"TundraWorks 15/18mm Austrian Line Infantry Review" Topic

A friend put out a very useful early product review for the Austrian Line I've been working on… It also doubles as a painting guide. Here are some excerpts:

"First off, painting these things was bloody easy. I can't overstate that. They were designed to be that way but it's great to see it come together. Being a true 15mm scale we did very little in the department of oversizing accessories and other features; meaning that you spend a lot less time detailing than you would on other lines of models. The other reason these paint so quickly is that they are more or less 2d models. Some lines are posed with musketmen mid-stride and muskets held at present arms. This creates 3/4 distinct "sides" to the model that all require attention. On the Tundra Works Austrians the poses are very simple, rifles down and men standing at ease or at attention depending on the pose. You paint the front, then the back and that's it.

…

Overall painting these was remarkably easy and fun. I haven't enjoyed myself this much ever while painting historicals. The only thing I like painting better are my custom urban rubble based sci fi space Soviets."

For more of the review and further pictures check out the blog entry here:
link

the sculptor should check how the cross belts sit and for this period they are much too wide – due to the fact that the cartridge pouch and bayonet scabbard sit at the rear, the belts are crossing at the front at chest height and in the back just above the pouch itself.
good luck with further projects.

It is definitely accurate to say the straps take up more of the chest than they should, and to ensure easy painting we still tried to keep them spaced out, a bit artificially. This is part of the general effort in the line to minimize typically oversized features (hamhands, bobbleheads, etc) and instead emphasize facings and easily highlighted areas (straps for example) that help the whole unit look good together on the tabletop.

We have tried doing this in a few different ways over our test line, so we are eager to see which configurations are preferred by most people.

while I applaud your effort for good anatomy, at least this configuration of belts looks ugly to me (crossing over the navel, so the pouch and belts would sit in the loin), a ko criteria – I wouldn't buy them – other manufacturers do those details nicely, without making painting difficulty, in case you like to see and for inspiration have a look at AB – 18 mm miniatures.

I welcome new contributors in any "scale", but simply cannot understand how anyone goes to such an effort without sounding out the experts. They simply look wrong, even to one who would scarcely know an Austrian from a Hungarian.

Do I understand correctly that the idea was to produce something that was just easy to paint en masse, whether right or wrong?

I do hope this is at an early stage in production and investment and that the creators can rethink this. I genuinely hope this is taken as a positive comment, for what may be figures that just need reworking (and enlarging?) to be brilliant!

I agree the cross belts look wrong, but like the concept of static poses designed to be easy to paint. They have a traditional toy soldier look to them which is good to see.

in case don't follow the link you provided in your article about how to paint the Austrian Army but use instead the series of Enrico Acerbi, you painted IR Nr. 7 Schröder with blue facings, a common error, there as regiments Nr. 12 as well had dark brown facings

Thanks for the details guys. As has been said these are not publicly available for purchase so at this early stage the analysis is helpful. In an initial test run of 70 poses there will definitely be room for improvement.

@deadhead as alluded to above, these are the guys we tried to push the ease of painting concept to the extreme, and I am seeing that there are some challenges associated with that in terms of the sculpting that we will have to go over closely. Comment genuinely appreciated.

@Lambert We are certainly finding these paint crazy fast.. We will definitely make more standing poses if people like the concept.

@von Winterfeltd I didn't actually do these, just a friend/tester as discussed in the blog post, but that's a key tidbit I will forward his way before I make more, so thanks for the info.

the concept is nice – no doubt and the miniatures look appealing – just invest in a bit more research and learn from other top sculptors / designers.

There is excellent quality about uniforms and equipment to be found on the web, such as Markus Stein – napoleon-online.de – at the uniform portal

Well on the other topic on this new company I have conceded that there may well be a strong case for less beefy figures, when seen en masse. Properly densely packed columns and lines…actually even closer together than shown above.

I think they could then benefit greatly from any ease of painting. I think I got this wrong and am grateful the makers took my comments positively.

@deadhead we are just some recent grads funding our own take on this era out of pocket, so feedback at this very early stage is always going to be appreciated. There's so much depth to the period (which is great) and it helps to have veterans around to explain things. I'm glad you've taken the time to see the different take on the 18mm scale from our perspective though!

@von Winterfeldt Thanks for the link. We like knoetel's takes the most since it kind of matches our style of design in terms of the shading he did etc… But I will try to use these resources to crosscheck.

When we set up the austrian straps we really tried to make them extra fat.. which I think takes away from the 60:40 top to bottom ratio I see in some drawings… However I think my friend also painted them a bit differently.. Here's some of mine -- when I did them up I guess the straps didn't seem to loose to me. Hard to say how much is camera angle + painting. What do you think?

very nicely painted, congratulations, as written above look at the cross belts and also your gaiters are looking quite high, at this time period they ended below the knee.