A little Mexican interlude...

Seventy five figures painted over a continuous period.  Surely a record?

I'm taking a short break from painting Darkest Africa, having now finished my entire British force for the Zambezi campaign (apart from a Naval Brigade cannon).  In fact, I painted rather more figures than I needed.  So before I start on the Arab force (which is much larger) I thought I'd try and finish some figures lurking around on the workbench.

First off are these Boot Hill Miniatures Mexicans (Matamoros Regiment) from 1836.  I've no idea why I bought these (the prospect of refighting the Alamo is rather daunting) but I now have another six under way.  I downloaded the flags that Boot Hill produced but they seemed huge.  An enquiry on TMP revealed that they had deliberately produced them oversize.  Why?  I can't understand why anyone wants out of scale flags.  As printed from their pdf they worked out about 6'x9' scale size. 

A bit of research revealed the fact that Mexicans standards were in fact about 1 metre on a side and were square rather than oblong.  A bit of fiddling on the computer got the correct eagle for the Matamoros regiment off the surviving flag in Texas.  I added the Boothill flag text and re-sized and re-proportioned the standard. 

Next up I have started work on the 40mm Mexican Marine Infantry I bought from Gringo40s at Salute.  These are for the later Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.  I've never painted 40mm figures before and I will find them a challenge, I think, as my usual three colour shading isn't going to work on these lovely figures.  They remind me of the old 54mm Rose Miniatures I used to paint years ago.  The cavalry figures they are promising should be awesome.  Gringo40s have arranged with Two Fat Lardies (surely the worst gaming company name ever) to produce some Mexican-American War scenarios for their Sharp Practice rules, thereby encouraging the purchase of even more figures, no doubt.

Next up I'm working on a few Black Scorpion lady pirates and some Darkest Africa characters and then it's back on to the Arabs (who are mostly African!).