is not in huge bikini bottom

link
-diaper, rather-

the lines are creases of the breeches).

.

As for "social constraints of the period", every time we play a wargame we are writing historical fiction, however 'historically accurate the OOB, initial deployment and orders… maybe, since the encounter can be different from 'the real one'. Possibly with potentially drastic consequences, Alexander killed at Chaeronea, Bonaparte at the Pyramids or Wellington at Seringapatam. Inconsequential in isolated battle games, and war games campaigns are generally too short-lived for the consequences to be fully developed. But in principle every table-top has the potential to create an 'alternate time line' link ('big banging' a new parallel universe à la H. Beam Piper's 'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'). Now, when we have an Imagi-Nation (specially a well developed 'unhistorical' oversea colony neuessudland.blogspot.fr . link ) the 'point of departure' from 'our' time-line has to be set some time in the past. Whatever the nature and immediate importance of the initial divergence from 'real' History, with time 'butterfly link effects link ' cannot but accumulate, with unavoidably consequences on mores, including fashion.

.

Now even in (quasi) historical games some nudity may appear in a discrete vignette on the edge of the battlefield (a little -and not wanting to be belittling / deprecating at all!- like the caganer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer in Catalan Nativity Scenes )

( link )
Even some 'diehard historical' gamers indulge now and then in such 'fantasy' (DAF in one of his spectacular 'Prussian camp' scene, for instance?). For the Lace Wars this would be specially appropriate for a (semi-)French HQ vignette: his two mistresses accompanied Louis XV when he joined the Flanders army in 1744 (at the time of Fontenoy Mme de Pompadour had stayed in Versailles to learn Court manners and protocol). While Maurice de Saxe was so fond of young actresses and ballerinas that he created the 'army field theatre', having a troupe attached to his HQ.
Now, even by Napoleonic times I vaguely remember an anecdote about the mistress of a French marshal appearing in far from complete hussar dress?

Always a pleasure to friendly debate; then, a 20th C. general set out a very definitive -and technically irrefutable- statement about point of views, so indeed

With respect, I doubt that Arthur Wellesley being killed in India would have had any effect whatsoever upon respectable women's reluctance to appear in public in a state of undress!

Vignettes of camp followers, officers' mistresses &c. are not really my target – I'm simply suggesting that appearing clad in breeches was sufficiently scandalous for 18th century women to make it unlikely that regiments of female soldiers would have appeared in fewer clothes than Eureka's 'Sandras'.

Psychologically, clothes give one a sense of security, of protection; being naked makes one feel more vulnerable – not the right frame of mind for entering a battle…

SYW camp scene (NSFW):
link
from the French musical: YouTube link (Achtung! Not Safe For Wife / Work).
OK, the 'British' privates look like Gardes Suisses of 1789

the few women who served in the ranks while pretending to be men – such as Hannah Snell – were only discovered when they were wounded and their small-clothes removed by surgeons.

That's indeed the tenet of the (rather bad) Franco-Italian movie 'Le Chevalier de Maupin' / Madamigella di Maupin' (1966): YouTube link

(Nothing in common except the name with the historical Julie d'Aubigny, Mademoiselle de Maupin who indeed dressed, fought in duel and actually loved like a man, but was a 17th C. actress)
Either 18th C. men were almost blind, or Hannah Snell and her likes did not look at all like the heroine of the movie

About an ambiguous historical 18th C. character: link

Just for a 1 second glimpse of a woman in so-called Lace War uniform: YouTube link

El Viejo Dragon

link
Nothing in 28mm, unfortunately…

and a kettle-drummer:

OK, give them thigh high boots so that they can be painted with skin-thigh breeches

Napoleonic, but grenadiers already existed by Lace Wars times:
link

Pegaso again

90mm, alas…

(bust Nemrod)