As part of a trade last year I got a bunch of Les Higgins figures. They consisted of both original and copied figures. The bases of original figures are very distinctive and include Les Higgins signature where as the copys had malformed bases
I was originally not going to use the figures however I decided I needed to get more units finished if I wanted to have enough painted figures for a game.
So I have undertaken a relatively quick painting refurb of the figures to form the 10th Legere. The first 18 figures are done with just a second coat of Humbrol green needed on the mdf bases.
The Officer is in the classic Les Higgins pose pointing to where he wants the unit to advance.
I used this picture and my trusty old Funken (in French) for the uniform.
The last 6 figures are underway with 4 original Les Higgins elites and a Hinton Hunt recast standard bearer and drummer to complete the unit.
The final pictures are close ups of an original Les Higgins figure. Beautiful detail but a little wooden when compared to Hinton Hunt or Alberken figures however are welcome in the ranks of my classic Napoleonic armies.
The underside of the base shows the distinctive manufacturers makings.
11 comments:
They're coming along very nicely! Oddly, that classic Les Higgins figure (for years I always thought these were French-produced) reminds me of older generation 15mm MiniFigs. But it has a certain charm that those lacked in my eyes. I've got hundreds of the latter unpainted and painted in a box somewhere that I need to do something with or about since I don't see myself ever leaving the world of 30mm at this point.
Best Regards,
Stokes
They are very attractive. Mark - and somewhat more three dimensional than Garrisons. I also love the way the officer has his own personal little molehill.
Yours, WM
They’re lovely little miniatures Mark...
I think that original Les Higgins figures are made out of pewter or at least have a fairly high tin content, so it should be fairly easy to tell the difference between them and pirates... the badly cast bases help...
Do you think that they were pirated back in the 70s ?
If so that would make them genuine original vintage 1970s pirated Les Higgins...... a niche collectible if ever I saw one...
All the best. Aly
Mark, they’re tremendous, and so is your project.
Love the officer - looks like he's expecting a boot black to give his boots a quick shine, or perhaps another coat of gloss varnish.
At the time these figures were produced they were probably some of the most detailed figure made and had very little flash.
In many ways they are better than many figures made on this scale today.
They are also well proportioned figures that look like human beings.
I also have a British Officer and he has a molehill as well.
In the early days making your own figures using someone elses original was fairly common.
Don Featherstone even had a section devoted to casting figures in his classic book War Games.
I have managed to stay focused for a while now on this project. Which is so unlike me.
You can never have too many coats of gloss varnish.
One wonders if the officers raced out front to find a suitable small tussock to plant a foot on! Just why LH could not have had a swird waving or marching officer is a puzzle.
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