Milestones, memories and silliness

Today was a milestone of sorts; I finished painting the army of Dupanen which is the last of the Soldier King armies.

There were times in the last 30 years where I despaired of ever reaching this point. That is not to say the project is complete or the campaign ready to start. Increasing the size of armies and finally settling on a recruitment basis, has meant some armies still need more units, notably Estavia and the Electoral forces.

I also have the rebels/ militia to finish as well as card houses and other terrain. More significantly, I have no table on which to play. So still some work to do, but it feels once Dupanen are varnished, flagged, based and labelled, I will have reached a significant point. I also occasionally contemplate whether LI and LC should only count as half a unit and so mean increasing the finished armies by a unit or two here and there.....

Anyway, painting the army of Dupanen has brought back a few memories. Inventing uniforms for 12 armies means eventually you start to run out of ideas and colour combinations. It's only natural to look for inspiration in either historic or Imagi-Nation armies. When I started there was little such inspiration. Then of course the "old school" fad emerged, just as the internet flourished. Everyone had a blog for their imaginary duchy with uniforms of lime green and purple or similar, which now litter the blogosphere like forgotten civilisations, few producing even a single toy soldier.

There were exceptions - Henry Hyde whose article in MW or WI was a spur to my own project was publishing more of his own armies; sadly I always found them a bit too derivative and lacking imagination - a bit too Grant like and IMHO a bit too over- detailed for my taste - each to their own.

A some stage I discovered the Society of Daisy - deriving from a wargamer with an C18th army whose king was followed about by his pet cow, Daisy. Dedicated to fun and a counter point to "serious" wargames, one of the leading lights was Otto Schmidt.

Otto was a larger than life individual. His view on wargames was that they should include ladles of Marks Brother slapstick type humour. For all that, he was extremely well read and a devotee of the C18th. He had many armies which he would roll out at US conventions. His main and favourite army, was that of Princess Trixie - imagine if you will the young Maria Theresa reimagined as a Californian Valley Girl of the C20th, with an army including Operatic companies, circus elephants and conventional C18th troops dressed in pink.....

I confess, I found it all a bit OTT and dare I say silly.......

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D3ANufwUPFm8&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwix0sXhstiPAxWeQUEAHb2QDn8QFnoECAsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0hbN2GyeFleig4VjF0Qxyp

Sadly Otto died in 2019 long before I got far with my project. However, as I planned the armies, I hit something of a brick wall with Dupanen. Eventually, it was a coming together of various strands. I had bought a set of GW decals with various heraldic devices with the idea of using them for flags. The range was limited and Dupanen ended up with a unicorn. Being next to Hrvatska suggested the availability of red dye. The the idea of the Earl being sold some which wasn't colour fast......

Unicorns and washed out red uniforms........pink! Like Otto's girl toy army! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - a suitable tribute to Otto. Oddly, when looking back at the family trees diced up years ago, I noted the Earl had an adult daughter. Creating some Fimo female "Grotesques" I cast about for suitable characters, dicing up personalities for the main female players. One has become the Earl's daughter, a lady of some character!

In advance of the main parade, once the army is properly finished, I wanted to show a teaser of my drawings and the painted figures, but sadly Blogger won't let me upload from the tablet - it wants me to sign in even though I already am!