Coming off the painting table quickly from the last couple of days. First off, an elite company of French CaC with the fringed epaulettes. Perry plastics.
The Netherlander 4th (Dutch) Light Dragoons of the Waterloo Campaign were a bit more interesting build.
Within the Perry British Light Dragoon box of plastics one can build either the earlier 1800-1812 types or the later 1812-15 uniform. The troopers horse is the same for both (the officer’s saddlecloth comes with the end either pointed or rounded for earlier or later era) Thus, you get an early and late uniform together with different headdress for the changes during the years.
I noticed a great similarity between the 4th Netherlander LD of 1815 and the early British uniform tunic both showing ‘hussar’ lacing so began with the earlier torsos adding spare French hussar campaign trousers from which I removed the large side buttons leaving a wonderful leg seam. Painting hides much of the scraping to a large degree. I used a brighter dark blue uniform color to add to the distinction from other British and French units and which I have seen in several illustrations.
The later British uniform added a sabretache and portrayed by the Perrys in addition, thus leaving the earlier era scabbard-only, which is perfect as the Dutch light dragoons did not use them.
The headdress is the 1809 Russian infantry shako with the nice long cords and on which I glued a plume removed from spare mirliton headdresses.
The big drawback from using the “second-set” of figures from the box is the lack of horses to mount them upon. Yes, Perry does offer horses separately but I had a group of Fireforge medieval horses available on which I added green-stuff as front blanket roll to make them a bit more Nap.
I made an error of not allowing for a rear saddle valise/portmanteau under the sword slings (the belts holding the scabbard) so I did not add. But I did make a few GS forage sacks for variety.
Why the medieval horses? Well I had picked up them up, along with half-built riders at a Bring&Buy. At the time I had little interest in another collection of medievals ( I bought them anyway…the hoarder within me, I guess…) but looking at pile of plastic for fantasy but nicely caparisoned horses ( again, hoarded away....) I decided that, while not fitting perfectly, the riders could be ‘glued’ on with GS forming the saddle.
Thus those medieval riders lost their plain mounts for covered versions and I gained 12 additional Napoleonic horse and, with the add-ons provided, created another two units for what is essentially free.
And their missing saddlecloths? Well, the story is: the colonel seeing them dirtied and water soddened from the heavy June rains, had the men remove these expensive items. My take anyway!