Hussarettes: “I know how shoot - my boyfriend was in Military”

(This was originally published on 28 Feb 2014, but I have merely updated near the end with a new email address. Apologies in advance if this causes any confusion)

Count Gregorius looked down at the girl. Although there was a slight chill breeze in the wine cellar of Grunburg castle, she showed nothing but pride and strength. If she felt cold then there was no sign of it and the flickering torchlight gave a warm glow to her skin.. On her head she wore a black fur colpack with gold cords, across her shoulder was draped  a yellow woollen pelisse lined with grey fur and fastened by a gilt strap matching the lace button loops. Her yellow leather Hungarian style boots also had gold tassels. She slowly discarded the red military style short waistcoat which she wore when she had entered the room, and placed it on a stool. She wore nothing else except a remarkable gilt bracelet. The Count couldn’t help wondering what had become of her undershirt, or her dolman, and not least, her breeches.  He glanced, for some kind of explanation, at two stern Grunburg Dragoons, the guards who had brought  her into the wine cellar, but there was none forthcoming.

He walked slowly round her, admiring her Eastern beauty and pondering on the story of her capture. It was during the Prussian army’s pursuit of the Russians following Frederick’s  rather doubtful victory at Zorndorf. She was cornered in an inn wearing what appeared to be the uniform of an officer of the Gruzinsky Hussars,  but she  had fought three of his Dragoons to a standstill until forced to surrender by overwhelming numbers. He realised such a combination of spirit and feminine charm could be put to good use in his long term ambition to become Elektor of Reikland. But first she had to be put through her paces.

“Who are you?” he demanded
“I am Countess Natasha Gruzinskaya”. The surly expression never left her face as she spoke in a rich Russian accent. “I know how fight - give me sabre!”.
“Why are you naked?” He could contain his curiosity no longer.
“Better to fight, of course!”
With a little trepidation he handed her the elegant oriental sabre which he had taken from a captured Croat officer in the Prague campaign. She handled the curved hilt and weighty blade with confidence, all the time staring at him with the contempt of a superior being for an underling. He summoned forward his fencing master, a Captain of Dragoons, who took up the en garde posture which gave the Countess little doubt that she was to be tested.

Gregorius could hardly bear the thought that her perfect skin might be pierced in this contest, yet her spirit had to be broken somehow........

"I know how fight - give me sabre!"
Natasha of the Gruzinsky Hussars, 1758
Acrylic on canvas 14" x 10"
NOTE Copyright - not to be copied elsewhere without my permission, CG

.....But no need to worry, for this is part of my Imagi-Nation. “Natasha” was in no danger for she is really Yaroslavna acting the part of a Hussarette for my most recent photo-shoot to gather yet more reference material for the project. And the beautiful sword is real, but a dull-bladed, reproduction.  As she is a former professional model from Russia I was very fortunate to be introduced to Yara . She was keen to get back into “practice” after a few years doing other things.  She is a very confident young lady with loads of expressions and a willingness to take direction sometimes overtaken by her own exuberance for her art.

She entered the part so seriously that I had a bit of difficulty at first as she took on the discipline and austerity of the military persona as a kind of professional test.  I was showing her the Napoleonic carbine and was putting it at half cock, ready to fire, when she grabbed it with the words “I know how shoot - my boyfriend was in Military”. This photo followed  immediately afterwards

After a bit of this attitude, with which we got many good shots, I told her to lighten up - “Remember you are a pin-up - who wants to look at a miserable pinup?”  That got results and I do have smiling

In fact one of the key drivers for this photo session was  a beautiful miniature brought to my attention by Jean Louis (abdul666) back in 2012. A female version of a French Imperial Guard Chasseur a Cheval, but minus a lot of uniform. Here is a link to the original metal-modeles.com/en/nouveautes and lots of other novelty ladies too.

I hardly dared believe back then that  my project would enable me to  recreate it - a Chasseurette rather than Hussarette.    Yara posed for this from many angles, including the classic pose of the miniature (above), but I won’t show you that one as it will be a definite for a painting later.  But here is another variation.

The deal we have is something of a mutual goal for art’s sake, apart from her fee. In her case a self confessed “passion” for posing and modelling, and a real interest in representing this in painting. In my case I needed a model who was unfazed to go further than the lovely ladies I had already used, and across a wide range of themes. These themes featured a good selection of my props, by no means all of a military nature, but also to allow me to develop more sophisticated reference material.  A lot of that need not concern the wargamer blog follower, but for you chaps, and even ladies, here are two more themes.  The first is taking the “Tales of the Golden Head” girls into the jungles of the Dark Continent –  If I’d known her earlier Yara could have modelled Constance perfectly.

For those who prefer jodpurs I take consolation from a book I’ve recently read - Draw and Paint Fantasy Females  by Tom Fleming. He says if you want to put skin-tight clothing on your fantasy females best to use a naked model first!

The second is along the lines of the classic fantasy females made famous in the art of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo in the 1950s - 70s.  Yara found a variety of  ethnic looking jewellery, and with dagger, axe and "spear" she took on the role of empowered warrior queen, both fighting and looking dignified in royal splendour. They will make some lovely paintings with imaginative backgrounds and atmosphere.

Another photo set may be of interest to viewers of this blog, which will be the 18th century Hussarette “wet T shirt” painting. Hussarettes playfully washing in a fountain or village pond is a theme that was suggested to me at the outset of the project and I have collected some good material from the Duchess and my original model “M”, but I have to say, nothing quite like that produced by Yara. We used some images from Peter Scheck’s fabulous model les baigneuses of the 18th century as inspiration and here is just one interesting pose of the many I have.  All it needs now is a sponsor to see a big painting take shape using loads of material and probably a variety of regiments’ disrobed uniforms!

OK. Now the sales pitch! A model of this quality does not come cheap, and she, quite reasonably will have  a royalty on any painting sales. So I’m very keen to be able to use some of the marvellous material at my disposal for painting - anything considered from £50 upwards. And you can engage with me by private email (Chris Gregg ), to discuss what sort of thing you might like. 

And please show your appreciation for Yaroslavna by commenting on this blog. I’m sure she will be delighted to know that she has not lost her considerable charms since her previous work experience.

FINALLY - A FRIENDLY REQUEST. I've noticed that copies of some of my other Hussarette paintings have been posted elsewhere on the internet. That is fIattering and I love sharing this aspect of how my work and hobby combine. But it does cost me a lot of time and a fair bit of money, as well as original artistic imagination and effort, and 40 years of practice as an artist, so please have the common courtesy of asking me first, and ALWAYs give me credit by name and preferably a link back to the blog or my website. Better still, as some of my clients will attest, commissioning a painting from me, whether fantasy or military, male or female, can involve you in a lot of insight into my working practice and the opportunity of selection of further images.

"The Slaver Dhow" - "Unfurling" another naval painting

Part two of this expose of my latest two battle paintings continues on from the posting about  "The Railway Raid".  This one is based on my original ink drawing for Chapter V of the "Tales of the Golden Head" in The Classic Wargamers Journal in 2011. Here is a reminder of that.

The brief from Ian was for an oil matching the "Railway Raid" in size and orientation and again opening out the scope of the scene to give more of the character of his original wargame. Some readers may recall that the hero Wagstaff party was trying to get the Golden Head out of Umpopoland and had got a lift on a small steam boat, "Africa Queen", which had brought them to the estuary mouth to meet up with Arab trader, Sallah, and his impressive dhow which was to ferry them up the coast. As they got on board Sallah's ship they were attacked by canoe-borne natives, shortly followed by the ruthless Zanzibari slaver gang led by Sidi.  I was instructed to take a seagull's eye view of Sidi's dhow and crew, to show the fight on Sallah's dhow in detail, and to give an impression of the vast African hinterland beyond.  This is what I came up wth.

I had to do a serious amount of research for this, even though it is fictitious, in order to give the dhows some plausibility as sailing vessels and to tackle the odd perspective to show lots of activity on both ships. The "pirates" dhow is pretty basic with no below-deck accommodation and just a cargo hold. Part of the unwritten plot is that Sidi wants to capture Sallah's dhow which is large and has some of the luxuries of successful trading such as a deep cargo hold and a "quarter deck" over the captain's and guest cabins. A wooden framework surrounds this deck with canvas curtaining folded back which can be draped over to give shade. All the block and tackle rigging is taken from diagrams and photos off the internet, and much peering down into small sailing ships by me at the fabulous "Tall Ships Festival", practically on my doorstep at Gloucester Docks last Summer. Gloucester Tall Ships Festival 2013

Here are some more detailed views, click to enlarge

Sidi waves his sword to encourage his motley crew to form a firing line to deliver an undiscriminating volley on Sallah's crew, the natives and our heroes alike.

The natives have attacked from two sides. At the bow the crewmen have been quickly disposed of and spear bearing warriors are heading for our heroes. Over the starboard side near the stern another canoe disgorges its load but they are met with some opposition and a ruder greeting awaits across the deck .

Here is a close up of the central section where I grouped all the named characters together

At top left Sallah stands ready with his sword and pistol and Doc Sauvage is at his side with his double pistol rig. Constance mounts the steps to assist them. Lucy Wagstaff stands guard over the Golden Head, still in its travelling box. Lady Penelope Wagstaff is about to fire in defence of her husband, the Professor, who has knelt behind some crates and just felled one attacking native.  These figures in actual size are just about the same as one of your 28-30mm model miniatures.

In the last posting I explained that I modeled all the prominent figures in both paintings. For this one it was Zanzibari type "Arabs" all rendered with a fairly cliched, rather than purely realistic, character. But I wanted to be sure they looked real  and the Duchess photographed me in all sorts of poses and costumes from different heights up our staircase in order to render the varied perspective across the boat deck as the "seagull" looks down and then across.

Here is the nearest point to the viewer showing the tatty paint-peeling stern. A nervous boatman is being lowered and hangs on with trepidation just before the rowing boat hits the water. My idea of the sailors on the ropes (as opposed to hired armed slavers) has given many of them a kind of standard costume including a white headcloth and black waistcoat.

Further up the deck the slavers are already engaging the trader's dhow with rifle fire. Ian envisaged a force equipped with old fashioned weaponry and asked me to include a swivel gun. I was happy to oblige and recalled my photos from my visit to 18th Century Fort Ligonier in Pennsylvania.  

Bearing in mind these stories are set in 1920s Africa I was quietly sceptical of  how the White heroes frequently outgunned their native and Arab foes which had usually been limited in Ian's games to low powered 19th century guns. The Colonial wargamers among you might take some consolation from my "revelation" moment last month when on holiday in Morocco - the Marrakech Museum has this antiquated flintlock piece labelled "first half of 20th Century" !

Just an example of the amusement I get from play acting the parts - the artist as model.

And for the landscape fans here is a close up of part of the background

At the risk of being tiresome........for the wargamer who has almost everything.....why not commission an oil painting of one of your games rendered as featuring "real" people? Become insufferable by using it on the wall of your games room to recall a famous victory to your opponents, or show off a favourite regiment performing some great feat, or a panorama of some terrain you are specially fond of?  As you see, nothing is too much trouble, so just get in touch to discuss your ideas email me at Chris Gregg.

Now a related bit on pin-ups

Thank you for getting this far -  those not interested in the pin-up genre can navigate elsewhere now.

If you are not familiar with the "tale" featured here you might wonder at the worried look on the face of the poor man being lowered in the rowing boat. Well, as Sidi's dhow approached Sallah's it slowed down, the slavers delivered an effective volley and half those on the opposing deck went down wounded or dead. The slavers' lowered boat was filled with eager pirates who set off to take their prize, easily as they thought. At that point the unwounded Constance grabbed a tommy gun (anachronistic weapons abound in these tales) and sent the boatload of slavers to the bottom!  My rendition of this scene in CWJ got dubbed by editor Phil as a "CWJ pin-up".  

So with my imagination and Ian's put together that started me on the rocky road to doing pin-up paintings in all sorts of styles since. Constance was then featured in a Golden Head oil painting "Constance! What are you doing?" Here is a detail (pose modelled by the Duchess herself!)

Constance's companion, Lucy, was originally featured  in the very first Golden Head illustration in CWJ Issue 2 and that later inspired another perspective as she rashly followed Lieutenant Daring RN onto a different slaver dhow in Episode VIII.  Kindly modelled by one of my Hussarettes,"M". This is its first public airing and it is part of a series of about a dozen more "Tales of the Golden Head" drawings commissioned by Ian and completed by me in 2012.

Oil Painting - The Railway Raid

It seems like an age ago, when the sun was warm and I was sweating mowing the lawn (apologies to North American readers with your current minuses off the scale!) but I posted a little piece about my newly acquired sun helmet. That was because it was to be a costume prop to help me with two paintings I mentioned that day.

I'm long overdue telling the internet community about them as young Ian took delivery of them in  late November and was very appreciative. They are now on my regular  military art website which I've just had updated (and for those who like such things click through from that to the main page for various exotic ladies). I'm only able to put small resolution images on there due to bandwidth but now here is the background, and better quality images.

Those of you who subscribed to Classic Wargamer's Journal will remember Ian Allen's games based on his Indiana Jones style "Tales of the Golden Head" set in the fictitious East African country of Umpopoland. During the story, in Episode VII, the hero party led by Professor Wagstaff was escorting the Golden Head on a train using the saloon coach provided by the Imperial Governor and with an escort of "Imperial Troops" in the guard's van. I was lucky enough to be asked to illustrate the "Tales" that were published as wargames in 2011 and this was my ink drawing of that incident.

Around 18 months later Ian decided he'd like two large oil paintings of Golden Head battle scenes and this episode was one of them.  My brief was to enlarge the scope of the original to include a feeling of place, based on how he described his game table set up, and to show more of the "bandits" which I'd imagined as mounted Zanzibari Arab types, plus telegraph poles along the railway line. So this was how I altered the original drawing in the computer to fit a 30 inch by 24 inch canvas and added more figures. It's only subtle but I've made a bit more space between the uncoupled  guard's van and the train in order to spill some of the soldiers out and make a much more interesting composition.
This is the sketch I based the painting on

And here is the final result in oil after about 40 or so hours work.

Here is a detail focusing on the Arab raiders in the left hand half.

The drivers are being held at gunpoint in the engine and the heroes are fighting back from the first carriage. In the nearest carriage an armed passenger attempts to take a pot shot at the bandit on the roof, and at the back the guard's van has just been uncoupled and slows down.

This one is a detail of that part.

The sharp eyed might notice a monogram on the van I designed specially at Ian's request. No it's not VR , but UR for Umpopoland Railways.

I mentioned that I had dressed up and posed for many reference photos for the two paintings, with the Duchess of Porchester kindly acting as photographer. Just for fun here is the final cut of me in some of the roles (including the body). Once I had sorted out size and perspective on the canvas I underpainted the carrages and scenery, photographed it and then cut and pasted and resized each figure in the computer according to position. I could then print out sections as required to draw them in and paint on the canvas. As you can imagine it's quite an involved process with so many figures.

My Napoleonic carbine was a reasonable substitute for what became Lee-Enfields and a Martini-Henry rifle in the painting. Borrowing some of the Duchess' clothing was necessary for Arab robes and we had a lot of laughs!  There will be more of this in the next posting which will feature "The Slaver Dhow Attacks".

Comments welcome, but remember it's fiction! 

In the interests of Colonial authenticity............

I've been commissioned by the notorious author of the "Tales of the Golden Head" adventures to paint a couple of big battle scenes in oil based on some of the drawings that appeared in the Classic Wargamers Journal in 2011. (Sadly there is no longer a link to Phil's CWJ page... best consign it to history I suppose). One of the paintings calls for a number of 1920s British colonial soldiers in East Africa to be posed at unusual angles. From my previous attempts I knew what a devil it is to get the elongated elipses of those sun helmets right so I bought a reproduction of an "India pattern" sun helmet for my photo shoot.

Looking suitably tropical against the Duchess' potted fruit trees!

It was a warm day today and the lawns needed mowing so I thought I'd protect my thinning scalp and I'd give the pith helmet a try out.  It certainly protected me from the sun but eventually I felt something hit my nose and thought it was a fly until there were more hits and I realised I had a minor waterfall of sweat pouring down my face. Taking off the helmet to examine it I realised the head band is just leather and totally non-absorbant. This was completely different from my beloved 30 year old "Hang Ten" floppy hat bought in Melbourne market and which has been to five continents with me since then, and from my more recent soft baseball cap featured in many Facebook photos. They both do a good job with the sweat.

I had to be my own char wallah unfortunately but that young sparrow in the
background had me for his water carrier.

Here he is, enjoying the fruits of my labour

So the question I have for you colonial experts who've stuck with me is:

"How did our forbears, who had to wear these things in hot climates, stop the sweat getting in their eyes so they could shoot the dastardly fuzzy wuzzies?"

The reason I ask is not just so wargamers can model fetchingly coloured sweat bands, but so I will know what props to use to render my 1920s heroes of Umpopoland in a realistic way in the painting. Your views very welcome please.

Writing the above made me realise that many readers of this blog might have missed the delights of my illustrations for CWJ so I have put them as a download in my side bar under "Miscellaneous", or you can see them via this link. 

CWJ Drawings

Please respect the copyright, and a few of the originals are still for sale  - if anyone is interested just email me.