French 'Chasseurs à pied', 1870 - Part 2

Cracking on with my first unit of peg soldiers, I've added the feet and the bases and it's nice to get an idea of what whole troop of peg soldiers might look like...

Next job was the headgear - the kepi - and I've managed to cast six copies of my original model of the hat. It's taken a few days due to the slow hardening time of the Milliput putty I have used to mould the hats...

The other accoutrement for my toy soldier is the rifle. Its a stylised model gun and not really a reproduction of the actual French rifle of the time (1870), the breech-loading Chassepot. My model is more 'pop-gun' than military weapon, in keeping wth the toy soldier theme...

I don't have to be too precise, a rough rifle-like shape is good enough. Also, keeping it simple means it's easier to cut these shapes quickly out of the lolly sticks. All they need is a very quick sand with wet & dry just to take the rough edges off and round off some of the corners.

The final component of these peg soldiers is the magnets. As these are for wargaming and will constitute a complete unit of infantry I really wanted to try them out in combination with a unit tray to make moving them about as a consolidated piece easier. And to ensure that figures don't fall over during the process of moving the unit I also decided to magnetise the figures so that they would 'stick' to the unit tray...

Adding the small magnets to my unit tray and to the bottom of my peg
soldiers. The lolly stick with attached magnet is a trick I picked up from
a guy called Herbert Erpaderp and it helps to ensure I mount all my magnets
with the correct polarity.

And that's the construction complete. This is the beauty of the peg-soldier format, it's a wonderfully simple model to make, particularly the streamlined and uncluttered version I've settled on.

I'm still not completely happy with the way I'm doing 'feet' - all individually hand-made with Milliput - I'd like a 'prefabricated' option for the boots. This maybe something else I can cast and then simply stick on. I will have to experiment.

That small niggle aside (it's still a learning experience for me) It's really exciting to have completed my very first peg soldier 'regiment'. Ranks of toy soldiers look terrific and really give me a buzz both as a display piece and as a wargaming item...

And that's the construction phase. A few minor niggles - which I hope to iron out with practise - but in the main I'm pleased with the Chasseurs so far. The next challenge, though, will be the painting.

| Link to previous post in series (Part 1) |