Some Russian Jaeger from the early Napoleonic Wars. I have painted this small squad for an emerging local gaming group. The figures are intended for use with small skirmish systems like Song of Drum & Shako or Smooth & Rifled. Most likely I will never paint a whole army since I do not have the nerves for painting the glamour and glitter of Napoleonic uniforms 
.
More Kiwiana next time. Promised!
It seems that my motivation to photograph went into a state of hibernation last autumn. Fortunately my motivation to paint did not! Yesterday I took the time to make photos of all the stuff I have painted since summer.
British
An Overview of the British and a few Buildings in the background.
Grenadiers of the 65th (2nd Yorkshire/North Riding).
The regiment arrived too late to play a role in the Northern War but was active in the Wellington and Whanganui campaigns in 1846-47. The 65th distinguished itself in the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns in the 1860s and finally left in 1865. No British regiment served longer in New Zealand. The Māori called them hikete piwhete (“sixty-five”) which turned into the regimental nick name “Hickety Pips”.
If you want to learn more about the Hickety Pips, you can visit Bruce Cairns’ web site http://hicketypip.tripod.com/a>
58th (Rutlandshire)
Nicknamed the “Black Cuffs” the 58th is the regiment most closely associated with the First New Zealand War. They fought in all three campaigns in the 1840s.
Light flank company
One of the main pictorial sources of the First New Zealand War are the paintings of Major Cyprian Bridges and Sergeant John Williams of the 58th. You can see some their paintings here http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jray/gordon/moir/war-pics.htm
Field officer of the 58th (maybe Maj. Bridges on the lookout for a new motif …)
96th Regiment of Foot
The 96th had no county affiliation or title at the time of the New Zealand Wars. The old title “Queen’s Own Germans” was not reinstated until 1874. The name refers to the swiss prisoners of war that formed its predecessor, the Minorca Regiment, in 1798. The Regiment was disbanded in 1818 and re-raised in 1824. At the time of the New Zealand War it was rather inexperienced and poorly equipped. The soldiers still used the old “Brown Bess” flintlock musket while the 58th and 65th already used the 1838 pattern percussion musket.
Auckland Volunteer Militia
When the Māori under Hone Heke and Te Ruki Kawiti attacked Kororareka on May 11th , 1845 and cut the British flagstaff down for the fourth time, the British abandoned the settlement and evacuated the citizens to Auckland. A lot of the displaced men joined the Auckland militia and even volunteered to serve outside the 25 mile zone required for militia. These volunteers often served in special roles such as pioneers or artillery crew. They received their equipment from the 58th regiment apart from the red shell jackets and a different type of caps.
Māori
Overview of the Māori. Following a discussion on the Maori Wars Yahoo Group I have recoloured the palisade with a a wash of greyish colour. 
A chieftainess amidst the warriors. The tattooed lips and chin – a moko kawae and the black feathers with white tips of the now extinct huia bird display her high social rank. 
Hone Heke, the famous chieftain of the Ngapuhi tribe, with his trademark: the peaked cap of a merchant navy captain. His cloak is brimmed with kiwi feathers. He is accompanied by warrior who is blowingconch-shell trumpet called putatara. He wears a red wooden hair comb in front of the hair knot.
A few more pictures of the warriors.
A warrior brandishing a whalebone club of the violin-shaped kotiate form. He is wearing a tartan blanket of acquired from european settlers.
I tried a checkerboard pattern on the piupiu kilt of this warrior as a variation from the common striped pattern. A piupiu is made of scraped down flax fibres that were partly dyed and plaited together.
While I have been painting the next bunch of miniatures (which I can hopefully post in next entry). I have tried myself in terrain building. I have build a test model of a section of a Māori pā. My primary source has been the book “Māori Fortifications” by Ian Knight (published by Osprey Publishing). My idea is to build a modular fortification than can be easily stored and transported. I do not plan a highly sophisticated pā like Ruapekapeka or Tauranga Ika with trenches and double palisades. My humble goal at the moment is just a main palisade.
Materials for the base: cork tiles, smoothing compound, sand.
Materials for the fence: round wooden sticks for the main posts, wooden or bamboo skewers, black thread
Tools: drill, small rasps, saw, pencil sharpener, needle, scissors
Congratulations! You are finished!
On this fine sumer day I have finally found some time and the weather to take some photos of the miniatures I recently finished: British regulars of the 58th Rutlandshire and the first Māori warriors.
Regulars of the 58th Rutlandshire
Another view of the battalion company of the 58th
Officer and sergeant
Skirmishers of the light company
Skirmish between British regulars and Maori warriors
Maori warriors skirmishing
Maori skirmishers
Giles Allison has written a number of excellent blog entries about the New Zealand Wars including pictures of his superbly painted figures.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
Welcome to my brand new blog. It is still pretty much work in progress. I have not yet decided on a theme but you have to start somewhere.
This blog is about my miniature gaming hobby. I am mainly interested in the historical genre. My current project (and the one that got me this blog) is the First New Zealand War (aka First Māori War). The centre piece of that project is the new range from Empress Miniatures which was sculpted by the incredibly talented Paul Hicks.
I sponsored the sculpting of that range. However, this does not mean that I am stinking rich. I have just figured out that it is more satisfying to invest into a project that I am 100% interested in, rather than investing into dozens of projects I am only 60-80% interested in. This approach also accommodates my mediocre painting speed as a nice side effect.
Enough words for today. Here is a picture showing the painting results of my first figures of that fantastic range:
